The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-02-21
consolidating State Debts.


WE admire bold move on the political
chess-board. The financial message Of the
Governor was designed to be such move.
He dashes his queen down to the front,
threatening his opponent with scholar
mate before the game is fairly opened.
The next gubernatorial election offers a
much coveted prize to his party, and the
United States senatership, which will be at
the disposal of the Legislature to be
elected next autumn, is no mere
glittering bauble in the opinion Of
the Governor. 1t is something
worth fighting for and he proposes to take
the financial bull by the horns, head him
square round on the Conservative track,
il the hope of smashing up the Republican
train which IS now laundering down upon
this financial swindle, and threatening to
carry everything before it. This is very
adrot move. Railroad engineers under
stand perfectly well the danger Of striking
bull in the rear. With his head lowered
and neck stifened to receive the approach
ing train, while paving the track and LASH
ing his sides in rage, there is little
if any danger except to the bull.
He is certain to be hurled into the
air, and thrown sheer off the track at the
first blow of the engine, without materi-
ally impeding the speed of the train, or
endangering in the least those on board of
it. But turn him round--let him be
struck in the rear-and, though the bull
may not survive the shock, the train is q
wreck in spite of all engineering tact that
may be summoned in sudden emergency,
such as may arise in turning short and
unexpected corner in politics.
The Funding bill of 1871 was pet mea-
sure of His Excellency, the Governor. 1t
was supposed to have originated in mea-
sure in his own fertile brain, and to have
owed what little vitality it possessed to his
advocacy and support. But the bill, as
financial measure, has turned out to be
about as Intellectual as the Pope's bull
against the comet, if not as dangerous to
the party devising it as mad Thracian bull
incapable of executive management and so
he is turned tail to for the approach
of the Republican train. We propose to
clear the track of this sort of obstruction.
To this end we shall consider the special
MESSAGE of the Governor in such of its
features as are at once obnoxious to criti-
cism.
The Governor, in substance, recon-
mends the Legislature to use its efforts to
induce the general government to as
sumo and pay all the present legal in
debtedness of the several states, and also
to bring about solemn agreement between
the states to abstain from the contracting
of any debts in future, except such as may
be found necessary to the legitimate and
effective execution of their governmental
functions, or as may be required by sud-
den and great emergencies. The former of
these propositions must be accomplished
by an act of Congress, while the latter
can be achieved only through an
amendment to the Federal constitution,
And resolutions have been introduced in
the Legislature in accordance with the re-
commentator submitted.
This suggestion is not a new one. 1t has
been proposed in various political circles
before. Our opposition to it is that it has
no merit except that of perpetratrng
double swindle on the American people.
The Governor does not expect the North
ern states, which have been paying off
their debts since the war with most COM
mendable alacrity, to enlist in this raid
upon the federal treasury. 1t is
only the corrupt and profigate state gov.
ernments, which have contracted debts
without stint or limit since the war, and
which have been, in some instances, under
what he would call carpet-bag rule,"
which he expects will come into this nice
little arrangement with him. The debts
created by these states were, in the first
instance, a fraud upon the people of the
states, connived at by the bond-holders
negotiating their loans, and the scheme pro-
posed would not only increase the extent
of the fraud, but put it upon the shoulders
Of the whole people, when it ought to rest
solely upon those who gave it counte-
nance and support by their suffrage in the
first instance.
Nest of these state debts do not repre-
sent in value over fifty cents on the dollar,
and some of them are downright
swindles on the people, like the
compound interest swindle in
our own Funding bill and it is proposed
to lift about three hundred millions Of
these deprecated and worthless bonds to
the rank Of first-class securities in the
American market. If this does not look
like the bond-holders having prodigious
finger in the pie, as well as one exhaustive
of the chief plums therein, we never vet
saw a cat patent under the meal.
We do not except Virginia from the cat.
egory of states creating these fraudulent
debts, and putting them, or seeking to do
SO, upon the shoulders of the people.
Admitting that the Virginia of to-day is
the identical one of 1861, and that she,
and she alone, contracted the ante-bellum