ready to justify them, or, if this can not be decently attempted, to refrain from condemning them. Who can doubt that the repudiation of Mississippi was thus vindicated by multitudes of her own people, or that there is a secret willingness felt by many in every other portion of our country, to advance the same plea? But what shall be pronounced as to its soundness? A legislature not subject to the moral laws which bind individuals? The citizen or the subject responsible to the government of God, but Congress or the despot not responsible? We have but two questions to ask here. Has God prescribed moral laws for the obedience of man, and if so, which of those laws releases the ruler from obedience, while it binds the ruled? Even the infinite Lawgiver himself is pleased to observe the very laws which he has given to his creatures. His adherence to justice, to truth and faithfulness, and to every other moral obligation, is perfect and unchangeable. If the legislature of Mississippi could thus violate the plighted faith of the state, they might on the same principle disregard every other act of former legislatures; they might destroy all the rights which had been thus vested, and overthrow all preceding legislation. Here was a contract into which their own predecessors had deliberately entered, entrusting to them the work of providing for its fulfillment at the due time. What could they plead, either in the nature of civil government, or in their own state consitution, or in the laws of God, which could release them from the performance of this trust? If not bound sacredly to observe every moral law, that of justice for example, then they were bound to observe no such law. In the exercise of their own supremacy they might rightfully enact that every man wearing a cocked hat should be capitally punished, if they might rightfully nullify the contracts of

their predecessors. The absurdity and the criminality of such a princi. ple are so obvious, that a formal reply appears like an impeachment of the common sense and morality of the reader, and yet we deeply fear that its hold upon multitudes is too strong to be thus shaken. The le gislative omnipotence, or the power to pass any laws whatever, which Blackstone virtually ascribes to the British parliament, many of our le gislators are assuming as their own prerogative, so far as the constitu tion does not sternly prohibit them. They are answerable to no human tribunal, and the only question which they feel constrained to ask anterior to any act of legislation, is, not whether it will be right, but will it be popular? It was popular in Mississippi, for the moment, to refuse to pay the just debt of the state, and her legislature refused accordingly. And were it a popular measure throughout our country, to exclude that state, by an act of legislation, from our Union, Congress might, on the same principle, enact that all her people should be henceforth hewers. of wood and drawers of water. Ne, ver can the prince or the president or the senator escape from the least moral restraint, until he can escape from his personal identity. His artificial public relations are but a mere robe which never hides his personal character, and they only augment his responsibility before the last tribunal.

A second defense, and it is that which was publicly advanced at the time, and that on which the main stress has been placed, is this: that the sales of the state bonds by the agents were vitiated by their unfaithfulness or their fraud. In examining the soundness of this defense, we may be compelled occa. sionally to use somewhat technical language, but we shall adopt it as rarely as possible. According to the allegation of Governor McNutt, in his celebrated reply to Hope &

Co. of Amsterdam, these bonds were delivered by him to the managers of the Union Bank, under his express directions that they were not to be sold at less than their par value, and only for cash, and this the law which gave the bank the credit of the state, also required. They were in fact sold by the agents of these managers to the president of the United States Bank, on credit, for the same amount to be paid in five equal annual installments, two millions of which, however, were paid within the first six months. These bonds were then sold in the market in the United States and in Europe, and were made payable at the agency of the United States Bank of Pennsylvania in London, in sterling money, and with interest there payable semiannually.

It is this express disregard by the managers of the Union Bank and their agents, of these directions of Governor McNutt, and their equal disregard of the provision in the law just specified, and of an article in the constitution of Mississippi, forbidding the passage of any law authorizing a loan of money on the credit of the state, which are alledged as a justification of the subsequent measures of repudiation.

The plain and decisive answer by the holders of these bonds to this plea, is its utter irrelevancy. How can their rights be lessened by any thing which occurred between the governor of the state and the managers of the Union Bank, six or twelve months previously? How could they, by any possibility, become acquainted with the verbal directions respecting the sale of the bonds, that were then given by the former to the latter? Whether these were legal or illegal, whether he had attached two conditions or forty, or none whatever, to the transfer, was immaterial to them. As little force has the allegation that the bonds were not sold at their par value, and for cash, when the law and the con

