COL. GEORGE WASHINGTON FLOWERS 
 MEMORIAL COLLECTION 
 
 DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 DURHAM. N. C. 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 W. W. FLOWERS 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 https ://arch i ve . o rg/detai I s/h i sto ryof vi rg i n i 0 1 roya 
 

 OF THE 
 
 The Negro’s Vicious Influence in Politics. 
 
 . . . BY . . 
 
 WILLIAM L. ROYALL, 
 
 Of the Richmond, Va., and New York City Bars. 
 
 RICHMOND, VA,: 
 
 GEO. M. WEST, Publisher. 
 1897. 
 
Cop.yrighted, 1897, 
 
 BV 
 
 WILLIAM L. ROYALL. 
 
 T'rrVTTVTTTTTTTTWTTV? 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ThE riCA' 
 
 L- 
 
 '!^n 
 
 T he world has received an erroneous impression of Vir- 
 ginia’s action since our great civil war respecting her 
 public debt. The belief is abroad that she failed to 
 measure up to the obligations of her duty, and that she has, 
 in effect, repudiated a part of her just obligations. 
 
 I am a son of Virginia, and I have spent my life upon her 
 soil and amongst her children. Her good name is very dear 
 to me, and I am naturall3' very anxious, therefore, that she 
 shall carrj' no obloquy that is not justly her due. I have 
 accordingly written this historj' of the case to set all of its 
 facts before an impartial world, in order that Virginia ma.v 
 be judged justlj' when final judgment is passed. 
 
 When these facts are impartially considered bj’ fair-minded 
 men, I believe there will be a general consensus amongst them 
 that the old and true Virginia acted a very heroic part in this 
 drama, and that its outcome would not have oast one stain 
 upon her escutcheon if a superior power — the vis major — had 
 not inflicted upon her the cruel wrong of negro suffrage. 
 Whatever blemish rests upon her fair name .lies at the door 
 of those who made the stupendous blunder of converting the 
 negro into a voter w'hen he had had no sort of antecedent 
 preparation for it. 
 
 The story is a sad and a pitiful one, but the heroic people 
 of Virginia, who struggled so manfully to do their whole duty 
 under such terrible odds and discouragements, have a right 
 to ask the civilized world that it shall at least inform itself of 
 all the actual facts before it condemns them. I have collected 
 those facts in the following pages, and I submit them to the 
 candid judgment of mankind. 
 
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 OF THE 
 
 VIRGINIA DEBT CONTROVERSY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A bout I 820 the state of Virginia adopted the 
 policy of borrowing money to aid works of 
 internal improvement. The plan engaged in 
 was to borrow, giving her own bonds, bearing 6 per 
 cent, interest, and with the money to become part- 
 ner in the building of railroads, canals, or turnpikes 
 by taking stock in companies organized for some 
 such purposes. In this way, prior to our late civil 
 war, she borrowed and lent out to internal improve- 
 ment companies a very large sum of money. The 
 principal amounted January 1, 1861, to $38,710,- 
 857.22. (See Senate Document Uo. 24, session of 
 
 309381 
 
6 
 
 History of the 
 
 1877-’78.) She paid interest on what she had bor- 
 rowed duly and regularly without any trouble until 
 the war came on. She paid little or none after that 
 event. Her bonds were almost all owned and held 
 in Europe or in the Northern States, and communi- 
 cation with the owners was cut ofi by the war. At 
 the end of the war she found herself confronted 
 with the very large principal of this debt, with its 
 five years of accumulated and overdue interest. 
 Her condition at that juncture was not one calcu- 
 lated to make her rulers look upon this fact with 
 any degree of contentment. Ho fair judgment of 
 this matter can be arrived at until there is a perfect 
 understanding of that condition. 
 
 Before the war Virginia was a slave State. The 
 cities and towns were small ; the population mainly 
 agricultural. The population was not at all dense ; 
 it was rather sparse. The great bulk of the labor 
 was slave labor. There were many small farmers 
 who did their own work, and some white men hired 
 themselves for wages; hut these furnished compara- 
 tively a small part of the labor. The bulk of it was 
 furnished by the negro slaves. The great body of 
 slave-owners was unused to manual, or, in fact, any 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy, 
 
 other labor. It was an easy-going, good-natured, 
 cultivated population, that lived indolently on the 
 produce of the soil developed by the labor of their 
 slaves. 
 
 ^Yhen the war ended this population found itself 
 confronted, suddenly and without preparation, with 
 the fact that its labor system was wholly disorgan- 
 ized and blotted out. Men who had never done an 
 hour’s work with their hands found that they must 
 till their fields with their own hands or see their 
 families starve before their eyes. Not only so, but 
 in large districts the means with which laud is tilled 
 were gone. Virginia had beeu the battlefield of the 
 Avar. In almost every county the horses, cattle, 
 sheep, and hogs had gone to satisfy the demands of 
 the one army or the other. The white people were 
 converted, as if by magic, from a prosperous and 
 contented people into one without means of subsist- 
 ence except from their naked fields. 
 
 It is hard for one who did not live iu Virginia to 
 understand how completely the situation of the peo- 
 ple was changed by the war from one of prosperity, 
 even wealth, to one of the most abject and grinding 
 povert}\ To bring home to the reader full and 
 
8 
 
 History of the 
 
 complete knowledge of the state of the case, I will 
 describe in detail the condition of and changes in 
 one family. I select my own family, because I 
 know with certainty the facts connected with it : 
 
 My maternal grandmother was Jane Marshall, the 
 youngest sister of Chief-Justice John Marshall. 
 She lived until her death, in 1868, with her daugh- 
 ter, my mother, upon my mother’s farm, in the 
 lower end of Fauquier county, Virginia. Mj' father, 
 a Presbyterian minister, died in 1856. In 1860 my 
 mother’s family consisted of herself, my grandmother 
 before spoken of, an elderly aunt, and my mother’s 
 children; these were four boys and three girls. 
 The oldest boy, John, was a sound man physically, 
 but mentally a wreck, the result of lifelong epilepsy. 
 The next, George, was a young lawyer in Richmond. 
 My oldest sister was married to a PresbjTerian min- 
 ister. The next sister was a young lady of eighteen. 
 I came next, a boy of sixteen. A sister, two years 
 younger, followed me, and a boy of eight followed 
 her. All of us lived with my mother upon her farm 
 except my brother George. Our farm was a fairly 
 good one of 1,000 acres. We owned ten slaves, and 
 had a little money at interest. The farm was sufti- 
 
\'iRGiNiA State Debt Controversy. 
 
 9 
 
 cientlj supplied with horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs. 
 From the farm, as cultivated by our slaves, and 
 from our money at interest, we derived an income 
 that supported the family in great comfort — I might 
 almost say in luxury, W e kept a two-horse pleasure 
 carriage and two or three riding horses. My brother 
 George had been educated at Princeton and the 
 University of Virginia, and I was to go to the latter 
 place. 
 
 When the war came on my brother George at 
 once volunteered as a private in the Eleventh Vir- 
 ginia Infantry, C. S. A. He was killed at the second 
 battle of Manassas. Like all other youths, I volun- 
 teered at once, and enlisted as a private in the Hinth 
 Virginia Cavalry, C. S. A. I was wounded and 
 taken prisoner in March, 1864, and remained in 
 prison until June 15, 1865. 
 
 The region of country where my mother’s farm 
 was located was occupied during almost all the war 
 by the Union armies. In 1864 the Federal soldiers 
 took my helpless brother John and my little brother 
 Taylor, then twelve years of age, as prisoners to 
 Alexandria. They were subject to cruel exposure 
 and very harsh treatment. My brother John was 
 
10 
 
 History of the 
 
 brought home an idiot, and the cruel treatment 
 killed Taylor, who died in prisond 
 
 My third sister was attacked with diptheria in the 
 
 1 Though not strictly germane, the following incident, rela- 
 tive to my little brother Taylor’s death, may be thought worth 
 mentioning: 
 
 I was taken prisoner in a skirmish on the 20th March, 1864. 
 On the 21st I was taken to the headquarters of General 
 Meade, then near Culpeper Courthouse, Va., where I was put 
 into what was called the “Bull Pen.’’ This was an open 
 stockade made of split pines twenty feet long set upright, with 
 the lower ends let into the ground. It was circular, and per- 
 haps forty feet in diameter. It was entirely uncovered — open 
 at the top. It was a temporary place of imprisonment for 
 prisoners of war like myself, deserters from the Federal army, 
 deserters from the Confederate army, and civilians who might 
 have been arrested. On entering the pen I found my little 
 brother Taylor. He had been torn, without any cause what- 
 ever that I have ever heard of, from my mother’s arms and 
 brought here, some twenty-five miles distant from her home. 
 He had nothing to protect him from the weather, which was 
 bitter, but an old shawl which my mother had thrown around 
 him when they carried him off. Snow fell on us that night a 
 foot deep. I had nothing but my overcoat for protection, and 
 there Avas no fire. I wrapped the child up in his shawl and 
 my overcoat, and held him in my arms all night. We both 
 almost froze. Ne.xt day I was taken to Washington and put 
 into the old Capitol prison. I never saAv Taylor again. The 
 exposure was too much for the child. His throat was natu- 
 rally weak, and had been operated upon. New inflammation 
 resulted, and he died in the common jail at Alexandria with- 
 out a face near him that he had ever seen before. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 11 
 
 winter of 1863-’64. She could get no medical atten- 
 tion and died. I returned home from prison in 
 June, 1865. I found there all the family then left, 
 to wit: my grandmother, my aunt, my oldest sister 
 and her husband and three children, my second 
 sister and my brother John. They had no servant, 
 and my mother and sisters cooked and washed, 
 although they had all been raised in luxury. There 
 was not a fence on the farm; there was one milch 
 cow, one broken-down horse, left as worthless by 
 a ^calvaryl soldier, a yoke of oxen, and no other stock 
 of any kind. The family had no money, and not 
 two weeks’ suppl}' of any article of food, with no 
 growing crops. My sister’s husband had cultivated 
 a garden with his own hands, which supplied a suf- 
 ficienc}' of vegetables; otherwise there w'as abso- 
 lutely nothing there from which to hope for a sup- 
 port, except the bare land. 
 
 I have stated the condition of our family with 
 truth and exactness. If any one doubts my state- 
 ment, let him ask the Governor of the State, or any 
 public officer in Fauquier county, whether I am 
 worthy of belief. Better still, let him write to any of 
 the public officers in Fauquier county, Warrenton, 
 
12 
 
 History of the 
 
 Va., for a statement of facts relative to the condition 
 of Mrs. Anna K. Royall’s family at the beginning, 
 daring, and at the end of the war. 
 
 Now the condition of my own family was in great 
 measure the condition of the great body of the people 
 of Virginia, when the war ended. The people were 
 as poor as possible, and what made their poverty all 
 the harder to bear, was the fact that they had not 
 been raised to labor, and it is a most difficult thing 
 for a man reared in luxury to become a day laborer 
 in the hot sun, all at once and without preparation. 
 
 Payment of interest upon the public debt had to 
 come from taxation, to be voluntarily imposed upon 
 themselves by the people of the State, and there was 
 very little in the State from which taxes could be raised 
 — practically no money. A public debt rests upon 
 bare promises only. A State is exempt from suit 
 and cannot be coerced by the law. Whether, there- 
 fore she will pay a debt, or whether she will not, 
 rests entirely with her Legislature, which of course 
 represents the opinions of the body of the voters. 
 
