Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1871 — Republican Achievements. [ARTICLE]

Republican Achievements.

Both in war and in peace the Republican party has marked its way by achievements of a most beneficent character. It has wrestled- with and overthrown national corruptions to which all other l>arties were held subservient. Mightier foes never confronted any party, and grander or more complete triumphs were never before gained by any party. That patliized with by a powerful faction in the loyal section as weli as embracing the entire force of eleven of the States of the Union. It abolished slavery, restored the national authority, established order, and gave to the people of all races and of every condition t heir proper places of citizens andvoters in a free republic* making us what no other republic has ever been, a nation with no class of its male citizens permanently shut out from a share in the government. The moral triumphs and the martial victories of our cause have been grand and glorious, but they have not been our only achievements. The Republican part}’ has given the country a revenue system, wisely adapted to the necessities and exigencies of the times, which, without a change in the principle which pervades it, may be readjusted and modified as circumstances and contingencies may require. Under that system the country has been prosperous and free from financial disaster and revulsion to on extent never known for any ten years of our previous history. Our cities have grown as if conjured up by the power of Ithuriel’s wand. Our manufactures have advanced to a higli degree of perfection. Capital has found remunerative investments, and labor has been in- constant demand and has been more highly remunerated than ever before. The farmer has had a ready sale for all his. products, with nearer market* and better pay than he ever knew before. And, notwithstanding the opposition and denunciation with which interested combinations have met that system, the country has grone forward with more steadiness and less interruption than was known in the days when the Democracy bore the burdens of the government. But not the least of the triumphs of this party of reform has been vanquishing the treacherous, inconvenient, heterogeneous l>aper currency with which the Democracy cursed the country. State banks, with their currency, like the doctrine of State rights was a source of immense mischief and loss. The currency of Ohio was at a heavy discount in New York. The currency of one State was sometimes by law interdicted from entering another. Counterfeiters then had their golden age. Bank note detectors were a household necessity. Every mail brought news of bank failures, and set every man to inspecting the contents of his pocket book to see how much ’the latest bank-break had cost him. Happily for the country, all this is changed. We have a safe national currency—good from Maine to Texas. Bill-holders handle it without fear. It has one value all over this great continent. The money the Ohio or Indiana merchant takes for goods at his counter redeems his obligations without cost in the cities of New York or Baltimore.—Toledo Blade.