Political matters in Tennessee have begun to assume shape. The poor, down trodden Unionists, who have stood up for the Government amid the most terrible oppression, once more have the recognizance of their rights. Tennessee would gladly take her former position in the Union, but that cannot be. She has been one of the most violent of the Confederacy and she should not be permitted to return again to her allegiance, possessing the State rights she had before she raised her parricidal hand against the Government. She is one of those States that have brought so much misery, bloodshed and debt upon our country and it will be an outrage upon the loyal States, if she be permitted to return to the Union vested with all the rights, privileges and immunities she possessed before she sought to overthrow the Government.
In quelling this attempt of certain states, banded together as a separate Confederacy, to dissever the Union, our Government has contracted an enormous debt. The question now arises, who is to pay this indebtedness? Shall the citizens of the loyal States be assessed to cancel a debt incurred in defending the Government against an attempted subversion by a few rebellious states? Or shall the rebels who have brought the debt upon the Government be made to liquidate it? Common sense teaches the latter, and no one, unless he directly sympathizes with the rebels will object to the passage of an act confiscating their property for that purpose. Some discrimination must be made in favor of those citizens of these rebellious States who have not participated nor sympathized in the movement. A general tax would effect all alike. We can see no alternative but a confiscation for the use of the Government, of all the property, both real and personal, of every man in the Southern States who has aided or abetted in any shape whatever in this monstrous treason against the Government.
– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, February 27, 1862, p. 2
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