Valley Spirit

There are twenty-five thousand negroes huddled in Washington City and its suburbs. They occupy every nook and corner of the city, and those that are able to pay from two to four dollars per month enjoy the luxury of a ten by twelve feet section of a row of shanties of rough boards covered with felt and tar. They are employed at every conceivable menial employment, from that of porters and cooks down to boot blacking and scavengering. One broken stove frequently serves for several families; the fuel is gathered off the streets, from camp debris and in ash heaps by the children, and mgeh of the clothing used is gathered from among the cast off habiliments of the soldiers. The lot of thousands of these poor creatures is hard, indeed. Few of them live in comfort, while very many go hungry and almost naked. Some even starve. Perhaps no other city can furnish a more striking contrast of extremes--wealth luxury and magnificence, and poverty, wretchedness and squalor--than the Federal Capital.

The most of these poor creatures are from the South, having followed the soldiers to the land of promise in the North, inspired with vague dreams of ease, comfort and freedom. From the eyes of all the scales have already fallen. The delusion under which they labored, and which was too often fostered by their false white friends, has brought them only suffering and loss. --Gladly would the majority of them go back to their old masters, even accepting the alternative of slavery. It is to be hoped that the time may soon arrive when all can go back to the old plantations--not, however, as slaves; but as free men and women--where, in peace and surrounded by old familiar scenes, they may enjoy to the full extent what they prize above all things, a plentiful supply of the earth's fruits and fatness. If compelled to undergo another winter's rigors and privations, spring will find them largely diminished in numbers and thousands will be broken and shattered.

The cruelty which slavery undoubtedly perpetrated upon this race for generations has perhaps been greatly exceeded in violence and extent during the past few years by that of the pretended friends of the negro. Four years of theoretical philanthropy, combined with selfish and practical neglect and inhumanity, has probably swept away more of the blacks than a quarter of a century of involuntary servitude.

Authentic information from all parts of the South represents the people as more intent on the rehabilitation of their private affairs than on the success of any political measure. They feel that that they have been ruined by too great an interest in politics, and they would gladly take a long season of repose before embarking again on that stormy sea. We, at the North, are too much given to look at the South with reference merely to the part it is hereafter to play in our government system; a bad habit caught from the politician, who consider these questions only in their bearing on the presidential elections.

The best service the federal government can render to southern prosperity is to forbear interference, and allow the energies of the South free play. The people are already beginning to take a wise and sagacious view of the situation. A thoughtful and judicious article which we find in a recent number of the Houston Telegraph contains advice so excellent that if the general current of southern sentiment runs in the same direction, the prosperity of the South will in a few years, be greater than it ever was under the old system. It is gratifying to find such views originating, self-prompted, and in the most distant of the Southern States. The article in the Telegraph is so manly and considerate that we insert a long extract, in the hope that it will make more impression upon our southern readers than any advice obtruded upon them from a northern source.

The writer retracts nothing which he previously held in respect to the advantages of the slave system. Like every system, it had its weak as well as its good points; and now that it is irreversibly overthrown, the writer maintains that there is no want of consistency in bringing its weak points into the foreground and contrasting them with the favorable aspects of the new future. It would be foolish to retain the disadvantages of the system that is gone and reject the advantages of the system which must take its place. The southern editor contrasts the two sysstems as follows:

One of the features of our old system was the large and growing landed estates in the lower and richer planting regions, which had their disadvantages, but which compensated therfor, in our eyes, by the great wealth they brought to the country, and by the support they gave the system of which they were a part, and from which they were inseparable, unless checked by legal constraints. The motive for sustaining these disadvantages has now passed away, and they may be abated, without the violation of any interest, by the legitimate operation of the new system of labor we find it necessary to adopt.

