The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1879-02-20

took the benefit of the reputation by
the Radicals of one-half of the Old debt,
and seek to repudiate the disputed Con-
solidated debt representing Indebtedness
created by the Radicals. Could there be
stronger evidence than this of deter
mination, not to do justice, but to reduce
the volume of the debt at any cost" Of
course, an acceptance of the Consolida-
ton Act after eliminating the frauds from
it involves the reduction of the good
debt to fifty cents on the dollar. This
has already been done, and the States
honest creditors have not, by petition or
otherwise, asked the Legislature to take
up the new bonds and return their old
ones. 1t is true that some blatant advo-
Gates of the fraudulent debt have dis
canted upon this as justice with view
of getting the sympathy of the people of
the State for the fraudulent debt; but to
prove that, with rare exceptions, they
have not been consistent, it will only be
necessary to turn to the Act of March,
1878, where they will be found to have
voted to repudiate one-half of the honest
floating Indebtedness of the State. The
present Legislature, therefore, finds that
the honest debt of the State has been
scaled down to fifty cents on the dollar
both by Radicals and by Democrats;
and then the question presented is, Shall
fraudulent part be paid because, the
honest creditor hes been compelled to
take half of his debt? To our mind the
debtor who is unable to pay more than
half of his honest debts has no moral
right to pay large gratuity on preten-
ded debts which he never owed. 1t
scould be an act of moral degradation on
the part of the State, in our opinion, to
pay the fraudulent bonds.
Then the Neacs and Courier says:
The Bond Commission made their re-
port, and it was agreed, as compromise,
to refer to a special tribunal, the Court.
of Claims, the whole of the Consolida-
ton debt reported against by the Com
mission. We can conceive that, even up
to this point, there was room for 81 faint
belief in the honest purposes Of the sup
porters of the conclusions of the Commis-
sion. Test cases were made up, and
pending the delivery of the decision of
the Court of Claims the Legislature met.
An effort was at once made to legislate
the Court of Claims out of existence, for
the reason that it was feared that the
Court would adjudge the disputed bonds
to be valid obligations Of the State.
Having declared their willingness to be
governed by the decision of the Courts,
having formed a Court where the whole
matter in issue should be tried, and hav-
ing elected the Judges of that Court, the
larger number of the Anti-debt party
sought to extiuguish the Court in order
to prevent it from rendering decision
contrary to their notions. Our Anderson
contemporaries, we believe, t,the INTEL
L1GENcER certainly did, gave effective
support to the attempt to abolish the
Court. They repudiated their own
chosen tribunal in advance of its decision.
As it happened, the Court of Claims de-
cided adversely to the disputed bonds.
Fhis does not satisfy our Anderson
friends and their allies. The bond cases
now 90 up to the Supreme Court of the
State, and the declaration is broadly
made that, as with the Court of Claims,
the decision of the Supreme Court will
not be regarded, if it be in favor of the
bonds. In other words, the determine
tion is to repudiate the disputed or un-
recognized bonds, whatever the law or
the equity of the case may prove to be.
We did favor the abolition of the Bond
Court. We did not favor its creation,
| and had nothing to do with it. After its
establishment the evidence of the State
was incomplete, on account Of the failure
| of the State to procure Kimpton, as the
State of Massachusetts, refused 10 give
him up; there was only part of the
bonds disputed before the Court, and the
State therefore litigated before this Court
at disadvantage, because the disputed
bonds not represented would not be con-
cluded by the suit; and, also, because
the opinions of Judges Willard and Has
kell of the Supreme Court were known
| to be favorable to the bond holders. 1t
is no disrespect to these Judges to say
this, for Judge Willard has expressed
himself in the Morton, Bliss & Co. case,
and Judge Haskelps views were made
known before he went upon the Bench.
Therefore it seemed folly to be litigating
question upon which the views of q
majority of the Supreme Court were
known in advance. 1t would, consequent
ly, have been better, in our judgment, to
take the whole question into the hands
of the Legislature, and meet out equal
justice to the State and all of her credi-
tors. IF this aras population, then wc
favored reputation, and are still in favor
of it.
The Neacs and Courier also attempts to
illustrate the reputation tendency of the
editor of the INTELL1GEScER by citing
again the phosphate question, and says: {:
In fine, such newspapers as the Ander-
son INrELL1GENCER and Journal, and
the Abbeville Medium, encourage the
people to set themselves above the law.
Their doctrine in finance is, that the
State submits to the decision of the
Courts when they relieve her of liabil-
ity, and spurns their decision when they
confirm disputed liability. Nor is this
confined to matters of finance. AT An
derson last week committee, of which
the editor of the INTELLIGENCEH was q
| IL