The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-02-22
CONSOLIDATING state Debts.

N~Dse
ton of the autonomy of the states and the
absorption by the Federal government of
one of the most vital powers and AUCTIONS of
free state. There is no more reason why
the states should be inhibited from raising
money for the legitimate purposes of
government than there is that the
Federal government should be similarly
restrained by organic inhibition. And
then the proposition that the states should
part with this vital element in their politi-
cal autonomy for consideration paid by
the Federal government, is equivalent to
the sale by Esau of his birthright for a
mess of pottage. Nay, so far as
Virginia is concerned, it is worse;
for there is no shadow of claim
upon her to pay debt she never
contracted and for which she never re-
ceived any consideration. She would be
selling her political birthright, not for an
insignificant mess of pottage, but for the
mere shadow Of such mess as somebody
else had eaten, and grown very lean upon
at that.
Leiber, in his Political Ethics, says that
when governments pass laws which are
manifestly against the spirit of the times.
and which cannot be obeyed whatever the
law may demand, may and must be dis
obeyed." This principle has been widely
recognized even in despotic governments,
and is of much broader application IN re-
public. A law which imposes such burdens
upon the people that they cannot meet
them without sacrificing the chief ends for
which society is primarily organized as the
basis and superstructure Of government
itself, is law, as Leiber says, that "may
and must be disoboyed." But we would
add what we conceive to be clearer and
more distinct principle of political ethics,
that all laoes should be disobeyed aOhich ,u,-
lamfm authority seeks 10 impose upon as /;
for when a people become so base as to
cringe to unlawful authority, and suffer
such impositions us are impossible of COM
pliance. except as their entire industry shall
be made slave and vassal Of grand plu-
tocracy, then government loses sight of the
ends for which it was created, and liberty
degenerates into abject servitude and
license.
AS to the compound interest feature of
the funding bill Of ls7l-even admitting that
the new Virginia is liable for the entire in
debtedness of the old-there was no au-
thority conferred upon the General Assem-
bly, to fasten any greater liability upon the
State than what actually existed as legal
and equitable obligation to pay. We have
shown that the interest on the old State
debt during the war was suspended, and
should have been treated as suspended in
terest. But the originators of the funding
bill, eager to impose the largest amount of
Indebtedness upon the people of the State,
lost all sight of such legal and equitable
rule, and funded nearly eleven millions Of
back interest (the chief part of which was
suspended by reason of the war; in bonds
having thirty-lour years to run, and actual
ly taking out Of the people Of the State
during that time not less than seventy-t,co
millions of dollars as interest upon interest
phich nerer should hare been paid.
This fact we will demonstrably show.
and then ask the people of Virginia if
they will give countenance to so monstrous
proposition as that looking to the assump-
ton of any such swindle put upon the tax
payers of the State. Taking the back or sus-
pended interest on the dnte-bellum debt OF
the old Virginia, as given by the Auditor in
his report two years ago, at SIC, 800, 900 the
amount compounded, we shall have as the
interest for the first year. payable semi
annually, 100000. Taking this as the
basis of cur calculation, and extending it
through the thirty-four years, the time the
funding bill bends have to run, and we shall
see how the industry of Virginia is utterly
despoiled by this infamous swindle which
the Federal government is now asked, in
the interests of the bond-holders, to assume
and pay.
We lay it down as an automatic principle
in finance, that what a State can save by
legislation, and negiects to save, is its true
measure of loss in financial economy. The
figures which we shall give will show what
we might have saved had we applied this
interest upon interest--which the State was
under no moral or legal obligation to pay
to the creation Of sinking fund for the
life of thirty-four years. And so long as
our people are borrowers instead of lend
ers of money, the table will also show the
precise amount distracted from. Their
industry by this little compound Interest
joker. We compute the interest annually
upon the $500, 900, instead of semi-annu.
ally, as required to be paid upon the bonds,
and it viii be seen that the amount fol-
thirty-six years thus computed, cannot
largely exceed the sem;-annual compute.
lion for thirty-four years. We run the
calculation through thirty-six years,
because that number furnishes us the
proper aliquot parts with which to render
the computation Enthusiastically accurate t
the eye as our calculation is proceeded
with.
But here is what the bond-holders take
o,,t oc U,-,r.r;a h4y kha a,.z-a