We have shown that while it may be impossible under the free labor system to conduct large planations as profitably as under the old system, the same lands may be better and more profitably cultivated when divided into small farms than ever before. We illustrated the case by showing that a man worth no capital whatever, could rent fifty acres of good planting land, hire the necessary help, make a good living, make about a thousand dollars clear, and pay a rent which would be a good interest on the money invested in the land. --It may be objected that in this country, where land is abundant and cheap, men who are industrious and energetic enough to make the money to pay these rents will buy instead of renting. Then let the large landowners sell alternative sections, or otherwise, as may be suitable, on time if necessary.

One of the evils of the large landed estates was that they gradually swallowed up all the smaller plantations and farms, until at length, in some regions, a very few proprietors would come to be the sole possessons of vast tracts of country, embracing nearly whole parishes and counties. This destroyed society, and introduced a system of absenteeism; the planters, with their families, spending most of their time at homes in other parts of the country, in the villages or cities, or, as was sometimes the case, in New York or Paris; leaving the whole region to be inhabited by a few overseers and thousands upon thousands of negroes. Of course, in such a state of things, rich and highly favored as the region of country may be, there is no possibility of general improvement, no encouragement to any other branch of industry besides planting, no inspiration to any of the arts, no possibility of society, or social development, culture, and enjoyment. There is no symmetry in the development and industry of a region of country under such a system. It is really a perversion of the purposes of nature and of Providence. All interest of the proprietors in the country is limited to the amount of land and negroes they possess, the amount of sugar, and rice they can produce, and the amount of money they can realize. Public spirit is utterly dead, and no improvements can be accomplished, except those of the planters for the benefit of their negroes.

It is true that this picture only represents those regions of low, alluvial, and most universally rich lands, where the whole country, almost, is capable of being covered with plantations. But the tendency was the same in all the rich planting regions. --Under this system, also, large tracts of the best land in the world were permitted to lie wild and waste, and could not be brought into cultivation. The planters cultivated only what could be managed by their own force, and would neither sell nor rent, leaving the untilled lands for the day when they should, by continual buying, have negroes enough to cultivate them, or as a safe investment for their children.

Under the system of smaller farms and plantations which free labor will introduce all this will be changed, and changed much for the better; and we shall realize some compensation for the enforced emancipation fo the negroes, by the removal of the evils above described, and by the introduction of their corresponding advantages. The country will be peopled by a white population, and society will be organized and established. And it will be a thrifty and prosperous population, for people are always prosperous when cultivating fertile lands. Poor men who rent will gradually improve until they can buy, and the proprietors who rent lands to them will receive a handsome interest on their landed investments. Men of small means who are able to purchase the lands they cultivate will gradually rise into prosperous farmers. Small landed estates, with independent white families upon them, will cover the country, in place of the few immense plantations, with only overseers and negro quarters for population and society. And a prosperous people will always become an intelligent and refined people. There will still be large proprietors, probably, but in connection with them will rise up that strength and glory of a country--a prosperous, strong-charactered, intelligent, and refined middle class--a population that can vote as well as labor; and intelligently and healthfully represent the wealth of the country in its legislative councils. The land will be filled with tasteful and pleasant homes industrious yeomen women, and refined gentlemen and ladies. All branches of industry will spring up and flourish, and all the arts find inspiration and patronage. Under the large plantation system, everything went to decay and dilapidation, except the cultivation of the soil, because dependent upon the careless, rude, and destructive negro. Under the new system, good houses will be built, and tastefully surrounded and decorated. --Roads, which were only fit for the mule and negro and their plantation wagons to travel upon, will become pleasant highways fit for the travel of a refined people. --Fences, gates, bridges; ferries, and everything of a similar character will assume a new aspect. Instead of old barns, called churches, reached, with great difficulty, through mud and miserable roads, at great distances from each other, where people occasionally, though lamely, celebrated the lost worship of God, churches of elegant and appropriate architecture will be reared at convenient distances, all over the land, in regard to which the children and yound people will be able to say, "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go up into the house of the Lord." And similar improvement will be seen, also, in the schoolhouses, schools, and education of the country. Thus we see that, much as we regret giving up our old system, we may find some comfort in contemplating the advantages of the new one.

