Franklin Repository

Some apprehensions are felt in the country about business revulsions, the probable reduction of values, and the violent contraction of all channels of industry and enterprise down to the old standard before the war. We regard such a result not only as altogether improbable but as absolutely impossible. There is nothing in the present condition of the country to justify such apprehensions. There can be no violent change in business operations unless business men are generally in debt beyond their means, and a sudden contraction of accommodations by the banks with a fatal reduction of values follow, when the bubble of overstrained credit bursts. All our previous financial panics were produced by excessive over-trading and extravagant indebtedness among the people. When the last feather would be piled upon the back of credit, it would break down, and panic would complete the work of destruction.

The present condition of the country is peculiarly sound. Speculators may be embarrassed, and many of them may fail, but it cannot effect the general condition of the people. Never before in the history of the nation were the people as free from debt; never before were they as wealthy; and instead of the country wanting means, the people have a superabundance of money, or what would at once command money. It is true that there has been gradual contraction of the currency, and it has limited operations immensely in speculative circles; but that class is but a small proportion of the people. Their operations have been unsuccessful within the last two years. Most speculations have proved unfortunate, as they ever will when the nation is returning gradually from inflation toward specie payments; but it does not so much as create a ripple of uneasiness among the substantial producers of the country, who are its main source of wealth.

Franklin county is as fair an illustration of the general condition of the country as any other, and a little reflection will show how baseless is the apprehension of financial revulsion. The active business men who expanded largely during the war when money was superabundant and was expended lavishly, feel severely the altered condition of things; but it is not because we are approaching any violent change in financial affairs. Look for a moment at the paper circulation of this county in 1864 when business and speculation were in their highest tide. The Bank of Chambersburg then had $511,000 of circulation, and $475,000 of deposits--giving it nearly a million of resources to aid business operations. Now the same Bank has but $260,000 of circulation, under the national law, and but $175,000 deposits--thus reducing the capacity of the Bank more than half a million dollars, and of course reducing just to that extent its accommodations to the people. True, we have Banks in Greencastle, Waynesboro and Shippensburg, but their aggregate circulation does not reach over $175,000, leaving a large diminution of the local paper circulation in our midst. In addition to this, it must be considered that probably $200,000 of other State circulation has been withdrawn, and the government has also been steadily retiring green-backs, so that the aggregate contraction of paper circulation in this county alone is over half a million. Government securities have absorbed hundred of thousands of dollars from our farmers, all of which are laid away as so much productive surplus means, which could be called out at any time if the legitimate business interests of the country demanded it.

The contraction now felt in business operations pertains to but a small class of the people. Merchants sell one-fourth or one-half less goods than two years ago, and all who supply other than the necessaries of life naturally feel restricted in their business; but the great mass of the people, upon whom rest our great financial structure, never was so free from debt and never so sound. The towns, which gathered the rich harvest of the war only to plunge it into extravagance and speculation, must suffer. Many will be crippled; many will retire with partial loss; a few will break when the gradual contraction reaches a certain point, but those who survive will find themselves back again to a legitimate business and will do well again. But while the towns gathered and squandered the riches flung out so profusely by war, the great producing classes also gathered from year to year, as their crops commanded fabulous prices. They have not been tempted from their frugal ways, but have saved their profits, and now have their new acres, or mortgages, or Government bonds to attest their prosperity.

Let no man be deluded by the fear of financial panic. If half the business men of Chambersburg, or Greencastle, or Waynesboro, or Mercersburg, would fail, it would not lessen the price of a single acre of farm-land about those towns. It might make stores and shops unsaleable, but there is not an acre of productive land in Franklin county that cannot command a purchaser at a high price any day, because the farmers were never so able to purchase, and land never possessed such intrinsic value as it does now. And what is true of the country generally is equally true of the cities as a rule. Speculators and a limited class of jobbers may be crippled, but money never was more abundant for first-class borrowers than it is in the cities now. Money cannot be borrowed on anything but undoubted security. It cannot be had for doubtful enterprises; but for legitimate business purposes it is abundant at a low rate of interest. Looking at the nation throughout, therefore, both city and country, the financial condition of the people never was more sound than now, and panic or serious revulsion is impossible. Fatal revulsions can only follow a sudden reduction of the substantial values of the country, and that can come only when there is no class able to purchase them at fair prices. So far from the people being unable to maintain the price of lands, stocks, bonds, &c., they never were so abundantly able as now, and we look for the nation to move on gradually to specie payments without any general revulsion being possible. It may take many years to attain it, and bad government may retard it and even damage our financial system; but any change of that kind could only diminish government credit and currency, and thereby give a fictitious value to land and reliable securities. We regard the inflation of values as possible, but panic and violent reduction of values is among the impossibilities.

