Blair, even if a worse man than
Horatio Seymour was at the head of the ticket." Oliver P. Morton, the
war-Governor of Indiana, had been equally vigorous in his language;
and practical politicians foresaw that even Pennsylvania and Indiana
might be lost to the Republican party with these men arrayed against
it. Therefore the cunning proposal to postpone this discussion "until
after the excitement of a Presidential election was over, and we could
discuss this with the calmness with which we should view all great
financial questions." The hint was taken, the contest of 1868 was fought
under a seeming acquiescence in the views of Stevens and Morton; the
dear people were hoodwinked with catch-phrases coined to deceive, and a
new lease of power was secured by false pretence. But when the
excitement of the election had passed, and there was no longer any
danger of "injuring the Republican party," all discussion was stifled;
and the first act signed by the newly elected President was that which
had been laid aside for that season of "calmness with which we
should view all great financial questions."

The next step in the conspiracy was a logical sequence to all that had
preceded. Having secured coin payment of interest and principal of all
bonds, it was now in order to still further increase the value of the
one and to perpetuate the payment of the other. To this end, silver
was demonetized by a trick in the revision of the Statutes, reducing
the volume of coin one-half, and decreasing the probability of rapid
bond payments. Then the volume of the paper currency was contracted by
a systematic course of substituting interest-bearing bonds for
non-interest-bearing currency, and the first chapter of financial
blunders and crimes of the Wall Street servants ended in a panic,
revealing, in its first wild terror, the disgraceful connection of
high public officials with the worst elements of stock-jobbery.

It is possible that a direct proposition in 1865, to double the amount
of the public debt as a free gift to the creditor-class, might have
caused such a clamor as would have forever driven from power its
authors, and have silenced the claims of modern Republicans that they
were the sole friends of the soldier, and defenders of national honor.
But the financial legislation of the Republican party has done more
and worse than this. Its every act has been in the interest of a
favored class, and a direct and flagrant robbery of the p