Valley Spirit

(Delivered before the Republican State Convention of Massachusetts.)

"With all these evidences of disloyalty to the Government, of injustice to loyal black men, hate to the loyal white, of clinging to the dead carcass of the Confederacy, of incompatibility of habit, of thought, and ideas of government with the loyal States clustering around us, are not our judgments convinced and reason constrained to the conclusion that reconstruction at the present time, and on the present basis, of necessity must be and is a fallacy?"

Respectfully referred to President Johnson, who knows that reconstruction "on the present basis" and "at the present time" is not a failure.

"Can we doubt that, this being apparent, a loyal and patriotic President and Congress will devise means by which these rebellious States will be held, as in fact they are, conquered territory, captured in public war."

Suppose they should do so, is it likely that--

"The soothing hand of time acting upon the present inhabitants and emigration from from the North and abroad, shall have formed communities at the South ignoring the traditions of the past, acting upon new ideas, with a love and pride in the Union glowing in their hearts; with a civilization and system of labor in consonance with those of the North; ready, willing, fit and desirous of forming political connections with loyal States, and making, indeed, that which our fathers formed, a 'Union of hearts and a Union of hands,' of strength, vigor and power to defy the world in the arts of peace or the deeds of war."

Conquered people, whose property has been taken as spoils of war; who have been disfranchised and held as political outlaws; over whom negroes are set to rule, are not likely to soon forget their traditions, swallow those wrongs and form a union of hearts and hands. History never knew such a case.

"At the South there are nearly six millions of people, more than one third of the inhabitants, always true, always faithful to the Government, fighting its battles and alsmost worshipping its flag, as loyal as they are black; but I am sorry to say the ad-mixture of the white blood of their former masters prevents me from saying, 'in every instance,' as black as they are loyal. I am ready to have these vote and then I have no fears of a disloyal South. (Applause.) In this I am answered that the negroes are too ignorant to vote. They knew more about Government than their masters--they knew enough to be loyal."

The above is likely to prove exceedingly soothing--in time. Ben agrees perfectly with H. Winter Davis--"numbers not intelligence;" and makes a black skin, ignorance and loyalty synonomous. He might have added a black character, for the greatest rascals have always been the loudest loyalists.

He who is worthy of handling a bullet in defense of the country should carry a ballot in the government of the country." The fact of serving his country in the field should be his certificate of naturalization, his enfranchisment, his citizenship, his qualification to vote everywhere. (Loud applause.) It is due to those in whose hands we have trusted the musket that they should have the ballot. Grant this, and the equality of right to the ballot, in white or black, is settled at once and forever."

Of course it does not matter whether those "black loyalists" handled the musket thro' patriotism or for a big bounty; whether they ever burned powder in it or shot five miles at a rebel; whether they ran away at the Petersburg ditch or fought their rations and the pestilent "greybacks" in camp--they must vote all the same.

"To this was objected that neither Congress nor the President can give this franchise; it is placed by the Constitution of our fathers in the hands of the several States. True; but it was not placed by our fathers in the hands of the rebellious, disloyal inhabitants of conquered territory, who by their treason have forfeited not only all their political rights, but their lives, and now have under the Constitution and the laws no right to breathe save by the clemency of the Government.

"Might makes right," is Ben's theory. To do anything only requires power, and Congress having power can do that for which it has no authority. In fact he is in favor of no Government but the will of the demagogues who, for the time, hold the reins of physical force. It will be noticed that all the radical plans are based upon a destroyed Union, and that the Butlers, Sumners, Stevenses, &c., all agree that the Union is not restored and must not be restored until the whites shall have been placed in a political bondage more irksom and degrading than the late African physical servility. Why pollute words by talking of a Union of hearts and hands, associated as they are with declarations that the negro is the only loyalist--that he must vote and govern; that the white man is the only traitor--that he must lose all his political rights--his property--be a serf and an outlaw, and possess not even the right to breathe?

