CHAPTER XIV.

THE CHARACTER OF THE LOAN WHICH CONSTITUTES THE DEBT.

THE superior virtues, claims and character of the public debt have been urged with wonderful pertinacity to demonstrate that the debt is not only solvent beyond contingency, but invested with mysterious charms and attractions which have enamored the slaves of their masters, and set the people begging for heavier tasks. It is urged that

This debt differs from all other debts in the fact that all other loans are held by a very few persons, whilst this particular debt is owned by everybody.

This is not true, and if it were, would be of no importance whatever, in the force with which the debt must drive us to bankruptcy and repudiation.

It is not true that these bonds are even generally owned by the common people of the country. They are precisely like other bonds in every other country in the world; they belong to the rich, who, having no use for their money, loan it in the best market. The very small bonds which were intended to popularize this loan, were scattered broadcast among the people of moderate circumstances in life. But the great laws of gravitation were brought to bear upon them. It were impossible that the scattered drops, puddles, and pools of water escape the laws of absorption, and not find their way back to the sea or the skies; but not less absurd to suppose that the poor, the moderate, or even the middle classes of society will control or hold in any permanent form, the funded stocks of any country. In the United States the first year was a failure in this attempt. Thousands of well meaning, deluded people thought to assist the government by buying up its securities, as the old lady gave her feeble breath to aid the hurricane.

But the immediate wants of their families soon drove the poor people with their small bonds into market as an inconvenient currency, and many of these humble speculators lost the interest with from three to ten per cent. of their loyal investments, and were but poorly repaid for their enterprise, with the ardor of their patriotism greatly damped and damaged.

The gradual contraction of the bank note circulation will soon throw all of these bonds into the market, except those held by the capitalist. This will press down their value to a heavier discount, and each poor bondholder who has lost in the sale of his bond, will then sympathize with the taxpayer, who must meet the accruing interest. The abundance of the small bonds as a part of the currency, will increase as the currency contracts its volume. Then the bonds will find their way into the vault of the millionaire; will be bought and sold in Europe. America, drained of her specie, will be unable to even approximate to the redemption of her national bank notes. This brings the direct conflict of the nations, and revives the old strife between the institutions of the old and new world-between ennobled capital and republican labor. American republicans will very unwillingly support European monopolies, who took advantage of their internal dissensions and pressing necessities to buy up their obligations at ruinous rates of discount. To get rid of this perpetual slavery, any subterfuge will be sought. It were better to do anything which would bring relief. Repudiation will be declared the only hope. Repudiation will be announced as the just and legitimate remedy; will appear in platforms, conventions, be inscribed on flags and patriotic mottoes.

It has been the source of unlimited assurance among bondholders, that there could be no failure in the ultimate payment, of the bonds, because the government was so pledged as to make the failure impossible. This has been anticipated, but there has been no greater fallacy urged or relied upon as an unfailing source of solvency of the bonds, "that so many men own and are interested in them, therefore they will be paid."

In looking over the notes and list of debtors, the thoughtful creditors are much more concerned about the number, condition, liability and responsibility of their debtors than of their co

creditors. Now, who are these debtors? They are the people of the country who own none of these bonds; the tax-payers who pay the stamps, tariffs and taxes levied for the support of the bondholder, the men who dig the canals, build the railroads, level the forests, enclose the prairies; the murmuring music of whose steady-going mills coin the wealth of America. These tax-payers are the voters of the country; when they awake from their slumber in defence of their rights, in performance of the duties they owe to themselves, their families, their country, and God, will rush in one vast moving cloud to the polls, and paint repudiation on their banners. Honest, able leaders will cheerfully carry their cause before the country. The very same mercenary hirelings who now pollute the halls of Congress and bear in their pockets triple bribes from the bankers, for bank legislation, from the manufacturers for votes to impose tariffs, and from contractors for appropriations when they see the temper of the people, will hasten to render them their services to repudiate this very debt.