 What, at the end of the war, was Virginia’s course 
 respecting her public debt ? The money had been 
 borrowed upon her credit, when her citizens were 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 IS 
 
 rich. Their slaves had been set free by the vis 
 major. It was upon the credit given by their labor 
 that the money had been borrowed. The temptation 
 was very strong to say to the creditor — as was sug- 
 gested to her : “As the United States Government 
 forcibly deprived me of my basis of credit, you 
 must look to it for payment.” To the honor of her 
 citizens, they in fact said no such thing. 
 
 While the money was being borrowed, Virginia 
 consisted of the present State and of what now 
 makes W est Virginia. During the war, that part of 
 the State now forming the State of West Virginia 
 was detached from her by Act of Congress, without 
 her consent, and erected into the State of West Vir- 
 ginia. This was about one-third of the territory, 
 and one-third of the population. Public opinion in 
 Virginia at once settled down to the conclusion that 
 as West Virginia had taken part in borrowing the 
 money, she should also take part in repaying it, and 
 that as her territory and population constituted 
 about one-third of the old State, it was but fair that 
 she should pay one-third of the debt. When the 
 war ended there existed at Alexandria the skeleton 
 of a government of Virginia, which had been dodg- 
 
14 
 
 History of the 
 
 ing about from one point to auothei’ under the name 
 of the “loyal government” of Virginia. It was no 
 real government, and had none of the elements 
 which constitute a real government; nevertheless it 
 was better than no government at all, and shadow 
 as it was, it was recognized as the government of Vir- 
 ginia by the Federal authorities at Washington. 
 In 1865 this government directed the people to 
 elect a Legislature, which assembled in Richmond 
 in December, 1865. Up to this time the right of 
 voting was confined to the white people alone 
 and this Legislature was elected by white voters 
 only. It was composed of the best citizens Vir- 
 ginia had. Each county and town sent its most 
 honored and trusted son. It was truly repre- 
 sentative of the old State and people, and of her 
 highest and noblest sympathies and aspirations. 
 When these gentlemen met, they found themselves 
 confronted with a situation calculated to appall the 
 boldest and most hopeful. The labor system was 
 destroyed, with no material at hand out of which a 
 new system could be created. The financial system 
 under which the people lived was stricken down, 
 and there was absolutely no money. The live-stock. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 15 
 
 from which the value of farming lands came, had 
 been consumed or taken away by the armies. There 
 were no manufactories, or next to none. For this 
 body to provide for the absolutely necessary charges 
 of government, was no easy matter. If it had 
 openly declared that the State would not recognize 
 the public debt, many would have justified its course. 
 If it had simply ignored the subject altogether, still 
 larger numbers would have applauded its course. To 
 its eternal honor, its members rose to the demands 
 of what would have been expected from Virginia 
 in her most prosperous days, and without a moment’s 
 hesitation it marched up to its duty, as her sons had 
 marched up to Cemetery Hill. 
 
 On the 21st of December, 1865, the House of 
 Delegates resolved “that the Committee on Finance 
 enquire into the expediency of funding the interest 
 debt of the State, and report by bill or otherwise.” 
 
 On the 20th of February, 1866, the committee 
 reported “a bill to provide for funding the interest 
 on the public debt,” which bill passed the House 
 unanimously on March 2d.^ 
 
 House Journal 1865-’66, p. 448. 
 
16 
 
 History of the 
 
 On the same day the bill passed the Senate, 
 unaniraousl}^ under a suspension of the rules.^ 
 
 This Act^ provides that the holders of any of the 
 State bonds issued prior to April 17, 1861 (the day 
 Virginia seceded), may invest the interest due on 
 said bonds in bonds of the State bearing same rate of 
 interest as the principal of the bond bears. In due 
 time the body passed an Act providing for paying 
 interest.® Its preamble provides : 
 
 “ Whereas, from the immense loss of property 
 sustained by this State in the late war, it is found 
 impossible under present circumstances to pay full 
 interest on the public debt, and whereas it is the 
 desire and purpose of the Gleneral Assembly to make 
 provision for paying the same as fully as the re- 
 sources of the State will warrant,” therefore, it was 
 enacted : “ that two per cent, interest he paid on 
 January 1st and July 1st, 1867, on the principal of 
 the debt * * * that being the interest which 
 
 this State feels obliged to pay, until there is a settle- 
 ment of accounts between this State and West Vir- 
 
 ® Senate Journal 1865-’66, p. 312. 
 
 ^ Acts 1865-’66, ch. 9, p. 79. 
 
 ® Acts 1866-’67, ch. 35. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 17 
 
 £(inia.” Four per cent, is two-thirds of six per cent, 
 the interest which the bonds bore. This Act, there- 
 fore, expressed the settled convictions of the people, 
 that \nr^inia ought equitably to pay two-thirds of 
 the debt, and West Virginia ought to pay one-third 
 of it. 
 
 To make the matter still more emphatic, aud to 
 proclaim to all men that though Virginia was con- 
 quered, stripped of all her property and trodden 
 down in the dirt, yet that her people still intended 
 to stand up to every obligation that affected her 
 honor, this Legislature, without a division, qiassed 
 the following joint resolntion : 
 
 “Whereas, the public credit of the State of Virginia 
 and the credit of our citizens has been injured and is 
 now being injured by the apprehensions that this Gen- 
 eral Assembly will repudiate the debt of the State and 
 authorize the repudiation of the debts of her citizens; 
 and whereas we deem it important to remove this appre- 
 hension from the minds of all persons, and so to remove 
 it at once; and whereas if the disposition existed on the 
 part of the General Assembly to pass any repudiating 
 act, the Constitutions of both the State and Federal 
 Governments positively prohibit the passage of any such 
 
18 
 
 History of the 
 
 law, and in order to prevent any further injury to our 
 credit; therefore — 
 
 “ 1 . Resolved, That this General Assembly will pass no 
 such acts of repudiation. 
 
 “2. That such legislation would be no less destructive 
 of our future prosperity than of our credit, our integritj", 
 and our honor.”® 
 
 Such is the record on this subject of the last body 
 that has assembled in Virginia to represent the 
 State and her society as they existed aforetime. If 
 her voters had remained what they were when this 
 Legislature was chosen, the world would never have 
 heard of the Virginia debt, and Virginia’s creditors 
 would have been paid what was their just due. 
 
 «Acts 1866-’67, ch. 33, p. 499. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 19 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 I R 1867 Congress passed the Acts tor reconstruct- 
 ing the governments of Southern States. Under 
 these, all negro males over the age of twenty-one 
 became entitled to vote. The first Legislature that 
 sat in Virginia after that of 1865-’66 was elected 
 under these reconstruction laws by the votes of both 
 white and colored voters. Although this Legislature 
 was elected by the votes of both white and colored 
 voters, and although it contained negro representa- 
 tives and members who were elected as the rep- 
 resentatives of negro constituencies, those who 
 essentially represented white constituencies were 
 in the majority in both houses. It commenced its 
 sessions in December, 1870. In March, 1871, when 
 the debt with its overdue interest amounted to $47,- 
 000,000,^ it passed an Act providing for refunding 
 the public debt. This Act is chapter 282 of the 
 Acts of 1871-T2. It is constructed upon the set- 
 
 Acts 1871-’72, p. 515. 
 
20 
 
 History of the 
 
 tied convictions of the people that West Virginia 
 ought equitably to pay one-third of the debt. It 
 provided that the holder of one of the State’s old 
 bonds might deliver it to the State’s authorities, who 
 were directed to return to the holder a new bond of 
 the State for two-thirds the amount of the principal 
 and overdue interest of the old bond, the whole 
 bearing the same rate of interest that the old bond 
 bore, with a certificate stating that paj'ment of the 
 other third would be provided for in accordance 
 with such settlement as should be thereafter had 
 between the States of Virginia and West Virginia. 
 
 As an inducement to the creditor to fund, and 
 thus practically to release Virginia from one-third 
 of the debt, the Act provided that the bonds should 
 run thirty-four years, bearing six per cent, interest 
 per annum, the interest payable the first days of 
 January and July in each year; and it provided that 
 the interest promises should be in the form of cou- 
 pons, which should be receivable in payment of all 
 taxes, debts, and demands due to the State. In the 
 case of Woodruff vs. Trapnall, 10 How. S. C. E., 
 1890, the Supreme Court of the United States had 
 decided in 1850 that such a contract made by a State 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 21 
 
 was within the protection of the Constitution of the 
 United States and bound it irrevocably, and that she 
 must always recognize it by receiving such instru- 
 ments in payment of taxes levied by her; and in 
 Furman vs. ISTicoll, 8 Wal. S. C. R. 44, it had again 
 decided the same thing in 1869. 
 
 As far as human foresight could go, it seemed 
 certain, therefore, that whoever surrendered his old 
 bond and received the new one provided for by this 
 Act, was made secure of payment of his annual 
 interest so long as the State levied taxes, and how- 
 ever poor she might be, it was evident she would be 
 compelled to raise taxes for support of her govern- 
 ment as long as she was a State. Those, therefore, 
 who funded under this Act did so with a belief 
 entirely justified that the Constitution of the United 
 States protected them against any repudiation or 
 evasion of their stipulated right, even if the State of 
 Virginia should ever find itself disposed to attempt 
 either. The creditors promptly accepted the offer 
 which the Act contained. Funding under it com- 
 menced at once and proceeded very rapidly. By 
 March, 1872, holders of bonds, the principal and 
 overdue interest of which amounted to $30, 000, 000, 
 
22 
 
 History of the 
 
 liacl surrendered them, and received in their stead 
 new bonds for $20,000,000, bearing six per cent, 
 interest, with tax receivable coupons attached. 
 
 When this funding Act was passed, the revenues 
 being raised by the State were insufficient to pay all 
 the other appropriations provided for by her laws, 
 and to pay also six per cent, interest upon the bonds 
 provided for by the new Act. Consequently, she at 
 once defaulted in the payment of interest on the new 
 bonds. In March, 1872, her Legislature passed an 
 Act prohibiting her officers from issuing any more 
 bonds bearing tax receivable coupons. This Act 
 also forbade the collectors of taxes to receive the 
 coupons already issued in payment of taxes.- The 
 creditors at once attacked this Act, so far as it for- 
 bade receipt of their coupons for taxes, as one that 
 impaired the obligation of their contract, and, there- 
 fore, as being repugnant to the Constitution of the 
 United States, and Virginia’s own Court of Appeals 
 held that it was repugnant to the Constitution of 
 the United States and void.® 
 
 ^Ycts 1871-72, p. 141. 
 
 ■^Antoni vs. Wright, 22 Gratt., p. 833. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 23 
 
 From this time forward, for several years, the 
 State’s collectors received the coupons in payment 
 of taxes, and almost all of each annual crop was 
 regularly redeemed thus. They were redeemed, 
 however, at the expense of other demands upon the 
 State, as the revenue was not sufficient for all, and 
 the deficiency fell principally upon the provision for 
 public free schools. And all of this proceeded 
 ditectly from the new order of things which the 
 introduction of the negro as a voter produced. 
 It would be a simple matter to show that if it were 
 worth the space. As the result of this state of 
 things, one of the most troublesome political agita- 
 tors that has ever infested the domestic affairs of 
 any people came upon the stage. This was William 
 Mahone, lately a major-general in the Confederate 
 States army, and afterwards, for six years, a Senator 
 in the United States Senate, At the ending of the 
 war his position as a Confederate States soldier gave 
 him a very considerable influence with the public 
 ^men in Virginia. The State was a very large holder 
 of stock in three railway corporations, which, though 
 separate corporations, made a continuous line all 
 across the State, from Norfolk on the sea-coast to 
 
24 
 
 History of the 
 
 Bristol on the Tennessee line. This interest was 
 acquired with the money already spoken of as bor- 
 rowed. By manipulations which have since been 
 very much discussed and very much condemned, 
 Mahone prevailed on the Legislature to pass an act 
 consolidating these three corporations into one, and 
 through the State’s vote he was made president of 
 the new corporation at a salary of $25,000 per an- 
 num. The new railroad venture was not a success, 
 and in due time it found itself in hopeless insol- 
 vency. Mahone was deposed, and the railway went 
 into the hands of a receiver. Finding himself with- 
 out a job, he turned to politics as his field and took 
 up the public debt as his theme. He published a 
 manifesto showing how the coupons were consuming 
 the revenues, to the prejudice of the teachers of the 
 free schools, and he advocated a theory of politics 
 which should compel the creditors to give up their 
 coupons and take new State bonds bearing very 
 much less interest. He called his proposition a 
 movement for the “readjustment” of the public 
 debt. It was neither more nor less than the begin- 
 ning of a movement for repudiation. 
 