"The negro will vote joyfully to pay for the war expenses which gave him liberty, property and life, while his master will repudiate that debt which was contracted in subjugating him. It is for the interest of bondholders in the United States that the negro should vote. Your seven-thirties are worth a premium of ten per cent, if the negro has the ballot. There will be neither fear of assumption of the rebel debt, or the repudiation of our own from his vote." (Applause)

Once more we breathe freely. Thad Stevens and the shoddy leaders of Pennsylvania want negro suffrage to fill up their rapidly depleting ranks, but Ben adds an equally strong reason--It will add a premium of ten per cent, to the seven-thirty bonds! At last we find truth in a nutshell. It is not for the benefit of the negro; not to carry out a "grand moral idea" in the interest of God and humanity, nor yet to establish a perverted clause of the Declaration of Independence, that negro suffrage is to be forced upon the white men of the country, North and South, but to keep the shoddy thieves in power and to add A PREMIUM OF TEN PER CENT UPON THE UNTAXED GOVERNMENT BONDS HELD BY THE SHODDY ARISTOCRACY!

"Upon any theory the President and Congress have full power in their own hands. Let them refuse a State any political power to give any representatives their seats who shall have been elected by an exclusion of any portion of the loyal citizens of his district from the polls in consequence of a constitutional provision of a State during the existence of slavery, made when no such considerable class of citizens existed, and the matter will be reformed by the States themselves, and a just and equal qualification of voters, applicable alike to black and white, will be provided."

This is the way the game is to be played. Congress is to checkmate the President's "mild and generous method" (if possible,) and the Southern States are to be kept out of the Union until they agree to adopt negro suffrage--that is, until they agree to lay down all political rights and power at the feet of the blacks and demagogues who intend to control them. When this shall be effected Government bonds are to be worth to shoddy speculators TEN PER CENT, PREMIUM and the New England fanatics and Pennsylvania demagogues expect to reign forever.

How do the people of Pennsylvania like the radical programme laid down for them by Butler and Stevens, and Sumner and Cameron, and the rest of the shoddy leaders and bondholders? Are they prepared to allow the negroes to vote to keep shoddy theives in power, and they are willing that NEGRO vote shall add TEN PER CENT PREMIUM TO BONDS THAT ARE NOW FREE OF TAX while the working classes are so heavily burthened to pay the interest on them? We trust not? Let them vote for LINTON and DAVIS and all will be well.

Contrary to the intimations given out from Washington, Secretary McCulloch has published a detailed statement of the public debt, as it stood on the 31st of August. The exhibit is more favorable than the country expected. Had it been withheld, the public creit would have lost the advantage which must attend the knowledge that the increase of the debt for the month is very small.

We trust that the wholesome practice thus continued may not again be interrupted or relinquished, until the current revenue exceeds the expenditures, the debt is all funded, and the liabilities of the government are so fixed that they undergo no important changes from month to month. We are not aware that there is any law requiring these regular statements; but their obvious propriety, their advantage to the business public, and the protection which they afford against unfounded, mistaken, or exaggerated rumors as to the condition of the government finances, ought to be considered as controlling reasons in favor of the practice. There is, to be sure, a law, passed in 1844, requiring the Secretary of the Treasury to publish monthly statements but not statements of the public debt; only of the amount of money in the several government depositories, and of drafts made against it. This law is in the words following:

"That the Secretary of the Treasury cause to be published in some newspaper of the City of Washington, on the first day of each month, the last preceding weekly statement of the Treasurer of the United States, showing the amount to his credit in the mint of other depositories, the amount for which drafts have been given, and those remaining unpaid, and the balance remaining subject to his draft; and that he also specially note any changes that may have been made in the depositories of the treasury during the preceding month, and report to Congress, at the commencement of the next session, the reason for such changes.

The law, it will be seen, does not require the kind of statements now furnished by Secretary McCulloch; but though he is under no legal compulsion to furnish them, their great and obvious utility should prevent his intermitting the practice.

