Year: 1874

1s Iouows:-''That the public debt SHOULD De
paid in exact accordance with the contracts
whereby it was created; that anything less
would be repudiation and that anything more
would be an unjustifable abuse of power by
Congress in the interest of the bondholder
and to the detriment of every other class; that
the 6ve-twenty bonds authorized by the act Of
February. 1862, and succeeding acts, are dis
tinctly by their terms made payable in legal
tender notes or greenbacks and that the act
of March 18. 1862 whereby Congress solemnly
pledged the faith of the United States to
coin redemption was an unjustifable usurpa-
ton of power" And the declaration of the
Ohio democrats, in substance the same, is as
follows: THAT the democracy of Ohio re-
iterate their declaration that the fve-twenty
bonds, by the letter and spirit Of the law and
the general understanding of the community,
were payable in legal tender notes, and the act
OF March, 1859, which pledged the faith of the
nation to their payment in coin. was an un-
necessary and wicked sacrifice of the interests
Of the taxpaying laborers for the benefit of the
non-taxpaying bondholders.


Now the democratic leaders in those States,
though they may be credited with q fair
amount of Bourbonism and ih characteristic
tenacity for old notions. are yet clamorous
politicians ravenous for the spoils so that in
their platform utterances they balance them
selves between the assertion of party princi-
pies and the assertion Of what they deem
likely to find favor with the people.


rtv,Io MT rtav, ind of
democrats that the fve-twenties should be
paid in deprecated paper, and thus that the
national debt should be repudiated to the ex-
tent Of the depreciation. This was a psrverse
democratic application of legal theory that
has found favor in the Supreme Court 1t was
notion well calculated to be thorn in the
side of the government and the dominant
party, and that was the cause of its appear
ance. It originated in hostility. It came
from politicians whose views of tho war and
OF the acts of the government in the prosecu-
ton OF the war, and the obligations of the
debts incurred as war necessities, were not the
views Of fair political opponents. who agreed
on the general principle of defending the ma
ton and differed only as to the means
but were, on the contrary, the views
of the enemies against whom the war was car
ried on. If there were such science as po-
itical astronomy, and its professors pretended
to determine from men 8 views OF public topics
just where the men stood when the views
were taken. they would inevitably find that
the standpoint from which the five-twenties
presented this aspect was the city of Rich
mond as the capital of the Southern Con-
Aderacy.


With the war over there were men in the
republican party who showed their political
dishonesty, their unprincipled readiness to
take up any popular cry, their mistaken judg-
ment of the people or their iu-concealed
affiliations with the other side in their treat
ment of this subject. Old Stevens. who ap-
piled thorough '.nigger- driving tactics in
bondholders." President johnson and Cen
eral Butler both touched this forbidden fruit,
and while one was driven out of the party
paradise the other INDUCED in characteris-
tic defiance of authority.


Thst reputation should find in the repub-





have named was good evidence that that
party up to the time when this agitation oc-
Cured was really the exponent OF the national
will; and it was another milestone around the
neck of the democratic party that it was
esteemed willing to avail itself of the posi-
bilties of difficult position to wound the
nation in 80 sensitive point as obligations
that involved its honor and its faith with its
creditors. 1t was then evident to the people
that the democratic party which was their
natural organ in one great phase Of our
political existence, was still contaminated
with the treason that led to the war, and
was SO far from accord with popular
impulses that it was unable to distinguish
between the party that governed the country
and the country itself There was no room
in the field Of political differences for a
party which could not strike at its
opponents without striking the nation
and, by the common law of par
ties the world over, there can be no grace
and no possible career within the sphere of
party activities for an organization that comes
with the purposes and principles of the ma
tonal enemy. All this was soon felt by the
wiser men q the democracy and they re-
pressed and silenced for q time the only
thought of their party that secured any con-
siderable share of popular attention.


And now it comes up again; and why? Ia
it a mere characteristic of Bourbonism? Is it
because they cannot forget? Is it because the
democratic brain is out of the current of in
tellectual activity that supplies new ideas and
carries away old delusions for every other
brain? Has it hardened into the narrow
forms Of political insanity that compels the
party to humble forever its pitiful formula
about five-twenties, as a poor wretch in an
asylum bereft of his wits drivels on forever