Year: 1872

! PRESENT PROsP ECTs OF THE DEMOC-
RACY.


/ Now comes Che third trial. Is the
party in any better position row Is
/ il in such a position that it can afford
! to take possession of the Government?
Here is the vast debt pressing upon
the people here is pension list equal
| to the whole expense of the Govern
ment at the same time when Gener-
al jackson assumed the Presidency.
| Simply to pay the pensions to the
widows and orphans, and to the SOL
dier or sailor who were manned or
otherwise crippled in the war, is equal
to the whole expense of the country
less than forty years ago. That is TO
be paid, and it is to be paid if that
party is in power, by taxes levied and
maintained on purpose to pay more
than one hundred million dollars per
annum on interest to the creditors
of the country, and thirty million
dollars more to the pensioners, who
are, in my judgment, the first credit
ors of the country. Now the Demo-
cratic party if 1t should come into
mower must assume these liabilities,
must pay the debt or repudiate 1t.
And Reputation is a very simple pro-
cess. You have only to take of taxes;
that is all. You need not resolve
that the debt is not to be paid you
have simply to take off this and the
other tax, and soon the payment OF
interest stops and so with the pen
sions. The Government must live.
and the salaries of its officers must be
paid; its armies must be paid, and Its
navy kept efficient and if you insist
on reducing and repeating taxes, the
debt must go by the board. Now
does any man see in the present attl-
tude of the Democratic party, or the
daily utterances of its speakers and
leaders, any disposition to impose or
maintain taxes in order TO uphold
the credit aud fulfill the obligations
of the nation ? do not see it. Mr..
Andrew johnson declared that when
he paid the interest on the debt
sixteen and a half years that this
would be the end of it that Is, when
the interest amounted to the principal
of the debt there would be no more
to nav. L appTehend that if you have
heard any Democratic speaker in this
canvass, and heard him patiently to
the end, though he may not in so





of the debt. vet you could easily dis
Germ that the drift of the discourse
pointed towards repudiation towards
the repeal and reduction OF the taxes
til its payment could no longer be
made. Ifthe Democratic party comes
INTO power it would, of course, stop
paying the principal OF the DEBT.
From the beginning of the DEBT that
party, and some others not OF that
party, am sorry to say, have been
howling upon what they call mistaken
policy of the Republican party in
paying so much OF the debt. why
don't they stop paying the debt they
ask. Why don't they reduce the
taxes so that we may simply pay the
interest on the debt? That Is the
everlasting clamOr. Now the Repub-
licans in the policy they have adopted
are simply maintaining the tradition
of the Government they are follow
ing in that shiny track that was made
for them by Washington and Hamil-
ton, and Jefferson, and all the fathers
of the great Republic. 1t Is no new
policy. Whenever we had Federal
Government we begin TO pay our
debts, snd began with a determine
ton that that process should be con-
tinued till the last dollar was wiped
out and but for our complications In
the great wars of France and England,
in the early years of this century,
every dollar of Indebtedness would
have been paid off within forty years
of the close of the war /; and as IL was,
though we were driven into another
war with Great Britain, and incurred
a fresh and a large debt, get before
| that war had been twenty years end
ed we had paid every dollar OF the


principal of the national debt. We
have established a policy contrary to
the European policy, the American
policy which says when you get out
of the war commence paying OIL the
debt that the war has made.


l have seen letters from Mr.. Glad
stone, the British Prime Minister, in
which he SAYS: "You Americans have
set US Europeans splendid example.
| We 90 to war and incur debt; we
return to peace and pay interest on
/ our debt YOU have shown us the true
path. l trust you will inspire us and
| impel US to follow your example in
paying off our debts on the return of
peace"


WHAT Is TO BE DONE WITH THE DEBT?


The Republican party pledged it.
self, Congress pledged itself during
the war, that, whatever debt we in
Cured, not less than one per cent. of
the principal should be paid every


wear till the debt was ended. We
Stand under solemn national obliga
ton to pay the debt, and keep on


having it till there is no more to pay.
The Democratic party, as body,


opposes the policy, and grumbles at


tile idea that we are paying off oBe


hundred millions per annum of the


national debt. I believe that in the


maintenance ce Of that policy is the only


safeguard against reputation. While


we were incurring the debt we heard
every croaker hostile to the Govern


ment saving, "You will never pay
that debt; you will never pay it.h 1


well remember feeble, timid men


coming to ME and saying, do you
think il is safe to invest in Govern
ment bonds ?i' mo sir" l said:


"nothing is safe in Government
bonds ?n "No, sir,' 1 said: nothing


is safe in times like these. But l cau
comfort YOU with this assurance that
if the Government goes, everything


goes, and 1 would not give cent for


your property, and if the rebels tri
! umph, your property will be- worth
but little" Many men / know who


held property, invested in the debt
! [ know some who sold property at


less than half its present value on
purpose to lend the money to the
Government, and they did not lend
il at the rate of fifty or sixty cents on


the dollar, but they loaned in gold
the full amount for which they took
bonds. / say, then, so long as we
continue to pay so long as you and


L feel that as we are going on we will
wipe out the debt. the debt need not
! drag us down. No child is going to


be hungry for our paying the nation


al debt. We have already paid $780,
600 600, yet we have gone on building
houses, furnaces, railroads; we have


swept out into the prairies spreading
over the continent, uniting 1t with
Hines of iron all the same as though
we did not owe any debt. We have
gone on paying the debt and at the


same time enlargIng and extending
ali the industries and all the aetivi-
ties of the nation. Suppose you stop


paving the debt, then you have the


prospect of this burden forever, for if


we stop paying we shall not be cheer


ed as we now are, that twenty years
more and the last dollar will be wiped