stitution required both. How could purchasers in London and Amsterdam know that such was the requi sition, and that it had been disregarded by the managers in the ori ginal sale? All that they knew or could be supposed to know, was what was legible on the face of each bond itself, and on its back,-the one being the engagement of the state of Mississippi to pay the sum of money there specified, the other naming the place of payment and the currency in which payable. Neither of these furnished any hint of the existence of what is thus alledg ed as a defense; neither directed the purchaser to make inquiry as to the laws and constitution of Mississippi, prescribing the original mode of sale; all was in the common form of similar securities. The purcha ser bought them for a fair price, relying on the express promise of the state, and the state gave him no reason to suppose that the whole transaction ab ovo usque ad mala was not constitutional and legal. If then the original sale by the managers proved to be finally detrimental to the Union Bank and to the state; if these agents were equally unfaithful and dishonest, the purchasers may still reply, "What is that to us? These are matters between the state and its immediate agents, with which we have no concern. Punish these agents, as criminals, if dishonest; hold them responsible in their private estates, if unfaithful; but refuse not to pay us, honest creditors in Massachusetts and New York, and in Europe, on such allegations as these." Still more evident is the irrelevancy of this defense, when we consider the original design of the issuing of these bonds. This was to procure a banking capital for the Union Bank, by pledging the faith of the state. The bonds were to be executed in due form, and were then to be sold, on purpose to procure that capital from the moneyed world, which Missis sippi could not herself furnish. It

was one mode of procuring a loan on the credit of the state, and the sum to be raised was $5,000,000. And had these qualifications respecting the sale of the bonds for cash, and at par value, been incorporated within the bonds themselves, so as to constitute a part of their tenor, no sale could have been ever effected to the amount of a single dollar. Not a purchaser in the United States or in Europe would have parted with his money, when, as a preliminary matter, he was thus informed that the security which he was invited to buy would prove worthless, unless it should appear at the time of maturity that these precedent conditions had been all complied with. When public stocks are transferred, no buyer thinks of first sending an express from London by a Liverpool steamer, or from New York by a rail-car across the Alleghanies, to the state of Mississippi, that he may first ascertain whether some unknown law or article in her constitution has been exactly obeyed by the state commissioners of the loan. State bonds and state credit would have but little to do with "cash" and "par values," or with any value above a minus quantity, if such were the condition. This professed justification has so little speciousness, that Governor McNutt, when alledging it to Hope & Co. at a distance of five thousand miles, must have felt that all this wide interval was needed to screen him from their indignant looks and exclamations. Were the state of Mississippi a natural instead of a corporate person, a brief dialogue between these two parties would be in somewhat of the following strain: "Is that seal yours?" would be the first interrogation propounded by the Amsterdam bankers, after taking up one of these bonds and pointing to its face, and her republican highness would be constrained to answer, "Yes." "Was it originally issued by your own agents?" would be the second

question, and the reply must here also be in the affirmative. "The interest upon it has been now due for three years and more: will you pay it?" would be the third query. And here" the sovereignty," if even indifferently honest, could give but one answer. Her incompetent or knavish officers she might indeed punish as they should deserve, turn them out of her house, expel them from her broad farm, confiscate their property, if they had any, and thus make them a terror to all future evildoers; but her own just debts she must pay.

Still a third defense, or semblance of defense, may be alledged. The state of Mississippi was utterly unable to pay either the principal or the interest of these bonds, at the time when the latter first became due; and she was thus compelled to refuse payment by absolute necessity. We suppose that this allegation is partly correct. The capital of the banks and of similar institutions existing in that state at the beginning of the year 1838, amounted, as was observed at the commencement, to forty five mil lions of dollars; and in addition to this enormous amount, the Union Bank was then incorporated with a capital of more than fifteen millions of dollars, which the state undertook to provide. Sixty millions of banking capital for a state, whose population then exceeded that of Connecticut by a fraction only, and whose pursuits were almost wholly agricultural, attended probably with a still larger issue and circulation of bank paper-what but a degree of ignorance in her successive legislatures, amounting almost to fatuity, could have created these institutions; what but unmeasured borrowing, and then reckless expenditure, and then a general inability to pay, and then an all but universal bankruptcy, must have been the speedy result! This fearful reac tion had commenced before the ori

ginal sale of these bonds, and when the first payment of interest became due, the clouds were still blackening; and had a demand been then made upon the state for the pay ment of the principal, to meet it would have been a literal impossibility. But the interest only was then payable, no part of the principal falling due before 1850, and sorely crippled as was her strength, it is probable that this additional burden could have been shouldered without staggering. No pretense to the contrary appears in the letter to Hope & Co. already cited, and by this document as the plea of her chief executive officer, may she be fairly tried. The annual payment of but a twentieth of the amount of the principal, for the interest was but five per cent., would have preserved untainted the credit and the character of the state; and what efforts should not be put forth by any community to prevent the sacrifice of these priceless jewels! The demagogue who panders to the basest passions of the populace, would indeed be recreant in such an emergency, and so would many a timid legislator who is honest in his private dealings; but no man of strict integrity could hesitate. But admit that the payment of the interest was then impracticable, suppose that the state was for the time bankrupt; what then? Does this justify repudiation, or the refusal ever thereafter to pay any portion of the principal or interest? Yes, just so far as the present insolvency of a private individual is, ipso facto, his final release from all indebtedness. What immunity can the debtor state claim in such case, which is to be denied to the debtor citizen? The remedy, originally granted by the constitution to the private creditor of summoning a state as an individual before the national tribunals, has indeed been taken away; but his rights are not thus divested, he has but lost the most effectual