When we see views so sensible and sagacious springing up spontaneously in the South, immediately after the total subversion of a system of industry which the people had brought themselves to consider the best in the world, we ought to be convinced that they are fully competent to solve the great problem force upon them. If we are discreet, we shall abstain from officious intermeddling. Our chief interst in the South is that it shall become prosperous; but the Southern people have a greater interest in this result than we have, and we may safely take it for granted that they are better judges of their own business on the spot than we can be at this distance.

The South, when industry revives under the new system, will not only lighten our taxes by its increased ability to share them, but will open to our productions a great market even more valuable than the West itself, which, in its intercourse with the East, is perpetually giving and receiving riches. Consider how our cities have been built up by the western trade, within the last twenty years; and then consider that the South, instead of beginning with nothing, as the West did, will start anew as a well settled country free from the necessity of devoting half the labor of the year to providing shelter, fuel, and subsistence during a cold winter. Instead of a few very wealthy proprietors, expending their incomes on foreign luxuries or in foreign residence, the mass of the people will, like the people of the West, become large consumers of articles the bulk of which will be of American productions.

Instead of pestering and irritating the people by thrusting upon them our notions as to how they ought to manage their affairs, let us exercise a generous confidence in their ability to make the best of the situation. Meddlesome interference can only do harm. The large plantations will fall to pieces by the operation of necessary economical causes; and when the land is cultivated by small proprietors, there will arise in the South a thrifty, intelligent middle class, which is the best basis for Republican institutions. Let us not commit the folly of arresting the natural tendency of Southern society in this direction, and prejudice a good cause by exciting disgust against intrusive and impertinent advice. Southern society can never be successfully reorganized from without, but only from within.

Under the above caption the Repository of last week contains a very lengthy editorial article in relation to the recent lamentatable affair in Bedford. It would seem to those acquainted with the facts that the article could have been intended for no other purpose than to place the Messrs. Reed in a false position before the public, and to prejudice their case before the jury which is to try them. The representations of the connection of Mengel Reed with the rebel army and the expatriation of John P. Reed, Jr., to avoid the Draft, as contained in the article referred to, are so much at variance with the truth as scarcely to bear even a semblance to it. It is not however our purpose at this time to correct the misrepresentations of the Repository in these particulars as the truth will be fully developed before a court and jury in a very short period, but simply to make a few comments on the following extract. The Repository says:

"Whatever may be the determination of the law as to this fearful homicide, can any dispassionate and conscientious citizen doubt where rests the moral responsibility for the murder of Mr. Crouse?"

We confess we can see no room for doubt, as to where rests the "moral responsibility" for this unfortunate affair. To even a careless observer of events, during the past four years, there can scarcely be a doubt about it. The spirit of lawlessness which impelled Jacob Crouse to pursue young Reed through the streets of Bedford with jeers and insults, is the same which the Republican Press and Republican leaders have been instilling into the minds of their followers ever since the commencement of the war. Under the teaching and example of these men, many were induced to think that to abuse, vilify and insult a fellow citizen of a different political faith, was a meritorious act, and a strong evidence of patriotism and "loyalty." To the teachings of this same press was owing the spirit, so rife in the Northern States since 1861, which delighted in mobs the destruction of property and life, and the incarceration of men guiltless of offence, in bastiles, to gratify the malignant hate of men who arrogated to themselves all the "loyalty" of the country. It was a spirit evoked by the press and leaders of the Republican party, which impelled Jacob Crouse to follow up Reed, goad and insult him, until driven to the wall, his life in imminent danger, he fired the fatal shot which terminated the existence of Mr. Crouse. Where then rests the "moral responsibility" of this homicide? Surely, upon the men who give sentiment to the party from which poor Crouse drew his inspiration and learned that, to insult, bully and beat a fellow man were meritorious actions. The "moral responsiblity" rests upon these false and wicked teachers and the blood of Jacob Crouse stains, indelibly, their garments.

