e 1135: New York _World_, October 4, 1867.]

Seymour, with his usual dexterity, declined to commit himself or his
party to any decided policy. Although he would "keep the public
faith," and "not add repudiation to the list of crimes which destroy
confidence in republican governments," his arguments shed no light on
the meaning of those words. He declared that "waste and corruption had
piled up the national debt," and that it was "criminal folly to exempt
bonds from taxation." Then, entering into a general discussion of
finance, he arraigned the war party for its extravagance, infidelity,
and plundering policy. "Those who hold the power," he said, "have not
only hewed up to the line of repudiation, but they have not tried to
give value to the public credit. It is not the bondholder, it is the
office holder who sucks the blood of the people. If the money
collected by the government was paid to lessen our debt we could
command the specie of the world. We could gain it in exchange for our
securities as the governments of Europe do. Now, they are peddled out
at half price in exchange for dry-goods and groceries. The reports of
the Secretary of the Treasury show that we could swiftly wipe out our
debt if our income was not diverted to partisan purposes. Do not the
columns of the press teem with statements of official plunder and
frauds in every quarter of our land, while public virtue rots under
this wasteful expenditure of the public fund? It is said it is
repudiation to force our legal tenders upon the bondholders. What
makes it so? The low credit of the country. Build that up; make your
paper as good as gold, and this question cannot come up. The
controversy grows out of the fact that men do not believe our legal
tenders ever will be as good as gold. If it is repudiation to pay such
money, it is repudiation to make it, and it is repudiation to keep it
debased by waste and by partisan plans to keep our country in disorder
and danger."[1136]

[Footnote 1136: New York _World_, October 4, 1867.]

Perhaps no American ever possessed a more irritating way of presenting
the frailties of an opposite party. The unwholesome sentiment of his
Tweddle Hall and draft-riot speeches, so shockingly out of key with
the music of the Union, provoked the charge of sinning against clear
light; but ordinarily he had such a faculty for skilfully blending
truth with hyperbole in a daring and spirited argument that Greeley,
who could usually expo