 Up to this time Mahone had been a leader in the 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 25 
 
 Democratic party, and for a number of years he had 
 been chairman of the Democratic Congressional 
 Committee for the Fourth Congressional District, 
 and the charge has been very industriously made 
 and circulated ever since that during his administra- 
 tion of the affairs of that district the negroes were 
 regularly cheated out of their votes by the use of 
 tissue ballots approved of by him. The record of 
 the contest before the hfational House of Represent- 
 atives, in the case of Platt vs. Goode, Forty-fourth 
 Congress, will throw a flood of light upon this 
 charge, 
 
 Mahone’s flrst venture in politics for high ofiice 
 was an efiort to secure the Democratic nomination 
 for Governor in the year 1876. He industriously 
 drummed up all the advocates of “readjustment” in 
 the State, but when the convention met it refused 
 to nominate him, and, instead, nominated a one- 
 armed Confederate colonel named Holliday, who 
 was in favor of paying the State’s debt as it stood. 
 
 Politics were practically ended in Virginia at that 
 time. The Republican party, which consisted of all 
 the negroes and a few whites, had been so often de- 
 feated that it had virtually gone out of existence. 
 
26 
 
 History of the 
 
 Ft placed no candidate in the field in this election, 
 and Holliday was made Governor nem con. 
 
 A new Legislature was elected at the same time 
 that Holliday was elected Governor. How, though 
 no one was put up to contest the Governorship, the 
 seed that Mahone had sown had begun to hear fruit, 
 and a formidable body of members of the new 
 Legislature favorable to a “readjustment” of the 
 public debt according to his ideas appeared when 
 that body met, and by the fall of 1879, when a new 
 Legislature was to be elected, this party had grown 
 to such proportions as to make a serious division 
 amongst the white people of the State. 
 
 The time for the formation of a dema 2 :oorue ’8 
 party was most propitious, and Mahone recognized 
 it, and was of all men the man to form and lead it. 
 He had tireless energy and absolute indifference to 
 the opinion of the good. Though his services and 
 qualifications as a soldier have been denied by those 
 who ought to know, his position in the Confederate 
 army and his reputed services had given him a 
 strong imprimatur with Confederate soldiers. He 
 was astute and cunning, and, above all, his public 
 employments had made him a wide personal ac- 
 quaintance in all parts of the State. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 27 
 
 The opportunity could not have been more favora- 
 ble. In the first place the solid negro vote, more 
 than one-third of the entire votes, was ready to 
 follow him in a body. The negro’s propensity as a 
 voter is very singular. He always waits to find out 
 how the great body of the white people will vote, 
 and he always then votes in a solid body the oppo- 
 site way. This presumably proceeds from the old 
 relation of slavery. He is always apprehensive that 
 the white man will re-enslave him, and he thinks 
 the best plan for making that impossible is to antago- 
 nize the white man on all public issues. Besides, 
 the debt was contracted while he was a slave, and if 
 he reflected at all, he would naturally feel little 
 interest in the holders of it. Mahone had then this 
 immense block of voters ready to his hand to count 
 on as supporters in a movement to “readjust” or 
 repudiate the public debt. There was also a very 
 considerable contingent to be drawn from the ranks 
 of the white people. There were first the worthless, 
 the shiftless, and the impecunious who are always 
 ready to go into any movement that promises change. 
 Virginia was no more exempt from these than any 
 other political community is. 
 
28 
 
 History of the 
 
 Second. There was the very numerous body of 
 respectable men who thought that as the United 
 States Government had forcibly deprived them of 
 their slaves, on whose credit the money was bor- 
 rowed, the United States Government ought to pay 
 the debt. These believed that Virginia was under 
 no moral obligation to pay it. 
 
 Third. There were the old broken-down Virgin- 
 ians of the better classes who simply could not per- 
 form field labor in the hot snn, because they had not 
 been reared to it, and they could not commence in 
 advanced years. Of these some preferred repudia- 
 tion, rather than to labor tor the advantage of the 
 bondholder. There were not many of these. 
 
 Fourth. There was the very considerable element 
 that he could induce to go with him in any move- 
 ment from his old influence as a soldier and from 
 the influence that he had acquired in the public 
 stations that he had held. 
 
 Fifth. The teachers of the public schools per- 
 meated every neighborhood. The tax-paying cou- 
 pons had diminished their salaries. Many of them 
 were evangelists to preach opposition to the coupon 
 and the creditor in ever}’ neighborhood, and each 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 29 
 
 took for bis text whatever theme could be pressed 
 with best effect in any particular neighborhood. 
 
 Mahone resolved upon his part. He resolved to 
 become a leader of a demagogue’s party to make 
 war upon the public debt. But how was this to be 
 done ? To repudiate that part of the debt which 
 was not in the form of tax receivable coupons was a 
 very simple matter if the majority of voters deter- 
 mined to do it. But Virginia’s own highest court 
 had decided that a law forbidding the collectors of 
 taxes to receive the coupons was repugnant to the 
 Constitution of the United States and void. It was, 
 therefore, settled to be the fundamental law of the 
 laud that the Legislature of the State was powerless 
 to enact statutes injurious to the rights of these cou- 
 pons, and so long as they annually forced themselves 
 into the treasury the revenues were intercepted, and 
 readjustment, or more properly repudiation, was no 
 more than an empty paper declaration. 
 
 How was something substantial to be accomplished 
 that would cut off" the coupons ? The situation was 
 a desperate one, and desperate measures were re- 
 solved upon. It was argued that if a political party 
 should take possession of the State in all its depart- 
 
30 
 
 History of the 
 
 merits — legislative, judicial, and executive — and fill 
 every oflice in the State with a person determined 
 to destroy the coupon as a tax-paying instrument, 
 its value as such would disappear even though it had 
 behind it the guarantee of the Constitution of the 
 United States. Mahone and his associates therefore 
 resolved to form a political party having this object 
 in view which they proclaimed to the world to be a 
 party for “ forcible readjustment.” The party was 
 accordingly organized through representatives from 
 every part of the State that assembled at Mozart 
 Hall in the city of Richmond in the spring of 1879. 
 A platform was adopted ; an address to the people 
 was put forth ; an organization that permeated every 
 neighborhood in the State was effected, and the 
 party marched out to do battle with the great body of 
 Avhite people in the election of a Legislature to be 
 chosen in ITovember, 1879.^ 
 
 ^See proceedings of Mozart Hall Convention in Richmond 
 Whig, February 26th and 27th, 1879 ; also Richmond Dispatch 
 of same dates; and see Richmond Whig passim from that 
 time forward. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 31 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I T has already been shown that a Legislature and 
 Governor were elected in the fall of 1877. The 
 Governor, Holliday, was a debt-payer. The 
 Legislature contained a very strong infusion of con- 
 verts to Mahone’s doctrine of “ readjustment.” 
 The Legislature’s life is two years. The whole of 
 these two years was consumed in a contest between 
 the Governor and the Legislature over “ forcible re- 
 adjustment.” The contest ended in March, 1879, 
 by the enactment of a statute approved by the Gov- 
 ernor, which ofiered the creditor a new basis of 
 funding. This Act ofiered him a new bond bearing 
 tax receivable coupons for interest, the bonds to bear 
 three per cent, interest for ten years, four per 
 cent, for twenty years, and five per cent, for ten 
 years. A new Legislature was to be elected in the 
 coming November. The Eeadjuster party mar- 
 shalled its forces to elect a Legislature hostile to 
 this Act. The great body of the white people of 
 
S2 
 
 History of the 
 
 the State called themselves the Democratic party, 
 and this party adopted this last Act, and the main- 
 tenance of the public credit for its platform, and 
 each made preparations to fight out the contest upon 
 this issued 
 
 The white people put forth their very best efforts. 
 Their men of means gave their money to the cause 
 with the utmost liberality. Every man connected 
 in any sort of way with public concerns took the 
 stump. Leading statesmen gave up their whole 
 time to the cause, and travelled from neighborhood 
 to neighborhood making elaborate orations to small 
 cross-roads meetings. ISTo people were ever more 
 thoroughly enlisted in any cause, and they put for- 
 ward all their conservative forces. It was a fore- 
 gone conclusion, however, that they would fail. 
 Mahone had his negro contingent solid, and beyond 
 all danger from argument. Argument produces no 
 more effect upon a negro mob than it produces 
 upon a grove of trees. The needy and impecunious 
 whites that were with him were not of the sort who 
 are affected by argument any more than the negroes. 
 
 ’See address of State Central Committee to Democratic 
 voters in Richmond State for August 8, 1879. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 38 
 
 In short, the election resulted, as all wise men appre- 
 hended it would, in an overwhelming victory for 
 “forcible readjustment” of the public debt. Nor 
 should the Federal Government be excused for its 
 share in the result. 
 
 The negro takes his cue from Washington in all 
 elections. Washington city is to him the Great 
 Father. Though naturally, on principle (if such a 
 term can be applied in such a sense) inclined to vote 
 for repudiation, the President, by taking an active 
 part, could either have made him vote for public 
 credit or could at least, have neutralized him, and 
 have kept him from voting at all. President Hayes 
 was the head of a party that proclaimed public credit 
 as its watchword, and the white people had a right to 
 expect that he would exert his all-powerful influence 
 with the negro to keep him at least out of the con- 
 test. But the white people, unfortunatelj^ for the 
 result, fought under a banner labelled “ Democratic- 
 party,” and no good Republicans could do anything 
 that might possibly contribute to the success of a 
 cause conducted under that flag. 
 
 During the bitter contest that ensued, the debt- 
 payers of Virginia received many consoling mes- 
 
34 
 
 History of the 
 
 sages from Washington, and much “ God speed 
 you in your holy work.” They were somehow 
 conscious all the time, however, that the negro 
 was organizing himself against them with all the 
 energy of aforetime, when the string used to be 
 pulled at Washington, and he jumped in Virginia; 
 and when election day came there was every negro 
 at the polls to vote for “ forcible readjustment” and 
 there he was, brought to the polls by every agency 
 that depended upon the Government of the United 
 States. The base treachery and deception of Mr. 
 Hayes’ part in this afiair can never be held in a 
 light of scorn and detestation that is too strong, 
 and there are evidences enough of it to convince 
 the most skeptical. I will cite one : 
 
 When the contest was at its hottest, Mr. Green 
 J3. Raum, next in the Treasury Department to the 
 Secretary, made public proclamation that, as an im- 
 portant part of Mr. Hayes’ administration, he had 
 notified one Van Aucken, an officer of internal 
 revenue at Petersburg, Va., that it had been reported 
 to the Government that he favored repudiation; and 
 that he had notified him the Government would not 
 tolerate any such views in one of its officers, and 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 35 
 
 that he must change them or give up his office. He 
 added some tine homilies upon the duty of paying 
 debts. This action of the administration was her- 
 alded all over the United States, and was in half the 
 papers published in the Union. Good Eepublicans, 
 wherever they read it, raised their eyes to Heaven 
 and thanked God that their President was not as 
 other men, and that the rights of honest creditors 
 were safe in his hands. 
 