The Abolition Convention of Franklin county met in the public school building, in this place, on Tuesday the 8th inst., and went through the motions of nominating a ticket to be voted for by the "loyal" people at the election this fall. The whole thing had been fixed up in Greencastle the day previous, by a clique of renegade Democrats who have succeeded in obtaining the entire control and management of the delectable party of negro-suffrageites in this county. --After the organization of the Convention, the Greencastle ticket was brought in by a portion of the Antrim delegation, under the personal direction and supervision of an old fox--who became "loyal" when Democracy ceased to put money in his purse and heap honors upon him--and presented to that body, which looked upon it, saw that it was lovely, and dutifully adopted the bantling as its own progeny. The following is the ticket, which as a whole, is one of the weakest ever presented to the people for their suffrages:

Assembly--Brig. Gen. F.S. Stumbaugh, Chambersburg
Sheriff--Capt. John Doebler, Chamb'g.
Treasurer--Maj. Jno Hassier, St. Thomas.
District Attorney--Col. D.W. Rowe, Antrim.
Surveyor--Emanuel Kuhn, Chamb'g.
Commissioner--Daniel Skinner, Fannett.
Director of the Poor--James H. Clayton, Washington.
Auditor--Samuel W. Nevin, Southampton.
Coroner--Dr. Charles T. Maclay, Green.

It will be observed that all the good places were bestowed upon renegade Democrats, here being no less than four on the ticket. We expect to speak more at length of the manner of the getting up of this ticket, and the material composing it during the progress of the campaign.

The certainty that negro suffrage will be a prominent issue in the state elections, renders it proper that Democrats should consider in what manner that issue ought to be met. The subject will come up not only as a question of federal, but also as a question of State politics. In most of the Northern States negroes are either not allowed to vote all, or they vote under disabilities and restrictions to which white citizens are not subject. As a necessary step toward forcing negro suffrage on the South, the Republicans will attempt to make it universal in the North. It would be a piece of indiscribable effrontery if the Northern States used the federal government as an engine for compelling the South to adobt a policy which the Northern States repudiate themselves.

True indeed it is, that if every Northern State should admit its negroes to the ballot-box and abolish all political distinctions founded on color, such a change would not in the least impair the constitutional right of each Southern State to regulate the suffrage for itself. What is done or delayed, by separate State action in the North, may be done or delayed, by precisely the same right in every State in the South. But although this right is impregnable in law, the Republican party do not intend to recognize it in fact. The obstacle which makes the greatest figure in their minds is not that erected by the Constitution, but that presented by the impudent inconsistency of attempting to force down the throats of the South a measure too nauseous to be swallowed by the North. They are conscious that they cannot stand up against the scorn which would be poured upon them for such pharisaic hypocrisy.

It being, then, a necessary part of the Republican programme to clothe the Northern negroes with the elective franchise, the question fairly arises as to the duty of the Democratic party in the premises. On this subject we have no doubt; it is the duty of the Democratic party to oppose negro suffrage, root and branch. True, as a purely domestic question of State politics, it would be divested of the most objectionable features which it wears as a federal question. If any State chooses to admit negroes to the suffrage, no other State has a right to object. This is a matter in regard to which the States are independent, alike of each other and of the Federal Government. But in point of fact, the domestic and the federal questions are at present so interwoven that they cannot be separated. The domestic question is to be made an issue in the State elections, only as a necessary step in forcing it into federal politics. Whatever, therefore, might be thought of the propriety of admitting negroes to the ballot-box if the questions could be separated, the fact that they cannot be separated, makes it our duty to oppose the whole thing.

What ground it may be proper to take on this subject five or ten years hence is quite another matter. When all the States are restored to their federal relations, so that the action of some cannot be used as an engine of coercion against others, each State may adopt, on this subject any policy which it deems wise or expedient. It is notorious that it is not now to be brought up as a domestic question, but as a mere preliminary to federal coercion. Why is it, all of a sudden, to be put in the foreground now as the main issue in the politics of New York? What is there in the domestic condition of the State that renders the question more important, or more urgent, that it was four or five years ago, when negro suffrage was rejected by an almost unanimous vote of the people? Nothing. It is to be thrust into State politics this fall for no other reason in the world than because the Republican party is resolved in force negro suffrage upon the South, and feel how exposed they are to the charge of brazen hypocrisy in making this attempt while black suffrage is not tolerated in the States which re-elected Mr. Lincoln.

