Mr. ROGERS. I have read the resolutions of the Democratic conventions of NewJersey, NewYork, and of the other States, and they all take round, as President Johnson in his message oes, against a privileged class in this country being exempted from taxation. f we have no constitutional power to tax these bondholders, then I am opposed to doing it, as I will not violate the Constitution. But if we have a right, and it is equal justice, as I am attempting to show in my argument, then I am in favor of taxing them. I profess to be a man of the people, and to have the interests and feelings of the downtrodden and hard working miliions of this country at heart, rather than those who staid at home during the 4 years of bloody war, while the poor men went to the battle field, and now, when the poor soldier comes back from the war to his little homestead, purchased with the small bounty that he received, while he has to pay a tax on his house and lot for State, county, and school purposes, I propose that the rich aris tocrats who have remained at home and invested all their money in Government securities shall not be exempted from taxation. The principles of justice demand that the holders of these Federal securities, this bonded aristocrac, should pay their equal share of the taxes of the country and I am here today, without fear of what may come, to maintain as long as there is breath in my body the principle of equal taxation, and to denounce the aristocratic element in this country, which rides over the rights of the masses of the people by being exempted from taxation to the amount of $3,000,000,000, with the exception of the paltry income tax of 5%. I do not deny that a State can bind itself by act of its Legislature to the performance of n solemn contract, nor that the Federal Government may also bind itself by not of Congressin alike contract; but it must be an act embodying a contract and not a simple law. A solemn contract ought not to be violated; but there is no such contract in the case. I am opposed to repudiation, and yet I take the ground here as a legal argument, and I defy contradiction by any lawyer on either side of the House, that the Federal Government, in the exercise of its constitutional power, if it sees fit, has a right by act of congress to repudiate the payment of every sing e dollar of the whole delit and if the Federal Government has the power to repudiate this debt, will any man stand hereand undertake to question the power of the Federal Congress to impose a just tax upon that debt, to make the holders of it ay their just share of taxation necessary to ct ect the required purposes of the Federal and State governments I Sir, I am well convinced there is not a man north of Mason and Dixons line who for one moment would countenance even the faintest attein t looking toward repudiation. I am not here or the purpose of sustaining any such doctrine. I am here for sustaining the great rights of millions of peeple of this country who are burdened with the payment of taxes. Look at my State alone. By the law of the State of NewJersey a citizen of a school district can be taxed to build a school house. Take, if you please, a poor man with 6 children, who has invested his savings in building for himself and family a little house. Perhaps it is the bounty whichis the result ofhis labors in the armies of the country, defending the Union of these States. He will be taxed for the construction of a schoolhouse in the school district where he lives. Take another man, a neighbor of his in the same district, with 3 children, who is worth say $000,000. The man with the 6 children wentto the war and risked his life in defense of his country, while the man with $600,000 remained at home, and as soon as bonds were offered in the market invested every single dollar in them. After the war, when the soldier comes back, and the tax gatherer goes around and taxes him, he collects a tax from him to build the school house, while the rich man, with his $000,000 invested in Government securities is not called upon to pay a single cent of taxation for the construction of the school house in which his own 3 children are educated. Is itjust or properthat the rich man should be exempt from taxation and it should be imposed alone upon the poor man? Why should this rich man, with $600,000 invested in Government securities, be exempt from aying one single cent toward building that school house, when the poor soldier is taxed upon his small savings for that purpose? When I see the poor man thus taxed to edu cate not only his own children, but the children of the rich man, and the rich man exein ted altogether from taxation, I think I would be lost to the duty which I owe to my country and to that glrand principle of equal taxation which lies at the foundation of the American Govemment and to the memory of our fore fathers, who so strenuously protested against unequal taxation by the English Parliament, if I did not raise my voice in behalf of the working, mercantile, and farming classes of this country, who, under this law, have such injustice inflicted upon them. The Constitution also slys that no State shall make anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender, but it nowhere says the Federal government shall not do it, et the Supreme Court has decided, because there was no express restraining clause in the Constitution prohibiting the Federal Government from making anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender. that “greenbacks” were a legal tender, and t“hat the Government could compel us to take greenbacks" as gold and silver. In the same way it prohibits a State from impairing the obigation of ii contract, yet it nowhere prohibits the Federal Government from impairing the obligation ofacontraet. Because the constitution of the U.S. has lodged in the Federal Government that power, it is just, legal, right, proper, and equitable to make every man in this country, however rich or however poor, pay tax on the amount of funds he has invested in any property without regard towhat that property may be. Ta e the State of newJersey. Suppose that State has $100,000 worth of taxable property, and that $96,000 of it were investerfin government securities, then there would only be $4,000 in the whole State for it to lay its tax upon, in order to carry on its government. If this rule is to be carried out, it might go to an unlimited extent, and deprive N ewJersey of all taxation of her own citizens to carry on the necessary functions of her own State government. Where is the man who professes to love the principles of the Democratic party, and follow the doctrines of Thomas Je person who will deny that equal taxation is just and right, or that in this country, upon the broad principle of liberty and justice, every man on ht to pay taxes in reportion to the amount ofhis property? Sir, there is one thing which will drive the republican party from power, if nothing else wil; and that is this: if they refuse to authorize the taxation of these Government secu rities the masses will at some future day rise in indignation, determined that this bonded aris tocracy, exempt from taxation, shall not exist in this country. No one upon the other side pretends to den that the federal Government is endowed with the power to exercise this taxation. Why, then, should men who have invested their money in Government securities ese ape taxation? They bought those securities when gold was worth 160 to 260. They bought them with green backs. Many of these securities are payable in gold. The holders of them have realized from 12 to 15 %. They have been exempted from taxation now for about 3 years. 1 want to know why they should be exempted an longer.