'A smaller amount is due for what are termed Planters' Bank bonds of Mississippi. These evidences of debt, as well as the coupons issued to cover accruing interest, are receivable for State lands, and no one has a right to assume they will not be provided for otherwise, by or before the date at which the whole debt becomes due.'
To this the London Times replied, in its editorial of the 13th July, 1849, before quoted, as follows:
'The assurance in this statement that the Planters' Bank, or non-repudiated bonds, are receivable for State lands, requires this addition, which Mr. Jefferson Davis has omitted, that they are only so receivable upon land being taken at three times its current value. The affirmation afterward, that no one has a right to assume that these bonds will not be fully provided for before the date at which the principal falls due, is simply to be met by the fact, that portions of them fell due in 1841 and 1846, and that on these, as well as on all the rest, both principal and interest remain wholly unpaid.'
Mr. Davis's 'palliation and excuse' for the non-payment of these bonds was: 1st. That the principal was not due. If this were true, it would be no excuse for the non-payment of the semi-annual interest. But the statement of Jefferson Davis as to the principal was not true, as shown by the Times, and as is clear upon the face of the law. Then, as to the lands. The bonds, principal aid interest, were payable in money, and it was a clear case of repudiation to substitute lands. But when, as stated by the Times, this land was only receivable 'at three times its current value,' Mr. Davis's defence of the repudiation of the Planters' Bank bonds by Mississippi, is exposed in all its deformity. When, however, we reflect, as heretofore shown, that the law authorizing the purchase of these lands by these bonds was repealed, and the bondholders left without any relief, and the proposition for taxation to pay the bonds definitively rejected, it is difficult to imagine a case more atrocious than this.
The whole debt, principal and interest, now due by the State of Mississippi, including the Planters' and Union Bank bonds, exceeds $11,250,000 (£2,250,000). Not a dollar of principal or interest has been paid by the State for more than a fourth of a century on any of these bonds. The repudiation is complete and final, so long as slavery exists in Mississippi. Now, would it not seem reasonable that, before Mississippi and the other Confederate States, including Florida and Arkansas, ask another loan from Europe, they should first make some provision for debts now due, or, at least, manifest a disposition to make some arrangement for it at some future period. If a debtor fails to meet his engagements, especially if he repudiates them on false and fraudulent pretexts, he can borrow no more money, and the same rule surely should apply to states or nations. Nor can any pledge of property not in possession of such a borrower, or, if so, not placed in the hands of the lender, change the position. It is (even if the power to pay exists) still a question of good faith, and where that has been so often violated, all subsequent pledges or promises should be regarded as utterly worthless.
The Times, in reference to the repudiation of its Union Bank bonds by Mississippi, and the justification of that act by Jefferson Davis, says:
'Let it circulate throughout Europe that a member of the United States Senate in 1849 has openly proclaimed, that at a recent period the Governor and legislative assemblies of his own State deliberately issued fraudulent bonds for five millions of dollars to 'sustain the credit of a rickety bank;' that, the bonds in question having been hypothecated abroad to innocent holders, such holders have not only no claim against the community by whose executive and representatives this act was committed, but that they are to be taunted for appealing to the verdict of the civilized world rather than to the judgment of the legal officers of the State by whose functionaries they have been already robbed; and that the ruin of toil-worn men, of women, of widows, and of children, and the 'crocodile tears' which that ruin has occasioned, is a subject of jest on the part of those by whom it has been accomplished; and then let it be asked if any foreigner ever penned a libel on the American character equal to that against the people of Mississippi by their own Senator.'
Such was the opinion then expressed by the London Times of Jefferson Davis and of the repudiation advocated by him. It was denounced as robbery, 'the ruin of toil-worn men, of women, of widows, and of children.' And what is to be thought of the 'faith' of a so-called Government, which has chosen this repudiator as their chief, and what of the value of the Confederate bonds now issued by him? Why, the legal tender notes of the so-called Confederate Government, fundable in a stock bearing eight per cent, interest, is now worth in gold at their own capital of Richmond, less than ten cents on the dollar (2s., on the pound), whilst in two thirds of their territory such notes are utterly worthless; and it is treason for any citizen of the United States, North or South, or any alien resident there, to deal in them, or in Confederate bonds, or in the cotton pledged for their payment. No form of Confederate bonds, or notes, or stock, will ever be recognized by the Government of the United States, and the cotton pledged by slaveholding traitors for the payment of the Confederate bonds is all forfeited for treason, and confiscated to the Federal Government by act of Congress. As our armies advance, this cotton is either burned by the retreating rebel troops, or seized by our forces, and shipped and sold from time to time, for the benefit of the Federal Government. By reference to the census of 1860, it will be seen that three fourths of the whole cotton crop was raised in States (now held by the Federal army and navy) touching the Mississippi and its tributaries, and all the other ports are either actually held or blockaded by the Federal forces. The traitor pledge of this cotton is, then, wholly unavailing; the bonds are utterly worthless; they could not be sold at any price in the United States, and those who force them on the London market, in the language of the Times, before quoted, will only accomplish 'the ruin of toil-worn, men, of women, of widows, and of children.'
But the advocacy of repudiation by Jefferson Davis has not been confined to his own State, as I shall proceed to demonstrate in my next letter.
R.J. Walker.