Year: 1878

ciates the magnitude of Southern war
claims, and the danger of bankruptcy of
the Government through their admission,
no adequate effort to resist these claims
will ever be made. The impossibility Of
successful resistance to such claims in
detail is shown with great clearness in
the Washington letters this day publish
ed. For the number of separate claims
is so enormous, and they are of SO many
classes and varieties, involving SO many
questions of principle or of fact, that re-
sistance to each claim separately will
surely end in the success of a vast num-
Der of them. Some will get covered by
some form of indirect legislation, such as
tie bill offered by Mr.. Christiancy. 9th
ers will slip through as direct appropria-
tions during the hurried closing days OF
a session. For others, of different class
es, precedents will be one by one estab-
lished 1t will be found before long that,
step by step. SO many of these claims have
been paid that Congress can hardly think
1t just to refuse to pay the rest. ,Opposi-
ton piecemeal only tends to divide those
who ought to resist sternly every demand
of this nature but the claimants, the
claim agents, the speculating rings, the
passionate leaders of that Solid South
which wants "to get even" pecuniarily
these men act together in solid and
compact body. They can be efectually
defeated only by body equally compact,
and united in purpose-only by the Re
publican party and its success in the cleo
ton of members of Congress.


1t is not strange that the danger is not
generally appreciated. The letters from
Washing gton show how very hard it is to
get at the whole of this business, even for
men who are on the spot, and best in
formed upon the subject and specially
qualified for its investigation. For more
than a year they have been giving it con-
stant attention, and yet it appears that
many new classes of claims, or new forms
of demand against the Treasury, have
recently been detected and included in
estimates. 1t appears, also, that the
number of claims of every class tends
steadily to increase. If any are volunta-
rily abandoned by the original claimants,
they are still carried forward by some
agent or speculator. Of Democratic
claims, as of Democratic officials, none
die and few resign. Each new claim or
job, moreover, has somebody strongly in
terested in it, so that the number of
voters who have direct personal desire
for the success of the Solid South and its
claims continually increases. We do not
here discuss whether any Of these claims
have merit 1t is enough to say that
they greatly exceed in amount the posi-
bility of payment without National bank
ruptcy, and yet they are continually
growing in volume.


The pretence recently made by Mr.
VOORHEES, and others, that all danger
from Southern claims was really removed
by the 4th Section of Article XIV, which
was adopted July %, 1868, is a subter-
fuge unworthy of any public man The
section declares that neither the United
States nor any State shall assume or pay
any debt or obligation incurred in aid Of
insurrection or rebellion against the United
States, or any claim for the loss or eman-
cipation of any slave" The first clause
prohibits payment of the Confederate
bonds, and of some classes of bonds is
sued by the States in rebellion, but it
does not in any way touch the power to
pay for property taken or destroyed By
the United States, or any person acting in
its name, nor to restore property de-
stroyed in the progress of war by the
joint action of both forces. nor to refund
the cotton tax, nor to pay for property
seized, captured or abandoned after the
war, nor for supplies and rents of build
| ings. Examination of the long list, else
where given, of claims now pending al
Washington, shows that not single class
or variety is affected by the section cited
| unless it be by the prohibition of pay
ment for slaves emancipated.


But whatever scope or Interpretation
may be given to the amendment will


matter little if Democrats gain full con
troll. 1t is notorious fact that the Solio
South has steadily insisted that ratifica


ton of this amendment was gained by
duress and fraud. that it never was duly
adopted, and is entirely void. 1t il


amazing impudence in Mr.. Voorhees,, in


asmuch as he has been one of the mos


violent and extreme men in this opinion


to set up at this late day, as safe barrie


to Democratic legislation, an amendmen


which, at the head of SO many Demo


Gratis, he has so often denounced as void


In fact, there is one chance against tn,


threatening avalanche of Southern job


and claims. That is to take care that tn


Republican party has ample power. Tn


elections this fall would appear to tn


people immeasurably more important


they could realize the temper and tn


demands of the Solid South. or the sui


serYiency of the Northern Democracy.