He says to you, 'That is all I want you to do;' and you say that you are desirous that they shall quit it. You have but to say it and they will quit it. It is because you have never said it that they have not quit it. It is in the power of the Democratic party to-day but to speak in tones of majesty, of honor, and justice in favor of human life, and your Ku-Klux and murderers will stop. But you do not do it; and that is the reason they do not stop. In States where it has been done they have stopped. But it will not do to oppress those people; it will not do to make them submit and subject them to the law; it will not do to stop these gentlemen in their daily sports and in their lively recreations. They are White Leagues; they are banded together as gentlemen; they are of Southern blood; they are of old Southern stock; they are the chivalry of days gone by; they are knights of the bloody shield; and the shield must not be taken from them. be taken from them; this country will be aroused to its will be aroused to do justice to its citizens; and when it of crime may fear and tremble. Tyranny and oppression! A people who without one word of opposition allows men who have been the enemies of a government to come into these legislative halls and make laws for that government to be told that they are oppressors is a monstrosity in declamation and assertion. Who ever heard of such a thing before? Who ever believed that such men could make such charges? Yet we are tyrants!

Sirs, their shield will danger; this country does, the perpetrators

"The reading of the title of that bill from the House only reminds me of more acts of tyranny and oppression of the Republican party, and there is a continuation of the same great offenses constantly going on in this Chamber. But some may say 'It is strange to see Logan defending the President of the United States.' It is not strange to me. I can disagree with the President when I think he is wrong; and I do not blame him for disagreeing with me; but when these attacks are made, coming from where they do, I am ready to stand from the rising sun in the morning to the setting sun in the evening to defend every act of his in connection with this matter before us.

"I may have disagreed with President Grant in many things; but I was calling attention to the men who have been accusing him here, on this floor, on the stump, and in the other House; the kind of men who do it, the manner of its doing, the sharpness of the shafts that are sent at him, the poisonous barbs that they bear with them, and from these men who, at his hands, have received more clemency than any men ever received at the hands of any President or

any man who governed a country. Why, sir, I will appeal to the soldiers of the rebel army to testify in behalf of what I say in defense of President Grant— the honorable men who fought against the country, if there was honor in doing it. What will be their testimony? It will be that he captured your armed Democracy of the South, he treated them kindly, turned them loose, with their horses, with their wagons, with their provisions; treated them as men, and not as pirates. Grant built no prison-pens for the Southern soldiers; Grant provided no starvation for Southern men; Grant provived no 'dead lines' upon which to shoot Southern soldiers if they crossed them; Grant provided no outGenerous rageous punishment against these people that now call him a tyrant. to a fault in all his actions toward the men who were fighting his country and destroying the Constitution, that man to-day is denounced as a very Cæsar!

XI.

The Country's Finances-Financial Burden at the close of the War-Different Views of the proper Management of the Public Debt-Debts of England, France and other Countries-"A National Debt a National Blessing ”—Popular Desire for prompt Payment of the Debt-Methods of raising Money by "War Taxes "-Stamps on Checks, Proprietary Articles and Merchandise -Secretary McCulloch's Plans for Paying the Debt-First Action of Congress for Funding the Debt-Tax upon State Bank Circulation and its Advantages-Trick of a Western Lawyer-Reduction of Internal Revenue Purchase of Alaska-Democratic Convention of 1868-The Platform and Candidates-Resumption of Specie Payments-Present Financial Situation.

T

HE close of the war found the country resting under an enormous financial burden. The question of the reconstruction of the States lately in rebellion was to many people no less difficult a problem than the question of the finances. The history of other nations showed that they had made great expenditures for war purposes at different times, and had generally left these debts to be paid by posterity. For example, the great national debt of England, incurred in her numerous wars in the last two centuries, is so large that there is no probability that it will ever be paid, and there has not in many years. been any thought on the part of Englishmen that it would be paid. It remains a convenient form for the investment of funds; the interest is always promptly paid, and it has been and is seriously argued that a national debt is an element of strength. The phrase "A national debt is a national blessing" is one that is pretty well known throughout the United States. In the same way, France has an enormous public debt, and through all the changes that have come over that country, through all the transformations from republic to monarchy, and from monarchy to republic again, there has never been any thought on the part of any honest Frenchman of repudiating the national debt. It remains a most convenient form for the investment of private funds, in the same way that the debt of England is a convenient means for the subjects of the United Kingdom.

As we had no national debt of any consequence at the beginning of the war, the question speedily arose as to how the debt incurred by the war should be met; the general feeling of the American people being that it must be paid off. The intention took shape at the very outset of providing not only

for the interest of the debt, but to begin its payment immediately and to arrange that it should be paid off as rapidly as possible. One of the perplexities connected with this question arose from the condition of the States lately in Rebellion. It was admitted on all sides that in order to pay the debt there must be a system of taxation that would bring a revenue far be

yond the needs of the government for its daily and yearly expenses. Now, should the Southern States be required, in the condition of poverty in which they found themselves at the close of the war, to pay their share of the debt, which had been incurred in bringing them into submission? Some financiers argued that the burden should be heavier upon the South than upon the North, for the reason that the debt had been created through the action of the Southern States. Then another question arose: Should Congress levy the taxes in such way as to pay the debt in a few years, or allow it to run over a period of many years? A further question arose as to whether the debt should be paid in coin, where not expressly stipulated, or be paid in the currency of the day. It will be remembered that after the close of the war the paper currency of the country was at a large discount, and the bonds had in many instances been sold for less than their face value. In this depreciated currency, some people-those who had no bonds in their possession-believed that the debt should be paid in greenbacks; all those who held bonds believed that they should be paid in coin, and this view was supported by a very large number of people who were not themselves holders of any part of the national debt, but believed that the honor of the nation was pledged to the honest payment of the debt in coin.

Various measures had been adopted during the war for raising a revenue for the government; some of them bearing very lightly upon the people, while others had a certain odious character about them and were not favorably received. Of the former class may be mentioned the Stamp Tax, by which stamps were placed upon all checks, drafts, notes or certificates of indebtedness in any form, upon all legal documents, upon packages of merchandise of various kinds, the stamp in nearly every instance being of so slight a value that the burden was not felt. The very best of these was probably the stamp upon bank checks, which nobody felt, which no one complained of; but the daily transactions in the passage of checks from one to another proved to be of enormous aggregate value. A less popular form of taxation was the Personal Income Tax, which required every citizen to state his income, and if it exceeded a certain figure annually he was required to pay a tax upon its excess. This law led to a great deal of dishonesty, and probably caused more acts of perjury than any single law of the United States that was ever enacted. Some amusing features of this law were narrated at the time, and may be of interest here. A story is told of a young man in a Western city who was paying attention to the daughter of a wealthy