The south-western. [volume] (Shreveport, La.) 1852-1870, 1865-06-28
Cnnsa Cotton BONDS.

LONDON NEws.-I feel
very grateful, and SO 90 ma h0lticrs OF Con
federate cotton bonds, for your impartlalitytIn
inserting my letter. did consult an able inter
national lawyer before | bought my bonds, ard
he laid down the law as you represented it, viz:
That loan to either belligerent is not ineonsis-
tent with neutrality, and that whenever peace
came the debts of both belligerents to the neu-
trails must be recognised. The inducement of
nine-tenths of the holders of these bonds to buy
them was that they had the option OF eXchang-
ing them for cotton at cd. per 10. six months
after peace had been signed. This, viii venture
to assert, was the indueement for nine-tenths of
the holders of Confederate cotton bonds to buy
them, and not hostility to the northern States;
and most certainly we did not lend our money
to Mr.. Davis, but to the Confederate States.
| ask not the north to assume the Confederate
cotton debt; all | ask for is, that the south may
be suffered to pay it, for although the Confed-
eracy may be extinguished by the south laying
down their arms, the States that formed the
Confederacy still exist
Whether those States had a right or otherwise
to secede from the Union | know not. You
think they had not; they thought they had; but
if the north hold them as cOnquerOrS, aad do
away with their State rights and independence,
they must in Justice assume their liabilities of
which the Confederate cotton loan is one. You
state that if the government of the Union
should eVerassume, any portion of the secession
debt 1t would not be on the ground of duty or
right, but as means of facilitating peace
entirely agree with you thatan act of Justice |
recognising and paying the Confederate cotton
debt would tend greatly to facilitate peace, but |
feel convinced that the north will do so on higher
grounds, VIZ, sense of justice toward neutrals,
and that if necessary they will parcel this debt 7
among certain States lately confederated, and tax
the export of cotton until every shilling of the T
debt is discharged
l need not add that, whether the holders of
cotton bonds have been foolish or otherwise in
advancing their money, they will feel grateful to
you for allowing their views to be made public
through your columns, for the cotton loan, be-
cause 1t was a cotton loan, was raised at 80, and
Is now at 10, and they have at least sustained a
loss of e., 5000 OF this fact no difference
of opinion can exist. am, ETC., n.
REPLY OF THE EDITOR OF THE NEws.-0ur
correspondent must have misunderstood his
lawyer, who could only have spoken as a polti-
clan, contemplating a peace signed by power
with power, when he said that the debts of the
Confederacy must be recognised The induce
ment to lend was no doubt that which M"
puG The SeIJiHS COIGOn al Oh. per Id.
was contingent on the success of the Confeder-
ltes They failed-no peace has been signed
The Union government maintained that the Sc
oeded States have never been legally out of the
Union; and that no persons had a right to con
tract debt with "M" and his fellow bondhold-
ers in their name to the injury of the larger
political body Of which they formed part. In
their view, therefore, the obligation of paying
5he Confederate debt has no existence either as
binding on the Union or on the southern States
M. " confounds belligerency with independence
If the government OF the United States had re-
2ognised the Confederacy as an independent
power, and afterwards absorbed its component
states, 1t would have been bound to assume its
lebts-but only then. The government and
people of the Union have been fighting to hold
| section of the whole body to its federal oblga-
ions, and this implies the prohibition of any act l
contrary to those obligations. We fear IN. F." Is
mistaken in supposing that Mr.. johnson would
please the people Of the south by taxing them
low to pay off Confederate bonds There was
time, perhaps SO late as the conference at
Hampton roads, when such an act would have 4
perhaps saved them suffering and woe such as &
We have rarely seen in our days. but that occasion
vas allowed to pass unimproved, and the people,
II their deep distress, have enough to think about
Without caring for those who too inconsiderately
furnished their leaders with the means of ruin
M. is just in the condition of a creditor whose
iebtor has died leaving no executor and no J
assets.