The gratifying feature of the new statement is the smallness of the increase of the public debt during the month, the increase, being less than half a million, of one eigth of the daily expenditure during some periods of the war. The following figures exhibit the increase for the month:

Next to the unexpected smallness of this augmentation, the point of most interests in connection with the new statement, is its bearing on the further inflation of the currency. This question is so complex that the figures of the Secretary do not enable us to solve it, although they suffice to indicate some possibilities. The amount of legal tender circulation has decreased during the month $1,099,310, which, though small compared with the whole amount, is so far as it goes, favorable. A slow contraction is better than further expansion. But although the amount of legal tenders in circulation has diminished, the volume of the currency has nevertheless increased, by new issues of national bank notes much larger than the withdrawn legal tenders so that the currency is more expanded than it was at the beginning of the last month.--The great vacuum which is opened in the South, and the money required for moving the grain crops of the West, have some tendency to rectify the reduncancy, by large uses for money during the autumn months.

The great amount of coin in the treasury ($15,435,771) will operate in two different and opposite ways on the price of gold. It tends to increase the proper and legitimate price as regulated by supply and demand, and it tends, at the same time, to keep down fictitious and artificial prices blown up by the combinations of speculators. The keeping of so large an amount of gold locked up in the treasury, where it is inaccessible to the business community, has an effect on its price similar to what would be produced on the price of grain, if the government should store half the wheat in the country in public granaries; to be kept against a year of famine. It makes gold higher to every person who has occasion to buy it, and the government compels the whole mercantile community to be large purchasers for the payment of duties on imported goods. This constant taking of gold out of the channels of business and hoarding it producing an artificial scarcity, which will grow more and more artingent as long as the policy is persisted in.

It cannot be pretended that this accumulation of coin in the treasury is a necessary safe-guard to the public credit. All the government needs is to make sure of its ability to pay the interest on its gold bearing bonds. This interest is only sixty-four millions and a half per annum, payable in July and January. The interest due next January is thrity-two millions and a quarter, and as the gold received from customs is ten millions a month there would be left a surplus of eight millions on the first of January, if the treasury did not possess a dollar of the present accumulation. The government is impairing its own credit by creating a needless scarcity of the article by which the value of its notes are measured.

The only offset to this evil is the power which the possession of so much coin gives the government to break down any combination to carry up the price of gold, by lowering the price, at its pleasure, and ruining the speculators. But it could do this as effectually with a surplus of fifteen millions as with a surplus of forty-five. If it poured out thirty millions into the channels of trade, it would lower the price by increasing the supply, and still retain the power (if it thinks such a policy expedient) to repress speculation.

This tremendous power over the price of gold, and, through it, over the prices of all other commodities, should never be possessed by any public officer, however upright and pure. It is too susceptible of abuse.--Let him make what use of it he will, he is so exposed to imputations, that a man of sensitive honor would hardly know how to act. He has a wolf by the ears, and he can neither hold it nor safely let it go. If Mr. McCulloch hoards gold, he produces an artificial scarcity which injures alike the business of the country and the public credit, if he sells it, he makes or breakes fortunes, and if he has any confidants their friends are likely to profit by their knowledge. This is one of the infinite mischiefs of having one kind of money for the government and another for the people.

In the United States there are about 60,000 common schools, which are supported in part by the State Treasury, and partly by school funds, and school taxes. In England and Wales there are 46,042 public and private schools, attended by 2,144,378 scholars. In addition there are 1,545 evening schools, which provided for 39,783 children. The number of Sunday schools is 23,514, with 2,407,642 scholars. It is estimated that in England there is a scholar for every 8.35 persons. In Scotland about one-seventh of the people are at at school, while in the United States there is one scholar for every five persons. In Russia only one child for about 200 persons receives instruction in school so that while at 9 o'clock on every Monday morning there are 4,000,000 American boys and girls at school, there are in Russia only 100,000 enjoying the benefit of instruction.