 How, it so happened that Van Aucken was an 
 original debt-payer — had been so all along, and was 
 at that very time one of the tiercest enemies the 
 candidates of repudiation had in his vicinity. But 
 one Hathaway was a collector of customs in Horfolk, 
 Va., drawing regularly a salary of |1,800 per annum 
 from the Federal treasury. This man, during all 
 this time, was owner and editor of a daily paper at 
 Horfolk called the Day Book, which was the rankest 
 advocate of “forcible readjustment” in the State. 
 
 How, though the attention of the Administration 
 was constantly called to the injury which he was do- 
 ing the debt-payers’ party with his paper, he was 
 never once molested, and was allowed to draw his 
 salary regularly from the treasury of the United 
 
36 
 
 History of the 
 
 States to supply him means with which he could 
 help along the cause of “forcible readjustment.” 
 The credit of the Republican party was preserved, 
 while no harm was done to the party opposed to that 
 which had “Democracy ” engraved on its banners, 
 although that party was straining every nerve to 
 maintain all that those who have a stake in life or 
 hope for the future desire to see preserved. 
 
 There was very little in this election, or, indeed, 
 in any other in which he has participated, calculated 
 to give encouragement to the philanthropist who 
 hoped that arming the negro with the elective fran- 
 chise would put a weapon in his hands by the aid of 
 which he would be able to better and advance his 
 condition in life. There can be no doubt that some 
 of those who gave the negro the right to vote sin- 
 cerel}^ believed that they were conferring upon him 
 a right which he would exercise wisely and judi- 
 ciously for his own and the common good. Ro pro- 
 jectors of a movement were ever more deceived in 
 respect to the results that their movement would 
 accomplish. In the thirty years of our experience 
 the negro has in no instance used his right wisely ; 
 in no instance has his use of it resulted in good to 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 37 
 
 him or the public, and all the disasters that have 
 overtaken him or us in that time have resulted 
 directly from his possession of the right to vote. 
 
 I have already remarked that the negro never 
 divides when an election comes on. This may be 
 thought singular, but it is not. It is only a mani- 
 festation of his complete unfitness for the elective 
 franchise, which ought to have been evident to every 
 one before it was conferred on him. 
 
 Secondly : He always votes solidly as the authori- 
 ties of the Republican party direct him to vote. He 
 never reasons about it or asks why, but he votes 
 without a murmur as the Republican authorities in- 
 struct. Not only so, but he will not tolerate any 
 secession whatever to the white ranks. There is no 
 social law so rigorous and cruel as that which the 
 negro applies to his fellow upon this point. The 
 negro who votes with the white people on any point 
 is at once made a social outcast by his race. There 
 are, therefore, none but social outcasts who vote 
 with them. This is certainly true in Virginia, how- 
 ever it may be in the States further south, of which 
 I know nothing. The blind obedience with which 
 they, to a man, receive and obey orders from the 
 
38 
 
 History of the 
 
 leaders is very remarkable. A striking instance of 
 it occurred in Richmond some years back. Two 
 members of the State Senate were to be elected for 
 Richmond. The Democratic party nominated Gen. 
 Bradley T. Johnson and William E. Tanner, Esq., 
 for the places. The Republicans made no nomina- 
 tions. Before the day of election Messrs. Knight 
 and Starke proclaimed themselves independent can- 
 didates, expecting their main support from the 
 negroes. General Johnson made a strong effort to 
 secure a part of the negro vote. At very considera- 
 ble expense he organized several “Johnson” negro 
 clubs. The election took place on a Monday. Up 
 to the Sunday preceding he had a considerable 
 number of negroes enrolled in his clubs pledged to 
 vote for him, and he had every reason to expect a 
 considerable negro vote. So far the negroes had 
 taken no part in the matter, but on the Sunday 
 night preceding the election the negro preachers 
 announced from all their pulpits in the city (and the 
 whole negro population in cities goes to church on 
 Sunday night) that the negroes were expected to 
 vote for Knight and Starke. Johnson and Tanner 
 were elected, but not a single negro vote was east 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 39 
 
 for them. This, fortunately for this discussion, was 
 proved in the sequel. Knight and Starke contested 
 Johnson and Tanner’s right to their seats. The 
 evidence of the witnesses was all taken down in 
 written depositions, and is part of the record of the 
 contest amongst the State Senate’s archives. Any 
 one who pleases can read it for himself amongst the 
 proceedings of the session of 1875-’76. 
 
 At one voting precinct, Johnson had a prosperous 
 club of some eighty-five members. Every negro who 
 voted at that precinct was examined as a witness, 
 and every one, without exception, testified that he 
 voted for Knight and Starke. 
 
 I can relate another striking instance within my 
 own knowledge of the tenacity with which their 
 race bond holds them together and forbids them to 
 furnish a^y aid whatever to the white man’s side of 
 any issue, whatever it may be. 
 
 In the year 1880 I lived in bachelor’s quarters in 
 Richmond city. I had for a body-servant a well- 
 known negro man named William Isham, whom I 
 had known well and trusted for a long time and of 
 whom I was personally fond. He is a very prince 
 in his race. I had taken him into my employment 
 
40 
 
 History of the 
 
 lit his ursfent solicitation when he was well nis^h 
 starving. He had recently lost his position. We 
 lived together much more as friends than as master 
 and servant. I was a delegate from Virginia to the 
 National Democratic Convention at Cincinnati that 
 nominated General Hancock, and I took William 
 with me to give him a trip. On the way the sleep- 
 ing-car conductor came to me in the night and 
 asked me to make my servant surrender his sleeping- 
 car berth with which I had provided him to the 
 Hon. Samuel J. Randall, who, he said, was on the 
 train and could get no berth. I refused, and told 
 William if there was any attempt to take it from 
 him to let me know, and I would see that he was 
 protected. I mention this only to show how close 
 the relations were between us. I was at the time 
 owner and editor of a daily newspaper called the 
 Commonwealth. One of my reporters put an item 
 into my columns stating that the negro pastor of a 
 very large negro congregation in Richmond had 
 been tried by his deacons upon the charge of undue 
 intimacy with a female member of his congregation. 
 The negro preacher brought an action against me 
 for libel, claiming heavy damages. I had of course 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 41 
 
 to prepare for my defence, and I made every effort 
 to find out what the facts were. I could learn 
 nothing. jSTo negro would tell me one single thing 
 concerning the matter. It looked as though I was 
 to be victimized on a charge that I became satisfied 
 was true. 
 
 I finally bethought me of William. I laid all the 
 facts before him, and asked him to get me the name 
 of the female. I shall never forget the anguish 
 which his countenance expressed when I made the re- 
 quest. He told me he could tell me nothing until he 
 had consulted with his father. Next day he told me 
 he had consulted with his father, and had to decline 
 to give me any information whatever. I reproached 
 him bitterly with his ingratitude, but, though it 
 almost broke his heart, he was obdurate, and I 
 never got one word from him. In point of fact, as 
 I learned afterwards, William knew all about the 
 matter. He was one of the deacons of the church, 
 and he had taken part in the trial of the minister, 
 and had heard all the evidence. 
 
 Mahone’s party elected a considerable majority in 
 this election (fall of 1879) in each branch of the Leg- 
 islature, but the debt-paying Governor Holliday had 
 
42 
 
 History of the 
 
 yet two years of his time to serve. Two notable 
 things were done by this Legislature : 
 
 First. It enacted into statutes Mahone’s plans for 
 torcible readjustment, explanation of which is de- 
 ferred to a subsequent chapter. These were vetoed 
 by the Governor. 
 
 Second. Under his inspiration and direction it 
 introduced the “ spoils system ” in the distribution 
 of public offices from which Virginia up to that time 
 had been exempt. Always theretofore when a public 
 office was to be filled, by common consent, the rule 
 had measurably been to select the person believed 
 to be the best qualified for the office. Mahone 
 changed all of this. His party caucus took charge 
 of all matters affecting legislation and the filling of 
 “offices. The State was parcelled out into districts, 
 and some prominent man in each district was given 
 the appointment of every holder of office in that 
 district. There was a regular committee in charge 
 of this business, called the Committee on Patronage, 
 and this divided out the offices under the control of 
 the Legislature with all the impartiality of the leaders 
 of a gang of sneak thieves. 
 
 Of all the injuries Mahone has done Virginia, this 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 4a 
 
 was perhaps the saddest. It sticks to her like the 
 hlight of corosion ; yet it was the corner-stone of 
 his governmental edifice. Throughout all the time 
 that he held any connection with public aflairs in 
 Virginia, his guiding principle was to attach indi- 
 viduals to his party and himself by bestowing ofifice& 
 upon them if they obeyed literally his behests, by 
 denying oflices to them if they murmured against 
 his commands. His party soon became as mottled 
 as Sir John Falstafl:’’s company of Mouldy, Shadow, 
 Wart, Feeble, and Bull-calf. On assembling in the 
 fall of 1879, this Legislature elected Mahone United 
 States Senator. 
 
44 
 
 History of the 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 F rom the time the right of suffrage was conferred 
 upon the negroes, political parties in Virginia, 
 as in all other Southern States, had meant all 
 the negroes and a few w'hite men in one party, called 
 the Republican party, and the whole bulk of the 
 white people in another party, calling themselves 
 the Democratic party. From the time Mahone be- 
 gan his movement for repudiating the debt, it was 
 plain that he must rely upon the negro vote for the 
 substantial strength of his party, and it was equally 
 plain to all sensible men that this must sooner or 
 later land him in the bosom of the Rational Repub- 
 lican party. He struggled hard against the inevita- 
 ble, both he and his associates indignantly denying 
 that they wei'e Republicans, or that they had any 
 sympathy whatever with that party. They called 
 themselves “ Readjuster Democrats.” Their reason 
 tor their course] was this : Almost to a man, the 
 native white population resented the idea of the State 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 45 
 
 being turned over to negro rule, which it was be- 
 lieved the ascendancy of the Kepublican party 
 meant. If, therefore, Mahoue and his associates de- 
 clared themselves to be Eepublicans, they found 
 they would lose the co-operation of the white people 
 who were acting with them to bring about a repudi- 
 ation of the public debt. They therefore endeavored 
 to “ run with the hare and hold with the hounds," 
 and, as will always happen in such cases, they met 
 with most disastrous failure. 
 
 The Presidential election between Garfield and 
 Hancock came off in I^’ovember, 1880, and it became 
 necessary for Mahoue to take a stand as between the 
 two. He impudently put forward the claim that his 
 was the Simon-pure, real Democratic party; he and 
 his associates assembled in what they called the 
 Democratic Convention of the State, and they put 
 out a full Hancock Democratic electoral ticket. 
 
 Without paying the slightest attention to his 
 bogus claims, the real Democratic party of the State 
 put out its Hancock and English electoral ticket, and 
 the Republicans got out their regular Garfield elec- 
 toral ticket. Mahone’s true purpose was perfectly 
 plain and apparent to every one. He knew that if 
 
46 
 
 History of the 
 
 he declared himself a Republican and his party a 
 section of the Republican party he would drive oif 
 a large part of the white people who were with him 
 in State aftairs and who were earnestly in favor of 
 repudiating the public debt, and another decisive 
 lio-bt on that issue was to come on in the fall of 
 1881. He hoped, therefore, by this course to render 
 substantial aid to Garfield, and at the same time to 
 keep his white voters in hand for the next State 
 election. 
 
