THE DISHONESTY OF REPUDIATION.
In the North American Review for December Mr. John F. Hume repeats his appeal to the honest people of this country to vindicate the national honor by paying the dishonored bonds of twelve states. Mr. Hume is severe and almost bitter; but he tells us some truth which must needs be unpleasant and should be seriously told. We are in an anomalous position in the matter of these state debts; the states are by the eleventh amendment secure from legal pursuit, and the Union secures them from the forcible settlement which the law of nations authorizes. There is no doubt that each of these states would have been seized for debt by foreign powers, just as Mexico was seized a few years ago, if the national government did not cover them with its protection. The evil is precisely this, that the constitution cuts off creditors of states from any remedy when the states do not pay their debts. This state of things was brought about by the whole people when the eleventh amendment was adopted. We are all therefore responsible for state roguery. We have, though unintentionally, authorized the repudiation by opening the door to it; and so long as we leave the door open we are responsible for the rascally people who repudiate state bonds. We have tried hard to see some escape from the logic of Mr. Hume; but we have found none. We are as a nation responsible for the existence of these dishonored debts, which now exceed three hundred millions of dollars. We are a dishonest nation; it is a hard saying, but it is the exact truth of the case.
The logical remedy is the repeal of the eleventh amendment, but unfortunately there is no hope of that. The defaulting states are too numerous; and there is further some doubt whether the rest of us are honest enough to approve such a reform. Representatives in legislatures and in Congress are liable to be influenced by a set of considerations which have no proper relation to the matter. It is affirmed that the states were wronged by their officers in the issue of the bonds; that the bonds are now held by men who bought them for a small part of their face value; and that to pay them is to honor the rascalities which gave them birth, and reward speculators in unreasonable measure. If the subject is pressed upon our attention, we shall be told, and have no reason to disbelieve it, that the speculators are spending money through a lobby, and that the road to honor lies through more filth than is piled up in the path of dishonor. The evil, we shall be told, is done, and is irremediable. We can not reach the persons who were really wronged. They have parted with their property at an almost total sacrifice; the present holders have no moral rights whatever. All this has been plentifully said, and it has lulled many consciences to sleep. Another moral opiate is the fact that the creditors had due notice that the states could not be sued at law, and therefore can not complain of this defect in our constitution. But this is a two-edged argument and might well rouse a sleepy conscience. These state debts are for this very reason debts of honor, such as honest men pay before all other debts. And yet, it is true, and pity ’tis ’tis true, no hope exists that the unfortunate amendment can be repealed. It is perfectly just to say that it would be proper to accompany the repeal with any legislation which might be required to enable courts to take account of all the equities in each case, even to require that original holders of bonds, or their heirs be found, and that any reduction from par in the original sales be allowed to the state. It would, in short, be possible to do justice as exactly as men can do justice in transactions of this complicated character, and to secure the tax-payers of the states in default against any oppression. But the great public is not going to be convinced. It will be said that the remedial measure is for the relief of idle rich men in Wall street, and Congressmen and legislators will be warned not to sign their death warrants. In the course of such a campaign so much immorality will be taught, so many men now decent in life will be manufactured into rascals, that it may be wiser not to attempt to repeal the eleventh amendment. It is a disagreeable conclusion to reach, but we reach it frankly: We are a dishonest nation. There is no reasonable hope, rather no shadow of hope, that we can purge ourselves in the matter of dishonored state bonds. There are not enough honest voters to redeem our reputation. We may succeed in raising up an honest generation to follow us; for our part, we of this generation must wear the stigma and groan under the burden of our dishonor. We are not able to allow creditors of defaulting states to present their cases to our own courts and have them passed upon as all other debts are. The nation has a court to consider claims against itself; but a state is free of even such supervision, and is authorized to be guilty of any dishonesty. The other remedy which Mr. Hume proposes is not practicable for the foregoing reasons. He proposes that the nation shall assume all these debts. We could easily pay them; but for that matter, it would be easier for the indebted states to pay them than not to pay them. No one doubts that the state of Illinois did the best thing financially when in 1845 it assumed and provided for the crushing debt—for which, by the way, it had very little to show as value received. Good men avoid dishonest communities, and such states are resorted to by men of prey. Granted, however, that we might pass in Congress the proper bills to pay the dishonored bonds of states, it would certainly be better to pay thus than to bear our reproach. And yet this would only give us a short rest. The next decade would find us plunged back into the gulf of disgrace. So long as dishonest men can create debts, for which no one is legally responsible, by using the names of states, the business of making us all responsible for scoundrelism will go on. No, we will modify that. The men who made the debts are not necessarily rascals. They may mean that posterity shall pay the debts; but so long as a dishonest legislature can with a stroke of the pen plunge us back into dishonor, it is hardly worth while to pay the dishonored millions now staring our consciences in the face and humiliating us to the dust. The bill for paying off the debts should be contingent on the repeal of the eleventh amendment. In short, this repeal is the only road to honor. When we shake ourselves from our rogueries, we shall have to march to the eleventh amendment and wash ourselves in a national act of repeal. We write most sorrowfully our conviction that we shall not for some time rid ourselves of this uncleanness.
Mr. Hume very properly calls attention to the solemn silence of our American churches on this subject. We are glad that he has done so. Our church organizations are verily guilty in the matter. They often lift up their voices on subjects of far less obvious and direct moral concernment. We are living in a state of the national law whose direct effect is to make every citizen a thief, a partaker with thieves in their violation of the eighth commandment. Decalogue religion is, we sometimes fear, a little below par. Thousands of our citizens who are church members fail miserably in keeping the Decalogue in their public conduct as voters and members of political parties. And yet we believe that the silence of our churches is due to the forgetfulness of the facts, or to despair of any real and permanent cure. It is a hard case. More than one newspaper has asked how many bonds Mr. Hume owns; and the ministers who urge the duty of public honesty will in fact find themselves aiding and abetting the schemes of Wall street speculators and lobbyists. The road to righteousness is so foul and so infested with thieves that sublime courage is necessary to him who attempts the journey. We have written every sentence of this article with a consciousness that we are offending men who see the uncleanness of the path to honor, and do not see that it is the righteous road in spite of the foul smells with which it reeks. We recall such to the simple facts: First, by the eleventh amendment a state can not be sued. It is the only debt-creating power in the Union which is above any form of judicial inquiry or compulsion. Even the Union has a court of claims whose decisions are respected by Congress. Second, more than three hundred millions of money is apparently due by defaulting states to their creditors. The nation stands between the creditors and the states, and bars the way to the courts. It is our one colossal and unpardonable crime against the eighth commandment.