It is only necessary to give the Democratic State and county tickets a complete triumph, that every Democratic voter should be at the polls on Tuesday next. It is the important duty of every lover of constitutional freedom, to cast his vote, in this emergency for the right men. The white man's party alone have the capacity and power to regulate the government, and to bring it back to the principles and purity of its founders. The evils brought upon the country by the so-called Republican party, are almost too greivous to be borne; and not content with evils already inflicted, they threaten us with still greater ones.

Thus stands their record. They have arrested and incarcerated our citizens in government Bastiles, not only without probable cause, but also without legal warrant, and after dishonoring them to the extent of their power, have discharged them without trial and have scoffed at their demands for justice. They have denied to the people the right of free speech and a free press, rights, the existence of which form the very bulwarks of freedom, and are formidable to tyrants only. They have, in a great measure made the civil subordinate to the military power, and have established a multitude of dangerous courts, for the trial of persons suspected of crime unknown to the Constitution and laws of the land.

It is contemplated by the leaders of that party, in defiance of the Constitution, to confiscate all the large estates of the people of the rebellious States, ostensibly to apply the proceeds to the payment of the national debt, and to pay pensioners, but in reality to find offices and emoluments for partisan officials. The reason assigned for this effort to excite the rapacity and cupidity of the North against the widowed families of our Southern neighbors, is the devilish maxim that to the "victors belong the spoils."--To this end they affect to treat them as "foreign States" and "alien enemies."--

With one breath they protest most stoutly that those States could not escape from the restraints of the Constitution, and therefore large armies were marshalled to enforce obedience to its authority; and with the next they aver with still greater vehemence, that they are out of the Union and must be treated as "alien enemies." In other words they are within the Union for all the purposes of obedience to the mandates of the Constitution, and out of it for all purposes of spoliation and robbery. It is even suggested by the violent and fanatical of that party, that the rebellious States shall not be permitted a voice in the national councils, through their Congressmen, for a generation and that Congress shall usurp the legislative powers of the States and give the ignorant negroes of the South the right of suffrage and social equality.

The execution of these measures would maintain the strife between the two sections for many years, would involve the necessity of a large standing army, add immensely to our present ruinous debt, the payment of which would swallow up the profits of the labor, skill and industry of our people, and ultimately produce national bankruptcy.

These evils are great, but by a reference to the public prints, it will be seen that still greater ones are threatened by that same party. It is proposed to give the African the right to the "ballot-box" and the right to the "jury-box," and also to give him "social equality." It is true that a very large portion of the rank and file of that party object to these views. But others and by far the most active of the party are resolutely bent on enforcing them.

The Democracy alone can extricate the nation from this peril. They alone can reestablish the government on its old foundation; they alone can bring back the purity of the election franchise, and retrenchment and reform of the expenses of the government. They alone can save the nation form the horrible dogmas of negro suffrage and negro equality dogmas which are not only disgusting to the great majority of the white race, but which stand arrayed against the Decrees of Providence.

The misrule and usurpations of the party in its brief existence demonstrate their unfitness for civil rule, and their fanatical doctrines with regard to the black man show they are unworthy for the confidence of a free and enlightened people. Let no such party be trusted.

We would also call the attention of voters to the fact that whilst the Democratic party in the Legislature have uniformly voted for the payment of the damages sustained by the citizens of our valley during the war, the Republican party with the same unanimity have opposed the measure. If our citizens wish to be compensated for their losses they must sustain the Democracy. Let the Democracy arouse in the power of their might and defeat the enemy. Let every man give at least two days to his country at this crisis; one in getting out the voters to the polls, and the other to the election day, in seeing that every vote is cast for the Constitution and the country.

We have no other laws to fix the qualifications of voters than our own Acts of Assembly and every man that comes within these requirements is entitled to his vote.

IMPORTANT TO DESERTERS AND NON-REPORTING DRAFTED MEN:

We learn that a systematic effort is being made in certain parts of the county to prevent deserters form the army, and persons who failed to report when drafted from voting. And it is further said, that the late Provost Marshal of this district has furnished lists of such persons, and that partizans have been employed to visit those persons with a view to terrify them from the polls; and also to terrify the election officers from receiving such votes.

