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emphasized by a reference to the opinion of the Supreme Court of the State, delivered only a few months before : "We regard the faith of the State as irrevocably pledged to the payment of her consolidated bonds issued under the authority of that act (the funding act of 1874). The contract with the holders of these bonds is one which, in the language of the constitutional amendment, the State can by no means and in no wise impair." This act, the court held, was approved Jan. 24, 1874, and settled beyond possibility of question by a constitutional amendment upon the same day: "This amendment has become a part of the Constitution by its subsequent ratification at the polls. (State ex. rel. Pacific R. R. Co. vs. Nichols, Governor, 30 La. Ann. Rep., 980.) A reiteration of what the Court had already declared in 1875, when it said: “This amendment was adopted, and it now forms part of the organic law of the State." (State ex. rel. Forstall vs. Board of Liquidation, 27 La. Ann. Rep., 577.)

Moreover, the declarations of the repudiating committee regarding the condition of the State's resources and its inability to meet its honest debts are flatly contradicted by the words of the governor in his message of 1881: "The outlook for the State is most hopeful. The advantages of soil and climate are nowhere else equalled. * * The future for Louisiana is a grand one. It does not seem chimerical, when we look at our extraordinary advantages, to anticipate a future maximum production of $500,000,000 per annum. There is no reason for the continued cry of 'Poor Louisiana and her impoverished people.' We must realize the fact that she is rich, and force her to the front rank of States. Confidence will be restored; our bonds will be on the market at a reasonable interest, commanding a premium; capital will readily find its way here; and we will no longer be humiliated at the low credit of our State." Both reports were supported with vigor, but the repudi

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REPUDIATION.

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ating element was too strong to be successfully combated, and after a hot debate an act, known as the debt ordinance, was adopted for submission to popular vote. This ordinance provided for retiring the bonds in exchange for a new issue, upon which the interest was scaled at two-per-cent. for five years, three-per-cent. for fifteen years, and four-per-cent. thereafter; with an option to the holders to exchange their bonds at seventy-five cents on the dollar for four-per-cent. semi-annual interest bonds. The consolidated bonds issued under the act of 1874, to be retired by this forced exchange, were pledged to pay sevenper-cent. interest! The act was simply highway robbery by legislative sanction. The constitutionality of the debt ordinance was at once put to the test in two actions brought by John Elliott and others against the board of liquidation. The first was to enjoin the board from recognizing the ordinance and disregarding the funding act of 1874 and the constitutional enactment of the same year; the other, to compel by mandamus the payment of the interest on the consolidated bonds, and the levy and collection of a tax for that purpose. The recent decision (March, 1883) of the United States Supreme Court, upon the points at issue, held that the State had entered upon a voluntary contract in 1874, which had been violated by the act of 1880. But that there were no means of compelling the State's officers to carry out this contract, for the reason that the State as a sovereign commonwealth could not be sued without its permission. Upon this point the opinion of Chief-Justice Waite reads as follows: "Neither was there when the bonds were issued, nor is there now, any statute or judicial decision giving the bondholders a remedy in the State courts or elsewhere, either by mandamus or injunction against the State in its political capacity, to compel it to do what it has agreed should be done, but what it refuses to do." A proceeding suggested by a correspondent of the New York Nation, in February, 1878 (No. 660), was the last effort

made to coerce the defaulting commonwealth. Before the adoption of the 11th amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Supreme Court had rejected the doctrine that a State could not be sued upon its own contracts. In the case of Chisholm vs. State of Georgia, 2 Dal., decided in 1792, Chief-Justice Jay said: "It would be strange indeed that the joint and equal sovereigns of this country should in the very Constitution by which they professed to 'establish justice' so far deviate from the plain path of equality and impartiality as to give to the collective citizens of one State a right of suing individual citizens of another State, and yet deny to those citizens a right of suing them." To nullify the principle which this decision established, the IIth amendment was passed in 1794, declaring that "The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another State or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state." To avoid this constitutional bar the Legislatures of New York and New Hampshire authorized the transfer to them by their citizens of the defaulted securities, and actions were then begun in the name of each of these States against the State of Louisiana. The Supreme Court, however, held that to allow such suits would be simply to permit the practice of a palpable absurdity, and the evasion of the 11th amendment. In other words, the Court very properly refused to countenance a mere subterfuge by which private individuals, the real parties in interest, might dodge a plain provision of the Federal Constitution, and practically sue a sovereign State.