When the legal tender is absorbed in the purchase of bonds and burned up by the Treasury Department, or which is just as probable in the corrupt vascillations of the parvenues who have been added to the Supreme Bench, under a change of circumstances, should, by the merest accident, do right-and declare that treasury notes are not a legal tender under the Constitution. Then pray what have the people left them to pay their debts, transact their business, meet their accruing taxes, and carry on the extravagance of governing the country by a military despotism.

For any of these purposes, there will be left no gold and silver to bear any adequate relation to the business of the country.

A speedy return to specie payment will be repudiation in another form; will snuff national banks entirely out as a taper light is quenched in an autumnal storm; the very day upon which the legal tender is placed upon its constitutional basis, the bank note currency will sink, from New York to San Francisco, full one hundred per cent.

The time employed to go through the farce of redemption, would not occupy thirty minutes to each bank.

Then will a free press, not suborned, dare speak boldly out, and join the general denunciation by honest men, of the whole mammoth, murderous swindle. Demagogues, catching the general current in its charge, will also change. The corruption of the tyrants, who have trifled with the public liberty and appropriated the public property to themselves, will be exposed and denounced with the more readiness by their confreres, who will dread the public wrath none the less, because they have participated in the general crime.

But when the true character of our debt is fully fathomed, bankruptcy will overwhelm us, and repudiation is the end of national banking,- and repudiation is inevitable.

The national bank currency cannot be secured against insolvency by any kind of bonds, much less by the bonds now issued by the government, for the depreciation of the bonds carries the currency down with it. The history yet fresh, of free banking in every State in the Union, where it has been adopted, fully explodes the folly, that a fluctuating system of reckless and irresponsible State indebtedness affords any reliable guaranty for the redemption of bank paper issued upon its credit.

The property of the country, although the very best possible security, is not a good guaranty for its redemption. If the estates of the country were put into the market of the world, they would not command the amount in cash, unless the bondholders and other creditors of the government, would accept the property and relinquish the debt, which they would not be insane enough to do, and agree to bear the burdens of a government so administered as to create and perpetuate such a debt. But when the naked question comes to the direct issue of the delivery up of the property of the country, then the alternative is easy, natural, ready, popular. Repudiation is the refuge of a ruined people from perpetual slavery, sought with eagerness and accepted with joy.

There are two overpowering causes operating to make bonds worthless, at the very time when they approximate to the largest fractional part of the available wealth of a country. These causes are wonderfully operative in a government like

ours.

The people have been educated to freedom of opinion, of speech, and of action; but in nothing have they been hitherto so free as from Federal taxation; scarcely one of the present generation ever saw a Federal tax-gatherer. They were even incredulous as to the existence of the abhorrent hordes of vampires that suck the blood of labor in every despotism of Europe. Every religious anniversary of the country was enlivened by graphic pictures, drawn of European suffering, produced by the hands of the excisemen and tithe-collectors.

Our fourth of July was a holiday set apart for the purpose of denouncing, with righteous vehemence, the costliness of arbitrary governments, the extravagance of rulers, the profligacy of the rich and the consequent suffering of the poor. Now, when in this country, the road-sides are strewed and the highways beset with tax-gatherers, men are unwilling to believe their own eyes. The audacity of these leeches and the innumerable army of them, at first overwhelmed the people;-nay more, they were confounded. The tax-payer has at length, after great forbearance, commenced murmuring, and one universal storm hangs lowering over the country; its clouds cover the sun, its vapors fill the air.

When thoroughly aroused, as time and distress must arouse those still retaining their self-respect; and when they speak, freely as men must speak, who are not deprived of their powers of speech, they will grow restive, form combinations and raise en masse, and put an end to the general curse entailed upon them. Such has been the steady course of justice in every age of the world. The time may be slow and seem long to the impatient, but it will certainly come as the immutable justice of God. The terror of the storm will so gather strength in the delay, that when let loose, will sweep down every obstacle in its angry pathway, to complete repudiation. With how much less of good feeling will the toiling multitudes, with the sweat dripping from their brows, covenant to transmit this accumulating curse to their latest generation.

No such debt ever has been paid. It is but simple justice to candor to assume that no one believes that this debt ever will be paid. It ought not to be paid unless it is the settled policy