From the Provost Marshal we had no reason to expect better conduct, and all good men will rejoice that his day is over. And we could not expect much else from our opponents. They fear the loss of power and office; but from Boards of sworn election officers we expect the strict performance of duty according to law.

The several acts of assembly prescribe the qualifications of voters, and every man that comes within their description is entitled to vote. DESERTERS AND NON-REPORTING MEN HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE. There is no law against it. There is not even an act of Congress which forbids it.--If there were it would be void, because the legislature is the only power that can fix the qualifications of voters in Pennsylvania.

Let every voter be resolute and take witnesses to the offer of this vote. If any attempt be made to violate oaths of office and the Election laws, THERE ARE PENALTIES WHICH CAN AND WILL BE ENFORCED AGAINST ALL SUCH OFFENDERS.

Messrs. Hartranft and Campbell stand upon a platform which takes the ground that the war has been a failure and that the Southern States are out of the Union;

Messrs. Hartranft and Campbell stand upon a platform that is in favor of confiscating the Southern lands for the use of the negroes;

Messrs. Hartranft and Campbell stand upon a platform which is opposed to the taxation of Government securities, and consequently in favor of taxing the poor for the benefit of the rich;

Messrs. Hartranft and Campbell stand upon a platform which declares for a high protective tariff for the benefit of manufacturers at the expense of the consumer a tariff to make the rich richer and the poor poorer;

Messrs. Hartranft and Campbell stand upon a platform which is designed as the entering wedge to secure votes for negroes in all the Southern States and in Pennsylvania; and

Messrs. Hartranft and Campbell stand upon a platform which is directly opposed to the "mild and generous method of reconstrutcion" now being successfully carried out by President Johnson.

Can any Voter of Pennsylvania cast a ballot for these gentlemen while upon a platform opposed to the poor man's rights, to a white man's government, and to the Federal authorities who are successfully engaged in restoring the Union? Most certainly not!

With Major-General Hartranft, the Republican candidate for Auditor General, says the Easton Sentinel we have been on intimate personal terms for sixteen years past--almost from his boyhood--and against his personal character or his lilitary record, we have not one word to say. There is one act of his, however, that we cannot reconcile with the acts of his past life--and that is, the superintending of the hanging of a woman--Mrs. Surratt. His officiation in the capacity of chief hangman, a business which, Gen. Sherman very appropriately says, belongs to Sheriffs and not to soldiers, might not be considered a wrong, were it not for the fact, that in this case, he publicly declared, over his own signature, that he believed the victim innocent How a man with his high sense of duty and exalted rank in the army, could so degrade himself as to assist in hanging a woman for a crime of which he says he believed her innocent, we cannot imagine. Had this proposition been presented to him before he became confaminated with the influences of the shoddy party and the doctrine of negro equality, we are sure he would have resented it with indidgnity, and would have resigned a thousand commissions, did he possess them, rather than do that which he believed to be wrong. But such is the result of his political affiliations, and we leave him to settle the matter with his own conscience. Reader, is a man who will hang a woman, who he believes to be innocent, a fit person to receive your votes for a high and responsible civil position? We ask the question, from you must come the answer.

Soldiers! you who have borne the brunt of battle and carried the musket, REMEMBER that the Black Republican, Abolition, Negro Voting, and Negro Equality party ENDEAVORED to rob the OLD ARMY OF THE POTOMAC of their dearly earned laurels, of the CAPTURE OF RICHMOND, and tired to give it to the NEGROES:

Soldiers! do not forget that the party headed by Hartranft in this State openly proclaimed that NEGROES WERE BETTER SOLDIERS THAN WHITE MEN WERE.

Soldiers! do not forget that the ABOLITIONISTS fixed up nice comfortable barracks for NEGROES and made you camp out in the open field. Soldiers! you are now FREE to vote as you please, and we conjure you that IF YOU WOULD PRESERVE YOURSELVES, YOUR WIVES AND CHILDREN from the DISGRACE of being reduced to the LEVEL of the NEGRO, vote the whole Democratic Ticket.