 In the election 90,449 votes were cast for the regu- 
 lar Democratic ticket, 31,521 for Mahone’s bogus 
 Hancock ticket, and 84,020 for the Garfield ticket. 
 
 In November, 1881, a Governor and entirely new 
 Legislature were to be elected, and this election was 
 to decide finally whether the debt-payers should 
 control the State or whether its government should 
 be turned over to the repudiators. General Garfield 
 died in September, 1881, and General Arthur suc- 
 ceeded him in the Presidency. The New York 
 Times of November 20, 1881, contains an interview 
 with Senator Mahoue, in which he says that during 
 the life of General Garfield his party received very 
 little aid from the Federal Government, but that as 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 47 
 
 soon as President Arthur took the reins of ofovern- 
 
 O 
 
 meut matters changed, and the Readjusters had the 
 full benefit of all the assistance that the Administra- 
 tion could give. His language is : “ "When President 
 Arthur assumed office it was late to do anything, 
 but the acts of the new Administration, although 
 late, were efiective. They indicated as plainly as 
 could be the desires of the Administration, and 
 wherever they were indicated they accomplished 
 most desirable results.” 
 
 To estimate the value of this statement of Senator 
 Mahone it is necessary to take a brief review of the 
 facts that fixed his political status at the time. Ma- 
 hone was born in Southampton county, Va., the son 
 of a worthy Irishman who kept a store at a country 
 cross-roads. He was appointed to the Virginia 
 Military Institute as a State cadet, and received 
 what education he had at the State’s expense there. 
 All his associations up to the war had been such as 
 to make him a “ dyed-in-the-wool ” Democrat as 
 “Democracy” was defined when he was elected to 
 the United States Senate. He rose to high com- 
 mand in the Confederate States army, as has been 
 already stated, and his associations there all con- 
 
48 
 
 History of the 
 
 tributed to iuteusify what made “ Democracy ” in 
 the South in 1881. Up to the time that he voted 
 with the Republicans in the United States Senate, 
 in the spring of 1881, he had been one of the most 
 intense “ Democrats ” of the “ Democrats ” as De- 
 mocracy was defined in Virginia at the time. 
 
 After the war he served for years as chairman of 
 the Democratic Congressional Committee for the 
 Petersburg district, and the Republicans perpetually 
 charged that thej^ were regularly cheated out of each 
 congressional election while be was such chairman 
 by his use of tissue ballots. The whole body of the 
 people of Virginia believe their charge to be founded 
 on facts. 
 
 In 1877 he was a candidate for the Democratic 
 nomination of Governor of the State, and he was 
 only beaten for the nomination in the Democratic 
 Convention by a very small majority. The Legisla- 
 ture that elected him a United States Senator was 
 overwhelmingly a Democratic body, although the 
 Democrats that sat in it were divided upon questions 
 relating to the State debt. But all the “Readjusters’" 
 in that body were intensely Democratic, and the 
 whole world knows that they would have voted for 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 49 
 
 no one to be United States Senator who declared 
 beforehand that he would vote in the United States 
 Senate, on national questions, with the Republicans. 
 When he was up for election as Senator before the 
 Legislature the question was constantly asked in 
 debate whether he would vote with the Democrats 
 in the Senate, and his friends repelled the insinua- 
 tion that he would vote with the Republicans there 
 as an insult to him. As soon as he took his seat in 
 the Senate the memorable debate led by Senator 
 Hill, of Georgia, took place, in which Mahone de- 
 clared, on the floor of the Senate, that he was a bet- 
 ter Democrat than Senator Hill. He was elected 
 Senator at the beginning of 1880, and took his seat 
 at the called session of the Senate that began its 
 sittings March 4, 1881. In that interim he kept his 
 mouth tightly closed, and no man could say, when 
 the Senate assembled, from his public utterances, 
 with which party he would vote. Senator Hill, in 
 the great debate referred to, “ smoked him out ” and 
 made him show his hand. An account of how this 
 came about is worth a place here. 
 
 Mr. Garfield was to be inaugurated on the 4th of 
 March, 1881. Mr. Hayes, the retiring President, 
 
50 
 
 History of the 
 
 called the Senate to meet in Executive Session as is 
 usual on that day. The Senate then consisted of 
 seventy-six members. If all the Republican seats 
 had been filled there would have been thirty-seven 
 avowed Republican Senators, thirty-seven avowed 
 Democratic Senators, and Senator Davis of Illinois, 
 an independent, but elected by Democratic votes, and 
 Senator Mahone, a nondescript, elected by a Legisla- 
 ture that was overwhelmingly Democratic. If, there- 
 fore, the Senate had been full and Senators Davis 
 and Mahone had voted with the Democrats, the Sen- 
 ate would have stood thirty-nine Democrats to thirty- 
 seven Republicans. If, however. Senator Davis 
 voted with the Democrats and Senator Mahone 
 voted with the Republicans, the Senate would have 
 stood thirty-eight Republicans to thirty-eight Demo- 
 crats, with the Republican Vice-President Arthur to 
 cast the deciding vote. Mr. Davis announced at the 
 beginning of the session that being elected by Demo- 
 cratic votes, he felt bound to vote with the Demo- 
 cratic Senators. This, of course, accentuated 
 Mahone’s position very acutely, but no man could 
 say how he would vote. 
 
 The Republican side of the Senate was not full ; 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 51 
 
 one Senator had just died, and Mr. Garfield had put 
 three into his Cabinet, but the Legislatures of the 
 States which those four represented were all in ses- 
 sion, and it was well known that four Republican 
 Senators would be in \Yashington in a very few days 
 to fill the vacant seats. The contest came on upon 
 the question of organizing the Senate by the ap- 
 pointment of its committees. 
 
 Mr. Pendleton, of Ohio, the leader of the Demo- 
 cratic caucus, introduced a resolution that the Senate 
 proceed to organize by appointing a list of commit- 
 tee-men named by him. Mr. Conkling, of l!^ew 
 York, opposed the motion. He said it was true the 
 Democrats had a majority while the four Republican 
 chairs were unfilled, but those chairs, it was well 
 known, would be filled in a few days, and then the 
 Senate would have a majority composed of Repub- 
 licans. This provoked Mr. Hill’s great speech. 
 His theme was that thirty-eight Senators had been 
 elected by Democratic Legislatures as Democratic 
 Senators, and Mr. Davis bad declared his purpose to 
 vote with the Democrats. This gave the Democrats 
 thirty-nine Senators to thirty-seven. That it was 
 impossible the Republicans could have a majority, 
 
52 
 
 History of the 
 
 even when the four vacant chairs were filled, unless 
 some Senator, elected as a Democrat, should prove 
 false to his trust, and he did not believe any such 
 despicable creature could be found. He rang the 
 changes on the infamous character of such a man, 
 if such an one existed, and he painted him in colors 
 that were blacker than midnight itself. He did not 
 make a single remark that could be construed as an 
 allusion to any Senator, but every one knew that 
 Mahone had sat for the picture. The fire became 
 too hot for Mahone. He could not stand it ; abruptly 
 breaking in upon Mr. Hill’s remarks, he declared 
 that it was evident the Senator was endeavoring to 
 uncover his position, and force him to state how he 
 intended to vote, and a violent debate then ensued 
 which developed the fact that Mahone intended to 
 vote with the Eepublican Senators, and thus they 
 won the fight. 
 
 The debate lasted thirteen days, by which time 
 the four vacant Republican chairs were filled. Mr. 
 Anthony moved that Mr. Pendleton’s resolution be 
 indefinitely postponed. An amusing incident oc- 
 curred here. By mistake Mahone voted as his con- 
 stituents expected him to vote. He cast his vote 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 53 
 
 against postponement, and had to ask the Senate to 
 allow him to change it to the side of his new friends. 
 This was done, and the vote stood thirty-seven ayes 
 to thirty-seven noes, two Senators being paired. 
 The Vice-President gave the casting vote for post- 
 poning, and Mr. Anthony then moving a Eepuhlican 
 set of committee-men, the same thing occurred, and 
 the Senate was organized as a Republican body. 
 Mahone voted steadily from that time forward with 
 the Republican Senators, and received his reward. 
 He forced his Democratic friend, Riddleberger, down 
 the throats of the Republican Senators as Sergeant- 
 at-Arms of the Senate, and he forced them to swallow 
 his friend, George C. Gorham, as Secretary of the 
 Senate. From that time forward he controlled every 
 appointment made by Mr. Garfield or Mr. Arthur 
 in Virginia, and he was known there as the boss ot 
 the Federal patronage for the State. Ho conceal- 
 ment was made of the fact that the Republicans 
 bought his vote for the price paid, and Senator 
 Sherman defended the transaction upon the floor 
 of the Senate, saying : 
 
 “Anything that will beat down that party,” mean- 
 ing the Democratic, “ and build up our own, is jus- 
 
54 
 
 History of the 
 
 tifiable in morals and in law.” The Republicans 
 won their fight, and enjoyed their “ green goods,” 
 but it is very doubtful if the moral judgment of 
 mankind upon the matter will sustain Senator Sher- 
 man. Tliis good result has followed however. We 
 know exactly what value to attach to Senator 
 Mahone’s statement that Mr. Arthur gave him effi- 
 cient aid. We know tliat he was on the inside and 
 knew whereof he spoke. 
 
 Therefore his testimony upon this point would 
 have been accepted as full proof had it stood alone, 
 but there would have been abundant evidence with- 
 out it. Eai’ly in the canvass, the controlling men 
 in the Republican party very earnestly opposed any 
 coalition between the Republican party and Vir- 
 ginia’s part}' of repudiation, and while it was under- 
 stood that Mr. Garfield rather favored joint action 
 between them, yet he used no coercive measures to 
 that end, and each felt himself at liberty to act ac- 
 cording to his own discretion. The Virginia Repub- 
 licans, therefore, who opposed a union, carried their 
 hostility to it to the extreme point of assembling in 
 convention at Lynchburg, and nominating a candi- 
 date for Governor, and to making preparations to 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 55 
 
 ran a Republican candidate for the Legislature in 
 each county. 
 
 But when Mr. Garfield died, and Mr. Arthur be- 
 came President, the complexion of matters in Vir- 
 ginia, in this regard, instantly and seriously changed. 
 It was communicated to each Federal ofiice-holder 
 in the State that he must co-opei’ate with the Re- 
 adjusters, or his official head would pay the penalty, 
 and a few obstinate ones were actually removed, and 
 their places filled with Readjusters. It did not take 
 many lessons of this sort to teach the new political 
 faith. The scenes changed as if by magic. All 
 semblance of organized Republican opposition to 
 the Readjusters disappeared, and the Readjuster 
 party of Virginia swallowed the Republican party 
 of Virginia, body and soul, at one gulp. 
 
 To return now from this digression : The contest 
 in November, 1881, resulted in the election of the 
 Readjusters’ candidate for Governor, and in a ma- 
 jority for them in each branch of the Legislature. 
 
 Having now a Governor in sympathy with “ forc- 
 ible readjustment,” the Legislature at once ad- 
 dressed itself to the task of destroying the tax 
 receivable coupons. It first repudiated all of them 
 
56 
 
 History of the 
 
 outright, by forbidding the State’s officers to pay 
 any interest whatever upon the public debt, except 
 upon the bonds which that Legislature itself pro- 
 vided for issuing^ 
 
 It next forbade the collectors of taxes to receive 
 the coupons in payment of any taxes.^ So that as 
 far as it was able to do so, it destroyed the tax-pay- 
 ing coupons. 
 
