The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-03-06
Loads a0 N0rGh @ap0mn Daily Papers amd Circulation

the United States, body which ought
Ito deserve the profoundest respect of
the people, lending itself as a partner
to a scheme to play cute" trick on
tie foundations of our government and to
nuIBfy the constitutional rights of the
members of the Union.
But the pecuniary damage to North
Carolina and the lnfraction of the
i3oral law may be simply the beginning
Ct evils. About 1910 the twenty-six States
then in the Union had borrowed, princi-
Tally from foreigners, about 1912, ,000 900,
and their annual interest on their in
debtedness was about $4,000 For rea-
sens which have been mo away in OBJ
Scure corners of libraries, except that
insolvency overlook the States and that
Mississippi formally repudiated her debt,
very few of the bonds We're ever paid.
1t will now, therefore, be in order for
the holders of these old bonds to sell
them to South Dakota, and have the
Iropey, with sixty years of interest col
.lected by United States marshal Then
some people will grieve over their folly
in assisting to place the Republican
party in power in these States. "
/ ask space to remind your readers that
my objection to the decision of the Su.
|prCme Court is founded solely on the
constitutional rights of the State; and to
go farther now, and inquire into the
validity of the bonds.
The apologist of the Supreme Court,
to whose presentation of the subject
my attention was first invited, tdlls Us
that these bonds were issued by the
representatives of the DEMOCRATIC
PARTY in 1867. and that, therefore,
suIrose we must infer, the DEMOCRATIC
PARTY today must regard the payment
of them as a dictate of honor Pos
silly this is true, but, like most other
questions as to the rights and duties cf
men, this has two sides to it.
Two years after the close of the War
between the States, when everybody sup
posed that North Carolina was a State,
the people whereof could regulate their
own affairs, as they had done ever since
1776, these bonds were issued and placed
on the market. About the same time, the
political party which now controls all
the departments of the Federal govern
ment, being then in control passed, over
the veto of President Johnson, the Gre
construction measures, destroying
North Carolina as a State, subjeeting
her, win South Carolina, to an odious
military despotism with the headquarters
of General Candy, the satrap, at Charles
ton, and subjecting our people. so far as
there was any semblance of civil govern
mcnt, to the rule of the "carpet-bag"
mendicants, who came down from the
North to participate in plundering the
State, and of the ex-slaves, who had not
yet hcen made ''citizens" by the Four
tet,ath amendment This subjection was
accomplished by disfranchising thirty or
forty thousand of the hereditary citi
zens OF the State, who were compelled
to look on in silence while these pets
of the Republican party held a so-callCd
constitutional convention in Raleigh, and
sessions of their disgraceful legislature
in 1868 -'69-'7O, the expenses of which
General Candy collected out of our peo-
pies pockets.
This 'carpet-bag" government, support
ed by post-commanders in every import
ant town, had colored troops to do their
bidding-some OF your readers remember
that squad of them was sent from
Fayetteville to Clinton to supervise the
election in 1868, but for prudential rea-
sons, got no nearer than Dollar Branch
destroyed or stole the literary fund of
the state, the money she had received for
establishing the A. and M. College, the
money these interlopers collected from the
people to support the tree schools, and,
in fact, about all the public funds they
could lay their hands on; and, when
other sources of supply were exhausted,
they issued the noted "special-taX bonds"
which the state repudiated several years
ago. Hence the credit of the State was
so impaired that the bonds issued by
the Democrats sold for not more than half
of their face value, and the money the
State received was green backs" worth
perhaps, about half of their face value.
SO that her bonds went for little, if any,
more than twenty-five cents on the dollar
of face value, the Republican party be-
ing wholly responsible for the loss.
BY what right, then, does the author
of this wrong, acting through five of
the justices of the Supreme Court, come
into North Carolina and compel her to
nav the face value of these bonds, to-
Qether with thirty-seyen years of inter
est on the face value? 1 deny the right.
The State ought to tender to the bond
holders the specie value of the amount
she received for the bonds; but to force
her to go beyond this is violation OF
tho moral law, as well as the Constitu-
ton of the Union B' Il. GRAD1.
Clinton. N. c., Feb. %. 1904.