Of the States now represented in our National Congress, all but Tennessee, California, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Kentucky and Rhode Island have elected their Representatives to the 40th Congress, and a Republican majority of more than two-thirds is now positively assured. The States yet to elect cannot effect the result. Conceding all that the most sanguine of the other side claim in them, still there will remain the power in Congress to veto the veto of the President when he shall interpose his despotic and traitorous will against Freedom and Justice.

Nor is this emphatic verdict the result of political management. It is the solemn, deliberate decree of the PEOPLE, asserting their supreme power in opposition to perfidy in the highest places within their gift. By an aggregate popular majority of nearly HALF A MILLION have the loyal States declared against the policy of Andrew Johnson, and in favor of the policy of Congress as defined in the proposed amendments to the constitution.

Andrew Johnson appealed to the People. He went from place to place and in mingled ribaldry and blasphemy he harangued them, always proposing to leave the issue between himself and Congress to their decision. He prostituted the immense power of his administration to aid the cause of those who have been overthrown, and his offices and plunder were bartered at every corner for votes to sustain his treachery. Every man holding office by the appointment of Mr. Lincoln, who did not betray his principles, was relentlessly ostracized, and some blatant traducer of Mr. Lincoln's principles appointed. But in defiance of all--spurning the bribes of power and the appeals to ambition, the People have declared in thunder tones that the great cause for which they gave countless sacrifices shall not be betrayed when it is about to gather the fruits of its bloody victory.

This overwhelming declaration of the People cannot be misunderstood by any section of the country. It demands the acceptance of the constitutional amendments, and will enforce them, or terms of restoration not less severe, if they are not accepted. Will the South still be blinded by passion to reject the most generous terms ever offered by a conquerer to a conquered people? If they do, upon themselves must be the consequences. The North will not wait indefinitely for their pleasure. The work of reconstruction must be consummated speedily, and if not done by the co-operation of the vanquished upon the terms proposed, it will be done on terms less generous and more just to all. The North has performed its part. Will the dregs of treason and rebellion render a new and harsher policy necessary? With the rebellious States this question now rests, and it is for them to decide whether there shall be a still fuller measure of justice visited upon them for their wanton war against the best government of earth!

THE DELEGATE ELECTIONS.--The election for Delegates to the Senatorial County Convention was warmly contested in both wards of Chambersburg, and it brought out some 100 votes in the borough. One ticket, regularly nominated at a meeting in the ward, was favorable to Gov. Curtin and instructions, and another ticket was run, made up partly of friends of Gov. Curtin, opposed to the policy of instructions for any one, so that the vote did not exhibit the relative strength of Senatorial candidates here. There was some little excitement, and a few who had allowed themselves to become very fervent, imagined that the party might be distracted because they were somewhat distracted themselves, but all closed up as other contested delegate elections close up, and the straight Curtin ticket had 90 majority. All parties, of all shades of sentiment on the question, participated actively in the contest, and will of course yield a cordial submission to the decision of the party. In most of the districts about the town--Guilford, Green and Hamilton, there was no contest: the sentiment of the party being so overwhelmingly for Curtin as to forbid a contest. In Antrim no opposition was made to the Curtin ticket, as all concluded that it must carry in a contest; but notwithstanding that, there were 117 votes polled. In Quincy they elected delegates adverse to instructions, and in Washington they instructed for Mr. Stevens, as their first choice. Upon the whole we believe that the elections were attended as they usually are when nominations are contested, and the expression manifests an overwhelming sentiment in the county in favor of Gov. Curtin for Senator. The proceedings of the convention will be found elsewhere in to-day's paper.