 This difficulty, however, remained to be solved : 
 The Constitution of the United States forbids a State 
 to pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts, 
 and it might be that the Supreme Court of the 
 United States would pronounce their legislation 
 void, as it had pronounced void the legislation of 
 Arkansas and Tennessee, in the case of Woodruff 
 vs. Trapnall, and Furman vs. Uichol, already re- 
 ferred to. The problem, therefore, to be solved was 
 how to maintain the legislation within the limits of 
 the lines theretofore laid down by the Supreme 
 Court of the United States. 
 
 The bare right of the tax-payer to have his cou- 
 
 Acts 1881 -’82, p. 98, ch. 84, sec. 15. 
 Ib. ch. 40, sec. 1, p. 36. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 57 
 
 pons received in payment of his taxes, without any 
 remedy to compel a recalcitrant State officer to re- 
 spect that right, would be of very small practical 
 avail to a coupon holder. And the Readjusters de- 
 termined that their effective legislation should be 
 made to turn upon this proposition. It had long 
 been a doctrine, and a very necessary one, of the 
 Supreme Court of the United States, that a remedy 
 for enforcing a contract, in existence when the con- 
 tract is made, enters into and forms a part of it, 
 and can no more be injuriously impaired than any 
 other part of the contract’s obligation can be im- 
 paired. However, that doctrine had been qualified 
 by that tribunal to this extent : That there might be 
 a change of remedy, provided the one substituted 
 was as effective as the first. The Legislature of Ten- 
 nessee had sought to get rid of the practical efl:ect 
 of Furman vs. Hichol, by enacting a statute provid- 
 ing that when the bank notes were presented for 
 payment of taxes, the collector should refuse them 
 and require the tax-payer to pay in money, leaving' 
 the tax-payer the right to sue the collector to recover 
 the money back. Whereupon, if it was found that 
 the collector ought to have received the bank notes 
 
58 
 
 History of the 
 
 his money would be returned to him, and the bank 
 notes taken in its place; and the Supreme Court 
 bad decided in Tennessee vs. Snead, 96 U. S. E. in 
 1877, that this was a valid act as substituting for one 
 remedy another that was just as effective. The Ke- 
 adjusters reasoned thus : “ These suits must be 
 
 brought in the State’s own courts, and we will pro- 
 vide that they shall be brought in the county courts, 
 all of which we have just filled with Readjuster 
 judges. It will be strange if our own judges can’t 
 control the litigation so as to make the pretended 
 remedy no remedy at all. So that tax-payers, each 
 paying but a small sum, will find it more to their 
 interest to pay at once in money, and have done 
 with the matter, rather than have an unequal contest 
 with the State in her own courts, where she will of 
 course have a very great advantage over them”; 
 and they took their measures so as to improve very 
 ingeniously on the Tennessee method. 
 
 For some time they had been using as campaign 
 fuel the statement that a number of the State’s cou- 
 pons had been stolen after they were redeemed and 
 put into circulation again, and that others had been 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 59 
 
 counterfeited and put into circulation — both of which 
 statements were absolutely false.® 
 
 Accordingly they enacted a statute, the preamble 
 of which recited that there were bonds with tax 
 receivable coupons attached in existence that had 
 been issued without authority of law ; that there 
 were others outstanding that were spurious, stolen, 
 or forged, and that coupons from such spurious, 
 stolen, or forged bonds were being received in pay- 
 ment of taxes. They therefore enacted that when 
 coupons were tendered a collector, he should receive 
 the same for identilication and verification, at the 
 same time requiring the tax-payer to pay bis taxes 
 in money. That he should certify the coupons to 
 the corporation or county court, which should 
 empanel a jurj' to try whether the coupons were or 
 were not genuine. If they were found to be genuine, 
 the tax-payer’s money should be returned to him, 
 and the coupons put into the treasury in payment of 
 
 ’See Mr. Justice Field’s exposure of the falsity of this state- 
 ment, in his opinion Antoni ».s. Greenhow, i07 U. S. R., at p. 
 792. The documents that he refers to to prove their falsity, 
 may be seen as follows : House Document No. 2, session of 
 
 1881; House Document No, 8 ; House Journal, session of 
 1881-’82; Senate Document No. 15 ; Senate Journal, session 
 of 1881-’82. 
 
60 
 
 History of the 
 
 the tax. This Act involved a hardship upon the tax- 
 payer, ill making him lie out of his money paid to 
 the collector and out of that paid for the coupons 
 also, while the process of verification went on. But 
 this was not the feature on which the Beadjusters 
 relied to make their Act effective as a “coupon-killer,” 
 the name by which they at once christened it. They 
 relied on the judges with whom they had filled the 
 ' corporation and county courts to make the suit to 
 recover the money a farce, and the complexion of 
 the judiciary which they had established in Virginia 
 gave every encouragement to the hope that they en- 
 tertained. This subject, however, is entitled to a 
 separate chapter; but before entering on it, it is 
 proper to add that on the 14th of February, 1882, 
 (Acts 1881~’82, p. 88) they enacted a statute which 
 repudiated all interest claims of all sorts whatever 
 that had accrued prior thereto, and provided for re- 
 funding the entire debt. This provided for a new 
 principal as of that date of $21,035,377,15, bearing 
 three per cent, interest. If the creditors had ac- 
 cepted its provisions (which a part did), it would 
 have cut their principal down nearly one-half, and 
 would have made the annual interest on that half 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 61 
 
 a little more than one-fourth of the annual interest 
 on the principal as it stood after setting aside one- 
 third of it as West Virginia’s part, according to the 
 interest promises as provided for in the bond. 
 
62 
 
 History of the 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 T here are nearly one hundred counties in the 
 State of Virginia, each one of which has a 
 county judge. A new one for each county was 
 to be chosen by tlie Legislature in the winter of 
 1879-’80. The reader will remember that this was 
 the first Legislature elected after the Readjuster party 
 was formed, and that party had a majority in each 
 branch of the Legislature. “ Forcible readjustment ” 
 in addition to its dishonesty meant defiance or eva- 
 sion of the organic law of the land. Both ideas are 
 naturally shocking to the instincts and teaching of 
 all lawyers entitled to be called lawyers, and, there- 
 fore, to the credit of the profession be it said, the 
 Readjuster party had but few reputable lawyers in 
 its ranks. The party was, therefore, very short of 
 material with which to fill the county judgeships. 
 With very few exceptions they put upon the State a 
 county judiciary that greatly shocked the moral 
 sense of the people. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 63 
 
 It has already been said that all the work of this 
 Legislature was cut out in a caucus of the Readjuster 
 members. When the selection of a judge for 
 Franklin county was under consideration, General 
 Jubal A. Farly, a citizen of Franklin county, sent 
 into the caucus, and had read to it, a written state- 
 ment signed by himself, stating that one Thomas B. 
 Claiborne, whom it was understood the caucus would 
 choose, was a professional gambler; and not only so, 
 but a professional gambler who lived by cheating, 
 and that this fact was one of common notoriety in 
 Franklin county, where Claiborne lived. That he 
 made a business of playing the game of “ poker ” 
 with an instrument known amongst cheating pro- 
 fessional gamblers as a “ Lizzard,” a thing concealed 
 in the bosom under the vest, with an attachment 
 extending down the leg to the foot, which enables 
 the player using it to exchange the hand which is 
 dealt him, if he thinks it will not win, for another in 
 the clutch of the instrument. He told them that 
 the “ Lizzard ” was at that moment in the possession 
 of a blacksmith named Hambrick, with whom Clai- 
 borne had left it for repairs, and he gave them the 
 name of a witness who had seen it in Hambrick’s 
 
64 
 
 History of the 
 
 possession. In addition, Claiborne was no lawyer. 
 The Readjuster caucus refused to investigate the 
 charges against Claiborne, and named him for county 
 judge of Franklin county. 
 
 When the election came on before the Legislature, 
 and Claiborne was put up for the place, all these facts 
 were again fully ventilated, and this time before the 
 public; yet the Readjusters, to a man, voted for 
 Claiborne, and he was made judge of Franklin 
 county for six years.^ 
 
 The statute law of Virginia makes it a penal 
 offence to gamble at “ any ordinary, race-field, or 
 
 'See General Early’s written statement in full in Richmond 
 State for January 22, 1880. He also produced evidence that 
 Claiborne, who had been in the service of the United States 
 Government, had been dismissed from the service by the head 
 of the Interior Department for filing false and forged vouch- 
 ers. When he was nominated in the House of Delegates for 
 the place of judge of Franklin county, a member of the House 
 offered a joint resolution reciting that grave charges had been 
 made on the floor of both houses affecting the personal charac- 
 ter of Claiborne, and asking that a committee be appointed 
 to investigate them. The Readjusters, however, voted the 
 resolution down, and proceeded to elect him judge. — House 
 Journal, session 1879-’80, p. 173. 
 
 The Readjusters’ caucus nominated O. W. Purvis for judge 
 of Albemarle county, the home of Thomas Jefferson. When 
 he was put in nomination for the office in the House of Dele- 
 gates the delegate from Albemarle offered a joint resolution 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 65 
 
 other public place.” During the time Claiborne Avas 
 judge of Franklin county the grand jury presented 
 him in his OAvn court for playing and betting at 
 cards at an “ ordinary.” As he could not sit in his 
 OAvn trial, he called upon a brother Readjuster judge 
 (Judge Mays, of Botetourt county,) to try the case. 
 When the case came on for trial the copy of the act 
 which was used in court omitted the comma between 
 “ ordinary ” and race-course. Judge Mays decided 
 that the act prohibited gaming only at “ ordinary 
 race-courses,” and not at an ordinary,” stating that 
 there are “ordinary” and “extraordinary” race- 
 
 as follows, signed by himself and the Senator and other dele- 
 gate, both the latter Republicans: 
 
 “Whereas O. W. Purvis having been presented to the Gene- 
 ral Assembly as judge for the county of Albemarle, the under- 
 signed, comprising the entire delegation from said county, 
 and representing all shades of political opinion, most earnestly 
 protest against such indignity as his election implies being 
 offered to our county and the people whom we represent. We 
 state distinctly that the said O. W. Purvis, from his early 
 manhood, has been regarded as a dishonest, corrupt, fraudu- 
 lent, and untruthful man, and under no circumstances could 
 he be elected to any office in the ’gift of the people of Albe- 
 marle.’’ 
 
 They therefore asked for a committee to investigate these 
 charges. House Journal 1879-’80 ; Richmond State, January 
 13, 1880. 
 
66 
 
 History of the 
 
 courses, the former being such as were open to the 
 public, while the latter were for private use only; 
 and he quashed the indictment. When the white 
 people regained control of their State government 
 both these worthies were impeached, and both re- 
 signed before their trials came on.^ 
 
 The traditions of the bench in Virginia had al- 
 waj’s been of the highest and most ennobling 
 character. No people had ever had a loftier and 
 purer judiciary than she had always had, and the 
 people had always been trained to look upon their 
 judges as spotless and above reproach. The degra- 
 dation of the judiciary whicli Mahone accomplished 
 bj' foisting these ignorant, incompetent, and dishon- 
 est judges upon the people in every locality shocked 
 the moral sense of the public beyond description, 
 and was the beginning of that ground-swell destined 
 sooner or later to hurl him and his party from power. 
 The judiciary established by him was only one 
 manifestation of the ideas and theories that lay back 
 of the party’s organization. It was a party that 
 aimed at controlling the government of the State 
 
 ^See the proceedings in the Journal of the House of Dele- 
 gates, session 1883-’84. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 67 
 
 by collecting together all the worst elements of so- 
 ciety and tying them together for joint action by 
 the bonds of public plunder. Mutterings began to 
 be heard, but the people move slowly; and as the 
 great purpose for which the party was formed, the 
 repudiation of the public debt, was not yet accom- 
 plished, that purpose held his party together for the 
 final struggle in ITovember, 1881, which resulted, as 
 already stated, in his party electing the Governor 
 and a majority in each branch of the Legislature. 
 