Federal coercion of the States on this subject being wrong, it is the duty of the Democratic party to oppose all the means and agencies by which such coercion is attempted. The issue is one on which the Republican party can be routed and disorganized. Besides the great advantage we have over them on the merits of the question a powerful cross-wind of particular circumstances blows across their course. --First and chief of these is the position of President Johnson. We can fight the battle under his banner, and put the Republicans in the position of acting in hostility to a chief magistrate elected by their own votes. Nothing could so surely divide and disintegrate the party as the attitude toward the President, which it will be compelled to assume in making the negro-suffrage issue. --Another disintegrating fact is the bold position taken by the Republican candidate for Governor of Ohio. The vituperation which the Republicans were preparing against the Democratic party becomes a two-edged sword, which they cannot handle without wounding persons whom policy requires them to spare. They must either fire blank cartridges, or begin the canvass by conceding to us the President and the great State of Ohio, as belonging to our party. --Another obstacle to the success of the negro-suffrage party will be found in the sentiments of the returned soldiers, whose opportunities of observing the negro character in the South, have led them to regard negro equality as a great absurdity. Moreover, the Republicans will have to encounter a feeling which goes far deeper than any conviction on the constitutional question, and is broader in its scope than the accidental circumstances of the canvas; --the feeling of repugnance to the negro founded on pride of race; a feeling which is constantly breaking out in acts of outrage in various parts of the country, and will gather depth and intensity in proportion as the idea is brought home to the white masses that are regarded by the Republicans as being no better than so many niggers. --This is a social and political rank which the white masses will never voluntarily accept; and the attempt to force them into it will rouse their disgust and resentment against the Republican party.

We have somewhere read of a German student, who after years of study in wicked and forbidden directions and in opposition to the prayers, expostulations and entreaties of the wise and good among his friends and associates, succeeded in conjuring up a demon, but when the demon came in obedience to the spells and incantations of the student, instead of becoming his slave, and ministering to his unlawful and corrupt appetites, his lust for power and greed for gold, it became his master, and finally tore him to pieces.

For thirty years the radicals have been practising their spells and incantations to raise the demon of negro equality in this country. All this time the good people of the land, the pure patriots, the true Christians, the real philanthropists, the well wishers of the human race without regard to color, have prayed, and expostulated, and entreated that this "cup might pass from us." They have pointed to the doings of this demon in other lands, where, his footsteps have been marked with blood, his course lighted by the flames of burning homes, his path bordered by the remains of butchered women and children. But all this was of no avail. Like the German student the radicals were deaf to all facts, all prayers, all entreaties. They raised the demon from amidst the smoke, fury, bloodshed, carnage and butchery of the battlefields, where brother shed the life-blood of brother in unnatural strife, and we now behold his machinations in the assassination plots of which that at Aquia Creek is an instance.

The facts in this case seem to be, that in order to put that portion of the railroad from Aquia Creek to Richmond lying between the Potomac river and Fredericksburg in order, a number of workmen, whites and colored, have been collected in that vicinity. The negroes had exhibited bitter and vindictive feelings toward the whites, and dropped expressions which caused the whites to be on their guard; but nothing occurring they were led to suppose that their fears of an attack were unfounded. But on the evening of the 1st of this month one of the black men confessed that they had formed a compact to murder all the whites at the place, and had collected arms and made all preparations for consummating their bloody and devilish purpose. The attack was to be made in the night, and all were to be butchered. Upon the receipt of this intelligence, military force was used, and after a desperate fight, in which one negro was killed and several wounded, the ringleaders were secured and the assassination plot broken up.