The in.

means of enforcing them. debtedness of the state, legal and equitable, evidently thus continuing, and thus irremovable by her own act alone, with at the same time an admitted inability to pay ;-are we asked, what should have been the course of her legislature? The answer is obvious. First, to affirm the sacredness of the claims of these bond-holders to the full extent, principal and interest. Secondly, to proclaim the fixed purpose of the state to pay the interest at the first moment practicable. Thirdly, to give every bond-holder the proper additional security for the interest already due. If in addition to these primary measures, the legislature had at once entered upon a system of rigid economy as to the public expenditures, and had also imposed some tax, however small, for the payment of the interest, all would have been then accomplished which could properly be asked. Scarce a foreign or an American creditor would have then parted with these bonds at a sacrifice, the faith of the state would have been untarnished, the character of the nation would not have been lowered abroad before friends and foes alike. And far more than all these, the first step in the beaten road of dishonor might not have been yet taken. Mississippi repudiation, with all its existing evils, and these are fearful

indeed, is still to be dreaded— mainly as a precedent. It is the first stain on a vestal's fame: all was spotless before, but there is now a broad leprous spot-the harbinger of widely spreading disease. And there is the greater cause for fear, when we consider how peculiar is the sympathy which pervades the population of a great republic. Their very equality, their unre stricted intercourse with each other as individuals, their union amid every diversity of interest, and their tendency to act in all public matters as parties, or masses, rather

than singly, are all auspicious in some emergencies, but they are ominous of fatal danger in others. Let but a foot of our soil be inva ded, the heart of the nation beats high with patriotism, and the glow is felt at the most distant extremi ties; and let but the doctrine of repudiation be adopted by two or three of our state legislatures, and no statesman can assure us that other states will not also enter on this precipitous path, until half of the Union may be seen hastening in company to dishonor and bankruptcy. Here, as in numberless other cases, communities, like individuals, are more easily persuaded to do wrong than to do right; to break their faith, than subsequently to make full restitution.

"Facilis descensus Averni : Sed revocare gradem-hoc opus."

It is this fearful sympathy, this almost universal tendency to act in all public matters as communities or parties, rather than as individuals, which constitutes perhaps our greatest danger. The citizen loses sight of his personal responsibility, because he acts with a great party; public opinion is his opinion, and immense numbers rarely think of adopting any other standard. With such persons the inquiry is not, what does justice require in the particular case; what does the will of God evidently prescribe; but what has the legislature enacted, what has our party pronounced; what is the course of public opinion; what do certain political presses declare to be true, or expedient? And when the answer is given, the question, however momentous, is in their view settled. There may be troublesome misgivings long afterwards, and under better influences many may be led to retrace their devious steps; but they move at the time as men are borne along in the midst of a mob, to adopt measures and do acts, from which, if

alone, they would have tremblingly recoiled. Perhaps not one tenth of the legislature, or of the people of Mississippi would have approved of the repudiation of these bonds, had the measure been proposed to them merely as individuals; but as soon as a few of her leading men had boldly recommended it, and the flame had begun to spread, all resistance became for the time hopeless. Her governor then af firmed, and the state has thus far sustained him in the affirmation, that Mississippi "will never pay the five millions of dollars of state bonds issued in June, 1838, or any portion of the interest due, or to become due thereon." And should a majority in the legislature of Pennsylvania, which is to be chosen in the interval between the writing and the printing of these pages, openly espouse this Mississippi mode of dealing with the creditors of a state, then, unless the measure is at once indignantly rejected by great multitudes of the people, and demagogues are for the time terrified into silence, the legislation of that great commonwealth may be made to sanc tion the rightfulness of state frauds.

We say state frauds, because we insist that a state or a nation, when it has once contracted debts, can never in any circumstances whatever be released from her indebtedness, except by actual payment. We say, if the debt has been ac tually contracted; and the fact of indebtedness depends not on the consideration, whether the state itself has received a full equivalent, or any equivalent. If she has induced individuals, within or without her jurisdiction, to part with their own property in consideration of being subsequently repaid by herself, then she is the debtor, and they are the creditors. Whether some articles in her constitution, or some provision in the particular law authori zing the sale of her bonds or other securities, has been observed, or