Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1877-06-22
MIR. STUART'S LETTER ON THE
STATE DERT


We hope that everyone who really de-
sires information about the State debt of |
Virginia; how it was incurred; what it's |
unavoidable obligations on the people are,
and the only way to make them easy, will !
read the letter published by Hon. A. H.H.
STUART in the spectator" of Tuesday. |
The circumstances under which it is writ
ten touch both our sentiment and our
reason. 1t is written at the end of long
public life filled to the brim with service
to his State. 1t comes from veteran who
has served in almost every conflict in which
the good of his State was concerned, and
who, decorated with the cross of honor,
now stands without the camp, watching
with deepest concern the career of those of
whom he has been the leader. 1t is writ
ten without one selfish consideration for
his own advancement, and standing apart
from the party conflicts and jealousies and
ambitions which ever attend affairs of
state. What he says is plain, practical,
and easily understood.
Mr.. Stuart goes back nearly a half CEN
fury and shows by contrast the advantages
of the internal improvements for which
the state debt was incurred and which are
yet in operation within her limits. The
cost of these improvements up to 1861 was
in round numbers $35. 100000. By means
of these improvements, notwithstanding
four years of war, and eight succeeding
years of depression by Federal misrule.
Richmond has been raised from a town of
thirty thousand people to a city with a
population of seventy-twe thousand, which
pays one-ninth of the whole tax paid into
the State Treasury. Norfolk has become
the second cotton port in the United States,
and all the towns have experienced pro-
portionate progress --Staunton having
grown from village of two thousand to
city of nearly eight thousand people.
At the meeting of the first session of the
legislature after the war the entire debt
of the State Of Virginia on Jan. 1, 1867
was reported at $37, 92S,O0O and the inter-
est due Sc, 237 900, making an aggregate in
debtedness of $43 100000. For this debt
both Virginia and West Virginia were
bound and have been so decided to be by
the Court OF Appeals of Virginia. Object
ing to this joint binding, the legislature of
Virginia proposed to West Virginia the
assumption by each of its equitable porti Oh,
but West Virginia declined to confer on
the subject and this led to the passage in
1871 Of what Is called the Funding Bill
which was an effort to sever the liabilities
Of the two States and let Virginia assume
what she thought was her equitable pro-
portion-two-thirds. This bill of which so
much has been said was in plain words,
an offer to the creditors that ito illus
trate, creditor held S1,S00 in Virginia
bonds the State of Virginia would assume
the payment of 81, 200 of it in "a years and
pay him interest in the meantime, and for
the remaining $500 would give him a GER
Gifcate for the payment of which he was to
look to West Virginia. The creditor by
giving up his old bonds and taking the
new ones gave up all claim for the remain
ing 5000 as far as old Virginia was con-
cerned. He made this a complete legal
act in the surrender of his old bonds and
therefore can never call on old Virginia
for the unpaid $500, notwithstanding there
is now an ignorant clamor, (strange to say
by those who don't want to pay anything)
that Virginia can be made to pay the whole.
To make this bill more acceptable to the
creditors, the State agreed that if the part
of the debt assumed by her the coupons of
bonds should lie receivable for taxes.
Under this Funding Bill the creditors
came forward and funded $50, 1887 900 of
their claim in the year following it's pas
sage, but before the other creditors conld
or did avail themselves of the bill, the leg
islature passed law in effect stopping the
Funding Bill. The effort, however, was only
partially successful, for, while further fund
ing was stopped, the Court of Appeals de-
cided that the contract already made could
not, as far as it had been accepted, be re-
pudiated. and all those holders of the
twenty millions already funded, must lie
paid under the Funding Bill. and their
coupons must be received for taxes. Thus
it has been that the State is discriminating
between her creditors, the coupons held by
one class of bondholders being receivable
for taxes, ard the other class, who did not
avail themselves of the bill, being left out
in the cold. Nh. STUART explains what
has been attempted to be done in the last
four years towards getting the State into
a paying condition. He enumerateS the
various additional taxes which have been
laid, while land and property have been
left at the same. In 1873 the deficit in
the States revenues was 81 900 900, and by
1876 that deficit had been reduced to 500,
900. At the last session of the last legis-
lature such economy was inaugurated as
will still further reduce the deficit and
make it about 100000. The legislature
has gone still further, and passed laws in
the amounts paid by railroads.
for a tax on ardent spirits and
other measures which he thinks will, if |
Jhey meet the expectations Of their most |
judicious friends, reduce the deficit to the
merest trife.
A paragraph in Mr.. STUART's letter will
we think come home to many among those |
Of our agitators who aspire to represent |
He calls attention to the
fact that if the expenses Of the State were
the same to-day that they were the day the
funding bill was passed, the deficiency in |
The Treasury would only be 100000. The
state then pledged the revenues of the
Commonwealth to pay the interest on the
public debt and afterwards diverted $685.
300 of these revenues to the public schools.
If it were not for the public schools the
State would be going along swimmingly.
What man among them dare attack the
appropriation to the public schools. The
financial trouble OF Virginia to-day comes
rom the money paid for the public