Year: 1877

VJJ, ,0UU, ,bUU; the debt amounts to about twenty cents on every dollars worth of taxable propertyin the State. Can the people pay so great an amount with an accruing interest9- Let them answer at the ballot box. My amendment would have given them an opportunity to be heard, and that was the object l had in view. If the people negatived the proposition, I should favor the pay ing of the debt as speedily as possi- ble. l cannot see why the friends of the bondholders should oppose the measure, when they clam that T large majority of the people are in favor of paying. If that be so, who not submit the question and have the matter settled by the peo- pie in their favor--in that case the bonds would advance rapidly. in the markets and become negotiable.

 Can the debt be sealed? I think not-such talk is idle. Those of the bonds that ought to be paid, for which the banks received dollar for dollar, are held by the United States in trust. Who is authorized to speak for the Government in this scaling process? No person. It can only be done by an act of Con gress and 1 apprehend it would be quite as easy to get bill through Congress donating the whole amount to the State as to pass sealing one. The fact is, scaling the entire debt is fallacy--it cannot, in my opin

 ion, be done--it is impracticable and impossible. If it were not for the hope that the bondholders have, that they can drive good bargain with the State for the Railroad Aid bonds

 which our Supreme Court has de- clared worthless and void, the Hol- ford bonds four Supreme Court has also declared that these are not a legal charge against the State, and Levee bonds, we would hear nothing of sealing and saving the honor of the honor of the State. It is the POCKET and not the honor they are after. Even If it could be done, is It just, is it honorable, to say to the honest debtor, q got your money and used it for my own purpose, but there is fellow over there who says I owe him a much larger sum, that a scoundrel, representing himself as my agent, has forged my name to the paper, who had no authority from me, who wants to be paid; l am not able to pay so much-the fact IS 1 cannot pay more than twen- ty cents on the dollar-now if you will agree with him to take twenty cents on the dollar for your honest debt, I will make arrangements to pay yow both If you do not agree, l won't pay you cent?" Does that sound honest? It does not to me, and I do not believe it does to the people, and I do not believe they will endorse so vile propesition- it is simply infamous, to my mind; though impugh no mans motive who honestly takes different view of the question.

 Now, Mir. Editor, who received the benefit of the Railroad, Levee and Holford bonds? A set of adven. turers and camp-followers, who usurped the authority of the State government, through fraud on the ballot box, backed up by Federal officer in command of the depart ment in this State, who assisted the conspirators, in the hours when hon. est people were at home asleep, in their hellish designs of wrestling from the people an honest govern ment, and placing themselves in power, that they might rob under the forms of law, proclaimed by themselves, without let or hindrance; and for one, do not intend at this day and time to become party to the many frauds that were practiced under that regime, by endorsing their acts and footing their iniqui- tous paper or recognizing that they were capable of contracting debt in the name of the people, for which the people are responsible.

 AS to the question of the innocent purchasers, there were none, for the parties who took the bonds well knew that the government was usurped by a set of strangers to the people, and they knew also the means that were used; they were the personal friends of the robbers, and assisted them in their robberies and divided the spoils-the cry of lnno- cent purchasers is all bosh. Every dollar that was furnished was to opprcss the people. It was used to import men to carry elections; buy seats in the United States Senate; riotous living and oppression, and the people would be just as we'll of to-day, if the bond had never been issued. No man could get bond unless he made private terms with those who issued them. They were used as personal property, to advance private ends; yet there are those, and democrats, too, who say that they ought to be scaied--that they are in the hands of innocent pur chasers-innocent bondholders, in deed, whose mamma don't know | they are ont. have been sWindled on