Credit of the Government: Speech of Hon. D. W. Voorhees, of Indiana, in the Senate of the United States, January 15, 1878 (Classic Reprint) (Harlequin Super Romance) - Tapa blanda

Excerpt from Credit of the Government: Speech of Hon. D. W. Voorhees, of Indiana, in the Senate of the United States, January 15, 1878

And in pursuance of a notice then given I now call it up for the purpose of discussing the subject to which it relates.

The agitation of the question of finance has continued without a moment's intermission from the commencement of our present sys tem until this hour. Nor is it likely to cease for many years to come. In fact it will never cease until the people are satisfied that our vast debt is in process of extinction upon principles of justice to tax-paying labor, or until on the other hand, they are subjugated into silent submission and the Government itself becomes changed in spirit and form into a moneyed aristocracy. It may be that this latter alternative is to overtake us. There are dark and plentiful omens in our recent history indicating such a conclusion, and there is a numerous and powerful class in our'midst who believe, as Alex ander Hamilton declared, that the British government, on this as well as on other points, is the best ever devised by the wisdom of man. Those entertaining this Opinion have thus far triumphed in the financial legislation of the United States and the time has now arrived when their victories must be reversed or soon this Govern ment will cease to be republican and the people no longer be free.

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Excerpt from Credit of the Government: Speech of Hon. D. W. Voorhees, of Indiana, in the Senate of the United States, January 15, 1878

Denunciation is now their principal weapon. There is no epithet however base, no insinuation however infamous that is not of daily use against all who dare to differ in opinion with them. A curious spectacle is presented on this subject by a large portion of the eastern press, here and there aided by a newspaper in the West. Their columns reek from day to day with clamorous abuse of all who venture to believe as I do that, to a great extent, our whole financial system is an organized crime against the laboring, tax-paying men and women of the United States. Those who think as I do that a great work of financial reform is demanded in order to secure the people from slavery in fact, if not in name, are denounced in the same spirit, and in the exact language with which every old criminal abuse in government, throughout all history, has sought to paralyze the work of reformation and beat back the tide of human progress. Wherever in the annals of the human race unholy avarice has built its strongholds and privileged classes have intrenched themselves; wherever superstition has held the human mind in bondage for the benefit of spiritual tyrants; wherever man in any way has had unlawful mastery over his fellowman and gathered in what belonged to another, there the same cry which we now hear has always been raised against any intrusion or disturbance of established and venerable iniquity. Nor does the parallel stop here. The great plea of the present hour for the continuation of wrong and injustice is that good faith requires it. Those who, finding a monstrous evil imbedded in the laws of their country, wish to eradicate it by peaceful legislation are at once and with the utmost fury assaulted as violators of the public faith, enemies of the national honor, and worse if possible than common swindlers. It matters not how deep and burning the outrage may be or how fraudulently it may have crept into our statutes, good faith, in the estimation of those who profit by the outrage, requires it to remain there forever, though it should aid day by day the ghastly work of ruin that now pervades the land. When the peasantry of France, in 1789, worn out with the extortions of five centuries, arose against king, priests, and nobles, they were told that they were breaking the faith of the nation which had been pledged a thousand times for their silent submission to any wrong, in person or property, however horrible or indescribable. Whenever the starving people of Ireland, in the dreary centuries of the past, have grown uneasy in their bondage and struggled against their fetters, they have been fiercely reminded that the good faith of England is solemnly pledged to maintain existing laws and perpetual abuses.

Sir, this plea, so loud now in our ears, has been invoked in behalf of every wickedness that ever cursed the world. The usurper invokes it to protect the throne he has stolen, as soon as he is seated. The tyrant invokes it to shelter his prerogative, and his nobility in turn invoke it in order to live in ease and splendor off the labor of others. It is my purpose on this occasion, however, to show what the obligations of good faith require of us on the great question of our finances, and to arraign those who have systematically broken it whenever their interest prompted them to do so. It is my purpose also to show that while it is of the highest importance to maintain our financial credit, it can only be done by the Government keeping all its contracts and obligations with its own citizens. This issue has been presented of late in a manner so persistent and offensive, especially to western men and western interests, that it shall now be met as far as my humble capacity enables me to meet it.

Sir, I appeal to the history of our financial legislation.