This is the demon conjured up by the teachings of the radicals turning upon the race of the magician who invoked it. This is a realization of the truths which have been spread before the country by those who have steadily and honestly opposed the doctrine of negro equality. The radicals were pointed to St. Domingo as an example; but they heeded not the warning. They were told that the sudden elevation of millions of rude, uneducated and undisciplined negroes to a full equality with white men, would lead to plots and compacts for revenge, murder and destruction among the mass of the negroes. But this was denied in some cases; in others we were coldly told that it must be expected. It was a consequence of the system just broken up by the throes through which the nation had passed. The radicals were determined to put their plan of raising the negro to an equality with the white man into practical operation. To do this they were willing to trample upon the Constitution, to imperil if not destroy our form of government, to load the nation with debt, to wreck its business, prostrate its commerce and impoverish its people. They succeeded in their designs; behold the first fruit of their success.

In the face of these facts, so startling and fearful at present, so full of dark and gloomy forebodings for the future, will the people of this State aid in perpetuating the power of the Republican party? To be sure all the members of that organization do not wish or mean to go to the extent the radicals desire; but this wing has so far dominated the party, and in the end has succeeded in dictating its policy, and forcing it opinions and doctrines upon the entire body. This fact was apparent throughout the whole of Mr. Lincoln's administration. The radicals dictated. The mass of the so-called conservatives, while they dissented and objected and hung back for a time, in the end surrendered and helped the radicals to carry out their plans. While they remain in the organization of the Republican party, this must and will continue to be. The radicals are bold, reckless, presuming and aggressive. They are so deep in the conspiracy against the liberties of the white people of the nation, that they dare not look back. --They have raised the demon, and he, not they, now rides the storm. The negro plot discovered at Aquia Creek is the first startling exhibition of the bad effects of the doctrine of negro equality that has been developed in an associated form. What will the Republican State Convention, which meets at Harrisburg on the 17th, say about this phase of their doctrine? Will they cry long live the demon of radicalism, and thus sanction and endorse the negro assassination plot against the whites at Aquia Creek? If they honestly believe in the doctrines which they have preached in all parts of the country, they must do so; for negro equality has been made the foundation stone of the Republican party, and its policy has all tended to favor that radical idea. It has come heralded and accompanied by negro plots to butcher white men; and we ask the people of the old Keystone State how they like the demon born of radical action upon the question of negro equality.

The Colored Population in the Central Three States

The issue of forcing negro suffrage upon the South at the point of Federal bayonets has been made by the Republicans of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Iowa, and other States, and Chief Justice Chase is perambulating the country in advocacy of the new doctrine. In imitation of the minor apostles of this new faith, he intrudes this question upon assemblages at college commencements, and in dinner table speeches. In view of the issue that has been made by the agitators, let us look at the effect negro suffrage at the South will have upon the character of the represntation in Congress and the United States Senate.

Taking the census of 1860 as a basis, it will be found that in twelve of the slave States, embracing eight hundred and eighty six counties there is in two hundred and forty-four of them an excess of negro population!

Alabama contains fifty-two counties, in twenty of which there is an excess of negro population.

Arkansas has fifty-five counties, with an excess of negro population in six.

Florida has twenty-one counties, with an excess of negro population in six.

Georgia has one hundred and thirty-two counties, with an excess of negro population in forty-three.

Louisiana has forty-eight counties, with an excess of negro population in thiyty-three.

Maryland has twenty-two counties, with an excess of negro population in five.

Mississippi has sixty counties, with an excess of negro population in thrity-one.

North Carolina has eighty-seven counties, with an excess of negro population in twenty.

Tennessee has seventy-five counties, with an an excess of negro population in three.

Texas has one hundred and fifty-one counties, with an excess of negro population in thirteen.

Virginia has one hundred and forty-eight counties, with an excess of negro population in forty-four.

