Franklin Repository

Union meetings will be held at the following times and places:

Tuesday, September 18, Fannettsburg.

Wednesday, September 19, Dry Run.

Thursday, September 20, Concord.

Friday, September 21, Sulphur Spring.

Friday, September 21, Roxbury.

Saturday, September 22, Orrstown.

Thursday, September 27, New Franklin.

Friday, September 28, Mont Alto Iron Works.

Saturday, September 29, Pinefield School House, Montgomery Township.

Saturday, September 29, Greenvillage.

Saturday, September, 29, Quincy.

Monday, October 1, Greenwood.

Tuesday, October 2, Upper Strasburg.

Tuesday, October 2, Upton.

Tuesday, October 2, Marion.

Wednesday, October 3, Fayetteville.

Wednesday, October 3, Loudon.

Thursday, October 4, Elliott's Tavern, Warm Spring road.

Thursday, October 4, Mercersburg.

Friday, October 5, Greencastle.

Friday, October 5, Funkstown.

Friday, October 5, Henry Hege's School House, Peters township.

Saturday, October 6, Waynesboro.

Saturday, October 6, Scotland.

Saturday, October 6, Bridgeport.

Monday, October 8, St. Thomas.

Monday, October 8, Quincy.

Addresses will be delivered by A. K. McClure, I. H. McCauley, F. S. Stumbaugh, L. S. Clarke, W. S. Everett, John Stewart, D. Watson Rowe, George Eyster, George Chambers, Wilson Hays, T. J. Nill, F. Henninger, Geo. B. Wiestling and others.

The above meetings will all be held in the evening, with the exception of that at Sulphur Spring, which will be held at one o'clock in the afternoon, and that at Pinefield School House, which will be held at three o'clock in the afternoon.

By order of the Union Co. Committee.
Samuel Myers, Chairman.

Considerable interest has been, and still is, felt throughout the country in relation to the real position of these great leaders of our Army and Navy, upon the great questions that now agitate the land. The fact that they compose part of the Presidential escort in the "electioneering tour" now being made by his Accidency Andrew Johnson has given ground for the fear that they too have fallen under the blandishments of power, and may prove recreant to the principles for which they fought so gallantly during the recent rebellion, and are now so greatly honored by their fellow-citizens. But of this there is no fear. Andy Johnson is a cunning old political trickster. He knew well that the presence of these popular heroes with his party on their tour to the grave of the gallant Douglas, would call out thousands of people wherever there would be the faintest chance of seeing them--and hence Gen. Grant and Admiral Farragut were politely informed that "the President requested their company on his contemplated tour." It is well known in military circles that a request from a superior is equivalent to a command, and cannot be denied; and Andy Johnson being the Constitutional Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, Gen. Grant and Admiral Farragut were compelled to dance an unwilling and unpleasant attendance upon their chief, or be guilty of a great personal and official disrespect.

Many efforts have been made by the President, and his satellite Seward to get Gen. Grant and Admiral Farragut to say something--if only a dozen words--that might be tortured into some kind of a sanction of "my policy," but thus far without success. These heroes, who put down the rebellion and saved the Union, are too deeply attached to the prosperity and happiness of their beloved country to yield any countenance to the schemes of those who for years past have been seeking its destruction.

But whilst Gen. Grant will not, and does not, define his position by speeches made "on the same line" with the President, he does unbosom himself to his old personal friends without reserve. Gen. John A. Logan, the Union candidate at large for Congress in Illinois is, and has been for years past, one of Gen. Grant's most intimate friends, and well acquainted with his feelings and opinions. In a speech recently made by Gen. Logan to an immense Union gathering at Galena, Illinois, Gen. Grant's former home, he said that "Gen. Grant is in favor of the principles of the Union Republican party, and an ardent supporter of the Constitutional Amendments proposed by Congress; that it is a bitter duty he and Admiral Farragut have to perform in following the President in his mad career over the country--but that the people should rest content, for whenever the time comes that they should show their hands, both Gen. Grant and Admiral Farragut would not only SPEAK but ACT." Now they are tongue-tied, but then they will be free to choose between Treason and Duty to the nation; and none need doubt how they will decide.

THE declarations of the most distinguished leaders of the Democracy, and the threats of their more prominent journals leave us no room to speculate as to the course they are determined to pursue in case they succeed in electing a sufficient number of Democratic Congressmen in the North to constitute--with the Southern Representatives added--a quorum of the House. In this even they propose, in utter defiance of existing laws, to unite with rebels and set up another Congress, and thus precipitate the country into another rebellion, the issue of which they fondly hope will be more favorable to the enemies of Republican Government.

If their designs were less infamous we might accord them candor in publishing them to the country, but the purpose is so outrageous, the scheme so full of sedition and usurpation, that the avowal of it seems rather the defiant threat of desperate and abandoned men, emboldened by familiarity with treason and conscious of their own villainy. From the recent utterances of the President no one can doubt that he understands these designs, and that he is ready and willing to act his part in the plot. He does not hesitate to denounce the present Congress as an unconstitutional body and its more prominent members as traitors. He will seize the first opportunity that is presented to rob it of its power and recognize as legal and constitutional the insurrectionary body composed of Copperheads and Rebels.

