Charles Sumner

The national existence depended upon money, which could be had only through a forced loan.

I do not speak of that patriotic character which commends the national debt, but of the financial principle on which the greenback was first issued.

To stop that extra interest we must keep faith.

It is with our country, as with an individual,--the doubt obliges the payment of extra interest.

Many of these taxes, imposed under duress of war, will be removed soon, I trust; but still the enormous sum of forty millions annually must be contributed by the labor of the country, until the world is convinced, that, in spite of…

Every workman pays it in his food and clothing; every mechanic and artisan, in his tools; every housewife, in her cooking-stove and flat-iron; every merchant, in the stamp upon his note; every man of salary, in the income tax; ay, every…

It is hard to see this immense treasure wrung by taxation from the toil of the people to pay these devices of a dishonest Democracy.

The sum-total of this loss directly chargeable upon the Repudiators is more than one hundred millions, already paid in taxes; and much I fear, fellow-citizens, that, before the nation can recover from the discredit inflicted upon it…

It is easy to see that our debt could have been funded without paying more than four per cent., but for the doubt cast upon our credit by the dishonest schemes of Repudiation.

This, of course, is to break the contract in another way.

Another device is to tax the bonds, when the money was lent on the positive condition that the bonds should not be taxed.

Its proposer would never do this thing in his own affairs; but how can he ask his country to do what honesty forbids in private life?

Interest-bearing bonds are to be paid with non-interest-bearing bits of paper.

Although, in its present more moderate form, it is limited to payment by existing greenbacks, yet it has the same radical injustice.

Here, in plain terms, is repudiation of the interest and indefinite postponement of the principal.

But analyze the two, and you will see that in each private property is taken by the nation without compensation, and appropriated to its own use.

Between two enactments, one requiring the surrender of property without compensation, and the other declaring that the nation shall not and will not pay an equal amount according to solemn promise, there can be no just distinction.

When I expose Repudiation as Confiscation, I mean to be precise.

With unparalleled generosity the nation has refused to confiscate Rebel property; and now it is proposed to confiscate Loyal property.

Repudiation means Confiscation, and in the present case confiscation of the property of loyal citizens.

I denounce them all, whether device or muttering; and I denounce that political party which lends itself to the outrage.

They begin by subtle devices; but already the mutterings of open Repudiation are heard.

But there are men who would degrade our Republic to this wretched condition.

As the fallen drunkard illustrates the evils of intemperance, so does Mississippi illustrate the evils of Repudiation.

The conduct of a few States has not only destroyed their own credit and left their sister States very little to boast of, but has so materially affected the credit of the whole Union that it was found impossible to negotiate in Europe any…