This would give the negroes a majority in the States of Louisiana. Mississippi and South Carolina. In these three States they could elect negroes enough to control the legislatures and elect six negroes to the United States Senate, and three or four times that number of Representatives to Congress. In all the Southern States they could sent negroes to the State Legislatures and in two hundred and forty-four counties control the local offices. These figures present the universal negro suffrage question in a social aspect. Carry out the scheme of the agitators, and what can preevent the sending of colored representatives to the halls of Congress? These are deductions from the figures of the census of 1860, and the probability is that excess of black population is greater at the present time than it was five years ago. The war has doubtless swept off a larger number of whites than blacks. Besides, it must be remebered that, to start with, the negroes will have decided advantage, from the fact that a large class of whites are excluded from the right of suffrage by the exceptions in President Johnson's amnesty proclamation, while the negroes there are no exceptions whatever.

New England has led off in favor of universal negro suffrage, and Chief Justice Chase is stumping the country in its advocacy. It has now become one of the cardinal doctrines of the party and we expect to see the Republican State convention of New York toe the mark, and give it an unqualified indorsement.

The right of States, Counties, Cities, and Boroughs to tax United States securities says the Lancaster Intelligencer, is becoming a question of great importance to the masses upon whom the burthens of the Government are beginning to fall with crushing effect. The State of New Hampshire has already led the way by placing a tax of twenty-five per cent upon the income drived from Federal bonds, and it will not be long until the necessities of the people will force the Legislature of every other State in the Union to adopt a similar policy. Unless this is done, it will not be many months or years, if the present state of things continue, until it will be next to impossible for either corporations or individuals to borrow a dollar, except at ruinous rates of interest; and in addition, the whole burthen of the local governments will devolve upon the middling and working classes who are least able to pay, while the wealthy and aristocratic bond-holders of the General Government, who are reveling in all the comforts and luxuries of life at the expense of their industrious neighbors, go scot free. There is gross and flagrant injustice in all this. A hard-working mechanic may own a homestead valued at one thousand dollars, for which he has to pay State, County, City, Borough and School taxes, amounting in the aggregate to a considerable rent, whilst his rich neighbor, with one hundred thousand dollars of Uncle Sam's bonds and no real estate, is not required to pay a solitary cent! Such inequality and unfair discrimination in favor of the rich and at the expense of the poor man, is monstrous in a Republican government, and was never contemplated by the framers of our Constitution. It should open the eyes of the masses to the forlorn and helpless condition in which they will very soon be placed, if they are not already bound hand and foot to this new and dangerous despotism, unless they remedy the evil at the ballot-boxes.

Other reasons might be adduced in favor of taxing Government securities, but the above will suffice for the present. We may recur to this all improtant subject again; but in the meantime, we caution the taxpayers to consider well whither they are drifting, and apply the proper remedy before it is too late.

We commence this week the publication of the incomes returned for taxation in Franklin county, made taxable by the Internal Revenue Law. The list shows the income of each person after deductin gthe following items, via:

1. Expenses necessarily incurred and paid in carrying on any trade, business or vocation, such as rent of store, clerk-hire, insurance, fuel, freight, &c.

2. Amount actually paid by a property owner for necessary repairs, insurance and interest on incumbrances upon his property.

3. Amount paid by a farmer or planter for hired labor, including the subsistence of the laborers, necessary repairs, including fertilizers upon his farm or plantation.

4. National, State and local taxes assessed and paid during the year 1864.

5. Amount actually paid for rent of dwelling house or estate occupied as a residence.

6. Salaries of officers or payments to persons in the civil, military, naval or other service of the United States, above the rate of $600 per annum, to the tax upon which was withheld at the time the salaries were paid.