Such is the history of the vain attempts to induce the State of Louisiana to keep its solemn pledges. That public dishonor entails a loss of private credit may be inferred from what follows; the words are those of a writer treating of the financial condition of the State in 1882: “The unsettled condition of the finances of the State for several years past has seriously impaired her growth and prosperity, caus

ing a universal distrust which has not merely affected the credit and honor of the commonwealth, but has also, to a great extent, affected injuriously individual credit, prevented investment of foreign capital, and excluded immigration." ("Ann. Cyc.," 1882, p. 480.) It is only necessary to add the recent statement of a distinguished Southerner, that borrowers in Louisiana, offering fair security, have had to accept twenty-per-cent. discount at eight-per-cent., i. e., for $20,000 they got but $16,000, and paid eight-per-cent. on the full $20,000!

Minnesota.-A legislative committee in 1876 attempted to show that the State was under no obligation, legal or moral, to pay the railroad bonds guaranteed by her in 1858. Public opinion, however, was opposed to wholesale repudiation. In his message to the Legislature, Governor Pillsbury, after referring to various decisions upon the bond question in the courts of the State and of the United States, said: "With such unmistakable and imperative commands from the voice of law and equity and honesty, is the question not reduced to the simple one of our willingness to pay our honest debts?" There was at this time over two and a quarter millions of outstanding indebtedness of the $5,000,000 bonds issued in aid of certain railroads, the validity of which was disputed on the ground that the railroads had failed to comply with the conditions of the issue. The amendment of 1858, under which the issue was made, had been wiped out by another amendment in 1860; which also declared that the Legislature should make no provision for payment of the principal or interest without submitting the proposition to the people for ratification. A compromise proposed in 1871, and agreed to by the Legislature, was rejected by a vote of 21,499 to 9,293, not half the average vote being cast. The "Grangers," or "Patrons of Husbandry," had taken up the bond issue, and protested against their acknowledgment by the State, threatening to "scratch" all candidates for judi

cial office who would not pledge themselves against the validity of the bonds. One representative of grangerism testified before a Senate committee of the United States that his notion was to elect judges pledged to "wipe out the bonds." When asked what he would do if the Supreme Court of the United States sustained their validity, he replied: "Wipe out the Supreme Court"! In pursuance of Gov. Pillsbury's suggestion, the Legislature, on March 1, 1877, created a board of commissioners of the public debt, and authorized the issue of new bonds to holders of defaulted securities, on terms of compromise. The act was subject to amendment, to be submitted to popular vote. It provided for the sale of a portion of the "internal-improvement lands" in aid of the proposed settlement. The amendment and the compromise depending upon it were rejected by a large popular majority. Again the governor, with commendable spirit, declared that although the result "indicates that they are not prepared to make settlement of this vexed question, my convictions as heretofore expressed upon this subject have undergone no change, and I earnestly hope that in the near future the people of our State will take a different view of the matter." By this time the repudiators had secured a firm grip upon the politics of the State. The national greenback-labor party, at a convention held June 10, 1879, after declaring in favor of the unrestricted coinage of silver, and the immediate repeal of the resumption act, "believing that its passage at the time was an infamous sin and crime against the debtor classes," made the following declaration in regard to the State debt: "We regard the old Minnesota railroad bonds as dishonest and illegal in their whole origin and history; a measure conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity; and one that is not morally binding on the people of this State." Once more, in 1880, the governor urged settlement, insisting that it was possible without commercial distress. "The discharge of this debt," said he,