 And now the full scope of the devilish purposes 
 Mahone had in view began to be made known. It 
 would be far from doing justice to the case to say 
 that Mahone was the guiding spirit of his parfy. 
 He was his party. The negroes, the bulk of his 
 voters, followed his orders bliudlj'^ and to a man. 
 Ills white associates received orders from him as 
 subordinate military officers receive theirs from their 
 superiors. He was absolutely the autocrat of his 
 party, and his mind was fatally bent on establishing 
 in Virginia the reign of vice, corruption, and inde- 
 cency. He plotted the accomplishment of his pur- 
 poses with sagacity and far-seeing vision 
 
 During the canvass for the election of the Legis- 
 
68 
 
 History of the 
 
 lature, in the fall of 1881 , he sent to each candidate 
 nominated by the Readjusters the following docu- 
 ment: 
 
 “ I hereby pledge myself to stand by the Eead- 
 juster party and platform, and to go into caucus 
 with the Readjuster members of the Legislature, 
 and vote for all measures, nominees, and candidates 
 to be elected by the Legislature that meets in Rich- 
 mond as the caucus may agree upon.”® 
 
 Each candidate was required to sign this pledge 
 and return it to Mahone. As no Readjuster candi- 
 date could be elected without Mahone’s endorsement 
 and consent, it may readily be supposed that most 
 of them signed the pledge. It afterwards transpired 
 that more than three-fourths of those that were 
 elected had signed it.'* This made Mahone complete 
 master of the situation. He had a majority of each 
 house bound to resolve on men and measures in 
 caucus, and he was so completely master of his cau- 
 cus that he could dictate there whatever he wished. 
 The infamy of his purposes soon began to disclose 
 
 “See Lybrock’s letter in Richmond of September 
 
 12, 1882. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 69 
 
 themselves. A general outline of some of bis 
 measures will be given : 
 
 First. Such offices as the Legislature had to fill 
 were filled with those known to be his tools.® 
 
 Second. He brought forward a measure to crush 
 all the courts, and make them merely political sub- 
 ordinates of Mahone.® 
 
 Third. Most of the circuit courts were filled by 
 upright judges who had been placed in them under 
 the old condition of things and whose terms of office 
 were not yet expired. He brought forward a meas- 
 ure for legislating them out of office and filling their 
 places with his tools.’ 
 
 Fourth. He brought forward a measure for re- 
 casting the Congressional Districts, so that he would 
 have been able to send one of his tools to Congress 
 from each.® 
 
 Fifth. The “ Spoils System ” never had so com- 
 plete an illustration as in another measure brought 
 forward by him. 
 
 ^Ib. 
 
 «Ib. 
 
 Tb. 
 
 ®Ib. 
 
70 
 
 History of the 
 
 From the foundation of the colony, it had been 
 the custom of the courts \Yhen they decreed sales of 
 property to appoint as commissioners to make the 
 sales, some of the parties who were interested, to 
 make the property bring the best price possible. 
 Mahone’s measure provided for a Commissioner of 
 Sales for each court, who should be appointed by 
 the Governor, His bill provides that neither the 
 court nor the parties interested, even by consent 
 entered of record, could make any judicial sale. It 
 must be made by his political appointees, tools of 
 course of Mahone. It provided further that the 
 Commissioner of Sales should select a newspaper in 
 each county in which alone advertisement of the 
 judicial sales should be made. In this way he se- 
 cured local agents and a local organ in each county.' 
 
 All these measures, and many more just as odious, 
 were adopted under Mahone’s dictation by his 
 caucus, and were presented in the House of Dele- 
 gates and passed by it, but were defeated in the 
 Senate, because four Senators of his party took the 
 
 ®See a full account of all these measures in the letter of 
 Judge Lybrook already referred to, and in one from B. B. 
 Munford, Esq., in the Richmond State of September 13, 1889, 
 “What is Mahoneism? ” 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 71 
 
 stand that they were elected to readjust the debt and 
 not to pass Mahone’s partisan measures, and, voting 
 with the Democrats, they succeeded in defeating 
 them. 
 
 These matters were thoroughly ventilated through- 
 out the State, and they aroused what, speaking very 
 mildly, may be called a very ugly spirit and temper. 
 They led to what is known popularly I^’orth as the 
 “ Danville Massacre.” 
 
 The white people saw very plainly that it was 
 Mahone’s purpose to cajole away a part of the white 
 people — that part in favor of repudiating the public 
 debt — by a platform of repudiation, and to join it on 
 to the solid negro vote, the two together constituting 
 a majority of the voters of the State, and with this 
 conglomerate party to set up a government for the 
 state of indecency, immorality, and vice. The ground- 
 swell of indignation began to set in. The white 
 people began to ask themselves “ why should we 
 make a further contest for the public debt. It is 
 owned by the citizens of the iSTorth and of England. 
 We have been struggling for the privilege of taxing 
 ourselves to pay it, and here are the very citizens of 
 the Horth who own the debt, through their Presi- 
 
72 
 
 History of the 
 
 dent, aiding Mahone in his efforts to repudiate it, 
 and, at the sanae time, aiding him to establish his 
 infamous local government here to insult and pillage 
 us.” The heroic resolution that had animated the 
 people, to pay their debt out of their grinding pov- 
 erty, because it affected their honor, began to yield, 
 when an incident occurred which operated like the 
 last straw upon the camel’s back. This was a de- 
 cision rendered by the Supreme Court of the United 
 States. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 73 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 T HROUGHOIJT all of this contest the white people 
 of Virginia had fought not only for the prin- 
 ciple that the public debt should be paid ; they 
 had contended also for the supremacy of the organic 
 law and cheerful, implicit obedience to it. The 
 Supreme Court of the United States had decided in 
 1850 that as Arkansas had deliberately entered into 
 a contract similar to that which Virginia had made, 
 the Constitution of the United States protected it, 
 and that Arkansas must recognize and perform it. 
 It had decided the same thing in respect to Ten- 
 nessee in 1869, 
 
 The white people of Virginia thus understood that 
 tribunal to have decided solemnly that the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States enjoined it on them as a 
 duty to receive the coupons in payment of the taxes, 
 and they would not tolerate any suggestion, either 
 to defy the Constitution openly, or to evade its man- 
 dates by indirect tricks. This was the text from 
 
1 *2 
 
 HiSTOB-Y of the 
 
 wLich their editors wrote, and their speakers de- 
 claimed in everr quarter of the State, in both the 
 canvasses where the public debt was the issue — that 
 of lc79 and that of 18^1. The Seadjusters, in each 
 canvass, put forward the proposition that they would 
 beat the Supreme Court by the Acts of the Legisla- 
 ture they would pass. The debt-payers declared 
 that their loyalty and duty as citizens c-omj>el]ed 
 them to accept its decisions, and obey them in goo<l 
 faith. 
 
 As soon as the Legislature of I 55 I enacted the 
 statute already described, dubbed by them and 
 called in the vernacular *• Coupon-Killer Xo. 1.” the 
 bondholders organized themselves to contest it in 
 the courts, and they did me the honor to select me 
 as their representative. A case was made up and 
 carried to the Supreme Court of the United State*, 
 when, to the dismav of the creditors and the un- 
 bounded astonishment of the white people of Vir- 
 ginia, the Acd was declared to be one that did not 
 impair the obligation of the coup»on contract, and 
 one consistent with the Constitution of the United 
 States.^ Of course there is no intention to cast the 
 
 ’ADtoni M. Gi^chow, 107 U. 5. R. p. 709. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 slightest doubt here upon the fairness and good faith 
 of that tribunal, but the faithful historian must re- 
 late history as it is, and it cannot he denied, that this 
 decision produced a profound sensation in Virginia, 
 and one most damaging to the esteem in which the 
 people held the court. The court consisted exclu- 
 sively of Eepublican judges except one, who dissented. 
 The Eepublican President and Senators had just 
 entered into their contract with Senator Mahoue, 
 whereby he was to be allowed to control all Federal 
 appointments in Virginia, in consideration of voting 
 with the Eepublicans in the United States Senate. 
 The people of Virginia jumped to the conclusion that 
 a Eepublican court had become part of the bargain 
 with Mahone. and had sustained his legislation in 
 opposition to their preceding decisions, in order that 
 his hands might be held up.* 
 
 ^ The temper of the people may he fairly judged of by the 
 following plank put into the platform of the Democratic party 
 at its convention held at Roanoke in July, ISio. It has refer- 
 ence to the state of affairs after the Supreme Court had de- 
 cided the case of Poindexter r^. Greenhow — but it describes 
 just as well the sentiment after the decision of Antoni rs. 
 Greenhow: 
 
 “The Democratic party heretofore pledged as final its ac- 
 ceptance of the settlement of the public debt, known as the 
 
76 
 
 History of the 
 
 The temper of the white people towards the public 
 debt became at once changed, and radically changed. 
 From desiring to pay it, they became absolutely in- 
 ditferent as to whether it was paid or not; but 
 whether paid or repudiated, one stern resolve took 
 possession of them. They unanimously resolved 
 that they would never more allow it to be used by 
 demagogues, as a text by which their own vote 
 could be divided and the State government thus 
 turned over to a hybrid party composed of the solid 
 negroes and thriftless whites, led by unscrupulous 
 white adventurers. They resolved that the formation 
 of a pure government for their State was of first im- 
 portance ; considerations affecting the public debt of 
 second. 
 
 They endured the government which Mahone had 
 set up until 1883, in the fall of which jmar a new 
 
 Riddleberger Bill, which had then been declared constitu- 
 tional b 3 ' the courts, State and Federal, and its opposition to 
 all further agitation of the question, or by any disturbance of 
 that settlement, b}’ repeal or otherwise. This pledge was ob- 
 served with scrupulous fidelity on the part of our representa- 
 tives by the enactment of all needful and proper measures of 
 legislation, and the State of Virginia would have been forever 
 freed from the harassing demands of the public creditor, but 
 for the sudden and inequitable reversal of its own decision by 
 a Republican court.” — Richmond Dispatch, July 31, 1885. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 77 
 
 Legislature was to be elected, and then they gathered 
 together all their resources to make one desperate 
 etfort to rid themselves of Mahone and his vampires. 
 They pointed out to their brethren who had gone 
 ofi‘ to Mahone, how he had cajoled them under pre- 
 texts relating to the public debt to join him in estab- 
 lishing a government of indecency for the State, that 
 disgraced every honest man connected with it; they 
 declared to them that as the Supreme Court of the 
 United States had decided the measures of the Re- 
 adjusters to be valid they could say nothing more 
 about the debt, and they entreated them to come 
 back and aid in re-establishing a State government 
 that it would be possible for a self-respecting man to 
 live under. A general convention of the white peo- 
 ple, called a convention of the Democratic party of 
 the State, was held in Lynchburg in July, 1883, 
 which adopted a party platform for the election of 
 members of the Legislature to be held in November, 
 1883. This platform contained the following con- 
 cerning the debt : 
 
 “The Democratic party accepts as final, the recent 
 settlement of the public debt pronounced constitu- 
 tional by the courts of last resort. State and Federal, 
 
78 
 
 History of the 
 
 and will oppose all agitation of the question or any 
 disturbance of that settlement by appeal or other- 
 wise.”® 
 
 This declaration brought both sections of the white 
 people together again, and in the election in I7ovem- 
 ber, 1883, they carried both branches of the Legisla- 
 ture triumphantly and gave Mahoneism an overthrow 
 so notable that he has never since been able to raise 
 his head effectively in the State. 
 