7. Exempted by law $600.

We are indebted to the Repository for the list:

The butchery of friendly Indians by Col. Chivington, which was so atrocious and heartless that the Committee on the conduct of the War, after investigating the circumstances, concluded its report by calling upon Congress to "punish as their crimes deserve those who have been guilty of these brutal and cowardly acts." is defended by six Methodist clergymen of Denver City, in a letter addressed to "ministers and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the States." They commend Colonel Chivington as "truly loyal to our Church, and unflagingly devoted to her interests. The arduous duty of military life has not abated his seal. Always ready and able to aid in council, and more willing to assist in action, it is to him more than any other man that Methodism, under God, owes its present prosperous establishment in the territory. His church and ministerial relations are untarnished, and we regard him as a model for large-liberality and Christian energy." Of the massacre itself, the address says:

"We believe our only hope for safety as a territory lies in the repetition of like battles with the same results. In the destruction of these Indians, the murdering and scalping of white men, women and children, was by such avenged. We are fully persuaded that the laws of war in this action were fully respected, and only fear that similar occurrences are likely to be too unfrequent for an immediate and complete subjugation of the treacherous, blood-thirsty red men."

The Chicago Tribune, (Republican,) which is noted for its fine sensibilities in cases where "loyalty" is offered as a defence to charges of brutality, remarks as follows upon Chivington and his acts:

"The 'Sand Creek Affair' was simply an act of hidious cruelty, garnished with all the accessories of fraud, lying, treachery, bestiality. These Indians had signalized their friendship to us by purchasing a number of white captives from hostile bands, and delivering them up without ransom to the military authorities. The most searching investigation failed to show that they had committed, or proposed to commit, any act of hostility to the whites. All the evidence went to show that they were sincerely and honorably peaceful and friendly. --They were our allies. They had rendered us important service. They were quietly and in good faith obeying our orders. With touching confidence in the faith of our government they raised an American flag over their lodges when they saw their murderers approaching.

"They were butchered in cold blood, without provocation, and in spite of everything that should have made their persons sacred in our eyes. So monstrous a crime should not go unpunished. Col. Chivington ought to be tried by court-martial and shot shot like a wolf. He has shown himself to be the common enemy of mankind, and he should be dealt with accordingly. If there is a public sentiment in Colorado Territory which justifies such a transaction (we cannot believe there is) it is time for the people of the United States to teach such persons a lesson in the rudiments of christianity and public law, by making an example of such an unparalleled ruffian as this Chivington."

A Dialogue Between Various Colors.

Negro--'Go way dar; you Injun and Chinaman no account--no account a 'tall,'

Indian--'Ugh!'

Chinese--'China man have big country--do much business. American man come long way to get tea, silk, many tings.'

Negro--'Go way, I say; you got no right suffrage--you ain't a man and a bruder.'

Indian--'Me right of suffrage from the Great Spirit. This country my hunting ground, pale face bring thunder and lighting and fire-water, and drove poor Indian away, but the Great Spirit looks on Ugh!'

Negro--'Pale face no account; de chief Judge say dat nigger Superior race down Soul and I guess he know.'

Chinese--'How much monish you got?--You work now?

Negro--'Catch dis nigger a working now. Yah, yah, no sir, dis child under de protection of de government. Yah, yah, work? yah, yah. Look yeah you China man, we gwine to vote now we niggers, you Chinamen and you Injuns belong to the 'ferior race, and dese white men count 'tall. You just wait till Fred Douglas is de President den you see who's de 'ferior race.'

Indian--'My tribe fight for the pale face in the army of the great chief Pope, we have much farm, little Injun go to school, me go to see the great father Lincoln, me no vote, Ugh'

Chinese--'Me see great Mandarian American man in the great empire of ze sun; he say much fine thing; me come to America land; me like America land. China man no vote; he no Mandarian; American man come to his country; Injun man fight for Merica land he no vote.'

Negro--'Yah! yah! you don't know nothin tall, don't you see de Declaration Independence don't mean you folks, it means consent of the governed, don't you see; and we niggers don't give our sent, dats de ting, massa Sumner told me dat hisself.'

Indian--'Ugh I me fight pale face. Ugh! ugh! ugh!' (with a war-whoop).

Chinese--'Me no consent, me steal much.'

Negro--'Yah! yah! yah! You go long you no 'count tall.'

Exeunt Omnes.