The probability of their electing a sufficient number of Democrats in the North to enable them to perform this coup d'etat is very remote, but the bare possibility of such a result is enough to excite the gravest apprehensions, and should arouse the most indifferent to a just appreciation of the importance of the approaching election.

A loyal Congress so far has defeated the treachery of the President and the designs of unrepentant Rebels. Let the next Congress be made of just such stuff as the present one and the perfidy of the Executive will be made harmless and the rage of his friends impotent. In order that the people of this district may know exactly who and what they vote for, let Mr. Sharpe declare publicly and unequivocally for which body he is a candidate, whether for the insurrectionary one the President and Mr. Blair hope to organise in defiance of law, composed of disqualified Rebels from the South and their sympathisers from the North, or the one that will meet in conformity with existing laws and be composed of loyal men? The people have a right to know to which of these he aspires.

To the Editors of the Franklin Repository:

The recent rise in U. S. securities has elevated the Secretary of the Treasury to the top-notch of self-esteem, in the belief that that event was brought about entirely by his extraordinary financiering in May last, and which I described in my letter published in the REPOSITORY of 25th July following. I dislike to be instrumental in letting down that embodiment of public finance, compared with whom the far-famed Nicholas Biddle, Esq., was but a baby of a year old, to a more natural level; but facts are stubborn things, and it is a fact potent that our worthy Secretary can take, in fact, not the slightest particle of credit to himself for the recent rise in 5-20 Bonds, or any other gold interest bearing security. That rise is based entirely upon the change in public affairs in Europe, as it is not difficult to demonstrate.

When in May last the Bank of England raised its rate of discount to ten per cent. per annum, English capitalists found a ready demand, from the hitherto customers of that bank, for all the money they might think proper to loan them at a less than bank rate, and upon bank terms, as to the time and security; while any rate between 5 and 10 per cent. was better than any of our U. S. securities offered. Hence an immediate cessation in the insular European demand for U. S. bonds was the inevitable result of the rise to such an unusual figure in the rate of Bank of England discount, and a consequent depression in value of our 5-20 bonds at a time when nearly six months interest had to mature upon them. So much for insular Europe. Then, as to continental Europe, immediately followed the German war.

Germany, as is well known, had been through her capitalists the largest foreign purchaser of U. S. 5-20 bonds from their first issue, in 1863, to a period immediately preceding the commencement of the late trans-Rhemish war. Then, instead of being purchased, German bond holders became anxious to realize, for the purpose of aiding their government in prosecuting a war that was considered just and proper. The consequence was 5-20's came over to New York from Germany by millions of dollars worth, and sold in a short time as low as par in several instances where forced sales were made; while 2 1/2 premium in currency was the quotation in the market. This continued while the prospect of war continued, but a somewhat short time, it is true; and as soon as peace was proclaimed a consequent reaction naturally resulted. Those who, the month previous, realized at a loss were now as anxious to buy again, as there is no long security in the European market that pays as high a rate of interest as our 5-20 bonds, and the recent advance in them followed naturally as the previous decline.

In this whole movement New York speculators who had money and nerve and judgement--three items which all speculators need more or less of--must have profited largely. The Secretary engineered the sale of the government gold to their profit, and, then, circumstances over which he had no control, as he had got rid of his surplus gold, engineered the 5-20's to their profit; and so that they may set down 1866 as a white year in their calendar, and laugh heartily at the idea of the Secretary believing that the people should be obliged to him for the enhanced value of government securities, and consider the advantage of his recommending the propriety of putting a 5 per cent gold interest paying loan upon the market with the respect and confidence due to him.

Such an exhibition of inordinate variety affords but another item to the mass of already extant weighty testimony that he is totally unequal to the position he fills. The dawnings of a foreign war appeared in the horizon a month before the Bank of England raised her rate of interest, or the first German bondholder attempted to realize the past spring upon his U. S. securities. But the Secretary "did not see it." He was studying how he could slaughter the gold speculators by wiping them out at one fell swoop. His scheme fully matured, he immediately let slip his dog of war, and with what result has been shown. Europe or her wars gave him not the slightest concern. To corner the gold men was his game, and in ten days he played it out, to a dead loss to government and a clear profit of $40,000 to his brother in law, Peter M. Myers, Esq., broker, Wall Street, N. Y., and to number of others, names not given, in probably, according to the funds they invested, much larger amounts. A. Belmont, Esq., it is said, having cleared over a million.

A wise man filling the position of the Secretary, would have noticed the dawning of a European war, watched its rise, and held the government gold ready to buy up the government securities which he would know must certainly be returned to our shores with the first blow struck by one foreign power against another. Then, by the purchase, for government account, of those tens of millions of dollars of 5-20 bonds which were bought in New York, during the months of June and July last, with that very gold which our present Secretary had thrown away, the Treasury of the United States would be in pocket just what was shared by those whom our Secretary seems to have been put into office to favor, viz: the bankers and capitalists of New York and elsewhere; and the people of the United States would have occasion to do that which there is no prospect, evidently, of them having a chance to do while the present incumbent holds his seat, namely, thank their stars that they have the head of a financier upon the shoulders of their Secretary of the Treasury.
Yours to command.
Bobtail.

Bull Tail Run, Pa., Sept. 7, 1866.