 If the white people had confined themselves to the 
 position taken by the Lynchburg platform — fhat is, a 
 position of passiveness — their attitude would have 
 been one of dignity and self-respect entirely con- 
 formable to the heroic effort they had made to tax 
 themselves to pay a debt owned by strangers. They 
 had only to stand with their arms folded. If the 
 measures of the Keadjusters worked out their aim, 
 to the Readjusters would belong whatever credit at- 
 tached to it. If they failed in their aim, on the 
 Readjusters’ shoulders all the blame would have 
 rested, and the white people could have said it was 
 no disaster of their making. Unfortunately, they 
 allowed their new allies to take the lead in party 
 
 “Richmond Dispatch, July 27, 1833. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 79 
 
 nlFairs, and these have led them far away from their 
 old position, and have subjected the whole body to 
 severe criticism. From that election until now 
 the Democratic party has had complete control of 
 tlie State of Virginia, and the acts they have passed 
 concerning the public debt, and their whole course 
 touching this matter, has been one to make every 
 friend of Virginia sad.* 
 
 The case of Antoni vs. Greenhow was an applica- 
 tion to the courts to compel a collector of taxes to 
 receive coupons. The decision of the Supreme 
 Court was that if a tax-payer insists upon paying his 
 taxes by forcing them into the State’s treasury it is no 
 hardship on him that he should be required to do so 
 according to the methods the State prescribes, rather 
 than according to the method he may elect. The 
 Court, however, was very emphatic in declaring that 
 the coupon contained an inviolable contract, the 
 obligation of which the State could not impair, and 
 it said in terms that it was the tax-payer’s right to 
 “have his coupon received when offered.” These 
 two propositions seemed logically to suggest a third — 
 
 ^See resume of the atrocious acts that have been passed 
 since 1883, in the opinion of Mr. Justice Bradley, McGahey vs. 
 Virginia 135 U. S. R. p. 669 et seq. 
 
80 
 
 History of the 
 
 to-wit, as it was the tax-payer’s right to have his 
 coupon received “when ottered,” the tender of the 
 -coupon extinguished the tax, and a collector who 
 molested the tax-payer after such tender would do 
 so at his peril and would be liable to him for dam- 
 ages. If this were really what was meant, and it 
 seemed evident that it was, then the bondholders, 
 instead of losing, had gained their case. It was of 
 no moment to them whether the State collected her 
 coupons from her tax-payers or whether she did not. 
 All they were interested -in was to find a market for 
 their coupons, and the tax-payer would surely buy 
 them if the tender of them paid the tax and they 
 could secure protection in respect of the tax after 
 that tender. Representing the bondholders, I at 
 once announced publicly through the press that this 
 seemed to be the effect of the decision, though I 
 was much derided for doing so, and I at once made 
 preparations to test the question whether this was 
 or was not its effect. I prepared the necessary 
 cases and took them to the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, which decided, in the spring of 1885, 
 that my view of the law was correct.® 
 
 ^Poindexter vs. Greenhow, 114 U. S. R. 269. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 81 
 
 But it was evident that in getting this decision my 
 task would be far from being completed. The hor- 
 rors of the government which Mahone had set up in 
 the State had so embittered the people that the 
 creditors no longer had any friends there willing to 
 move hand or foot in their behalf. The State’s 
 judiciary was almost wholly of his creation, and 
 composed of men put into office to destroy the cou- 
 pons. The tax-collector and the tax-payer were both 
 citizens of Virginia, and if the tax-payer’s property, 
 after a tender of coupons was made by him, was 
 seized by the collector and sold, thus forcing pay- 
 ment in money, it seemed useless to sue him for his 
 trespass in the State’s courts organized to defeat the 
 tax-payer in that very litigation. It seemed, there- 
 fore, that unless some impartial judiciary could be 
 appealed to the naked declaration that a tender of 
 the coupons paid the tax would be of little practical 
 avail to the creditors. The United States Circuit 
 Court of Virginia could be relied on as an impartial 
 tribunal between the parties, but from the founda- 
 tion of the Government it had been a maxim of the 
 law that a suit could not be brought in the United 
 States Court by one citizen of a State against an- 
 
82 
 
 History of the 
 
 other citizen of the same State. The problem, 
 therefore, was to get jurisdiction for the United 
 States Court of actions for damages where the State's 
 collectors trespassed on tax-payers who had tendered 
 coupons. Congress had very recently revised the 
 matter of the jurisdiction of these courts, and had 
 given them, by the Act of 1875, jurisdiction of all 
 suits “arising under the Constitution of the United 
 States.” When tax-collectors levied on tax-payers’ 
 property it was by virtue of an Act of Assembly of 
 the Virginia Legislature, and I put forward the claim 
 that this Act was in violation of the Constitution of 
 the United States, and that being so, the tax-payer’s 
 suit against the collector for damages would be one 
 “arising under the Constitution of the Ltnited 
 States,” and being so, was one which he might bring 
 in the United States Circuit Court, although both 
 plaintiff and defendant were citizens of Virginia. 
 To test this question I made up and carried a case 
 to the Supreme Court, and it held that I was right.® 
 I had now, therefore, the fundamental right estab- 
 lished and an impartial tribunal in which I could 
 seek redress for a violation of the right. 
 
 ‘Smith vs. Greenhow, 109 U. S. R. 669. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 83 
 
 Information respecting the state of the law soon 
 spread among the tax-payers, and as coupons could 
 be bought for about forty cents on the dollar the 
 temptation to pay taxes with them prevailed with, 
 many tax-payers. The government of the State did 
 all in its power to prevent this being done. Tax- 
 payers were discouraged from using coupons in 
 every way possible, and in addition collectors were 
 instructed to seize and sell the property of all those 
 who stood on a tender of coupons, with a promise 
 from the State authorities that they would he indem- 
 nified, the Legislature having passed an act making 
 provision for this indemnification.^ The officers 
 levied and sold property and I brought actions for 
 damages in the United States Court, in all of which 
 I recovered damages,® The use of coupons was 
 spreading rapidly, and it became evident that the 
 State would be forced to pay her debt unless some- 
 thing could be done to stop the use of coupons. 
 Thereupon the wise men of Virginia put their heads 
 together and devised an Act of Assembly which, for 
 
 ^Acts 1885-’86, p. 228, ch. 216. 
 
 ®See a report of two of these trials in the twenty-ninth vol- 
 ume of Federal Reporter, p. 238. 
 
8i 
 
 History of the 
 
 ingenious cunning to pervert the law and justice, has 
 no parallel in the annals of legislation. 
 
 For a long time past the demands of commerce 
 have made it necessary that most commercial securi- 
 ties shall be engraved simpljg without any sign- 
 manual upon them. Yielding to this commercial 
 demand, the Act of the Virginia Legislature author- 
 izing the issue of her bonds and tax receivable cou- 
 pons provided that the bonds should he signed by 
 her Treasurer and Second Auditor, but that the 
 coupons should be engraved simpljn The coupons 
 are negotiable instruments and paj’able to the bearer. 
 The whole idea connected with them is that if the 
 State does not pay them at maturity the bondholder 
 may sell them to a tax-payer, who will acquire the 
 right to pay his taxes with them. The fundamental 
 idea is, therefore, that the coupon may be owned by 
 one person, the bond by another, between whom 
 there may be no connecting link whatever. As a 
 means of embarrassing those who purchased the 
 coupons, the Virginia Legislature enacted a statute 
 which provided that in any issue the State’s repre- 
 sentative might call upon the coupon holder to pro- 
 duce the bond from which it came, and another Act 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 85 
 
 forbade the coupon holder to prove a coupon genuine 
 by the testimony of expert witnesses — the only evi- 
 dence by wdiich detached coupons could possibly be 
 proved.® 
 
 In 1887, the year in which the ingeniously-devised 
 statute was passed, her highest court had decided 
 that these two Acts were constitutional, and that they 
 did not impair the obligation of the contract em- 
 braced in the coupon. “ If, then, any litigation that 
 might take place over the coupons must take place 
 in the State’s own courts, she seemed to be pretty 
 well hedged around against them. One statute for- 
 bade payment of the coupons, another forbade her 
 officers to receive them for taxes, then another 
 directed her officers to seize and sell the property of 
 the tax-payer who tendered coupons, another indem- 
 nified him against loss for such seizure, and the two 
 last named made it impossible for a holder to prove 
 his coupons when they were disputed. From the 
 State’s standpoint, the great desideratum was to end 
 litigation, when coupons were involved, in the 
 
 ® Acts 1885-’86, p. 36, ch. 45; Ib., p. 40, ch. 49. 
 w Weller's Case, 82 Ya. R. 721; McGahey's Case, 85 Ya. R, 
 519. 
 
86 
 
 History of the 
 
 United States Courts, where she would receive no 
 more consideration than any other party, and have 
 it to take place in her own courts, owned and domi- 
 nated by her, where she could mould it so as to 
 suit her own purposes and have all the advantages 
 necessary over the coupon holder. 
 
 Accordingly, in May, 1887, her Legislature enacted 
 a statute (immediatel}?^ dubbed in the vernacular the 
 “ Coupon Crusher ”) which provided that when cou- 
 pons were tendered a collector of taxes, he should 
 report that fact to the Commonwealth’s attorney, 
 who was instructed to sue the tax-payer for his tax 
 in the State’s court. If the tax-payer pleaded that 
 he had tendered coupons, he was required to prove 
 them genuine (which of course he could not do 
 without the bond, and that he did not have and 
 could not get), judgment would of course go against 
 him for the tax, with a penalty and interest and the 
 costs, including a fee in each case to the Com- 
 monwealth’s attorney of §10. Execution was to 
 issue on the judgment. If the tax-payer tendered 
 coupons on the payment of the execution, the officer 
 was to refuse them, and report that fact to the Com- 
 monwealth’s attorney, who was to sue the tax-payer 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 87 
 
 again on the judgment. Judgment would of course 
 go against the tax-payer in this second suit, and 
 another set of costs was to be taxed, including 
 another fee of §10 to the Commonwealth’s attorney. 
 Execution was to go out on this second judgment, 
 and if coupons were tendered in payment of it, a 
 third suit was to be brought, and so on ad infinitum, 
 until the costs and penalties and interest were piled 
 up so high that in very terror the tax-paj’er would 
 be compelled to pay up in money. This Act, con- 
 structed upon the theory that the State’s judges would 
 be a set of partisans who would not allow the tax- 
 payers to have any chance in a suit with the State, 
 was at once put into operation all over the State 
 where tax-payers were standing on a tender of cou- 
 pons, and the State’s judges justified the expectation 
 that the Legislature entertained of them. Tax- 
 payers were denied all right of defence, and judg- 
 ments were entered against them. Second judg- 
 ments, third, and even fourth were entered in many 
 cases, and the process went on indefinitely. One 
 E’icholas hfeurohr was sued in the Circuit Court of 
 the city of Richmond for §1.80 taxes, which he had 
 offered to pay with the State’s coupons. He was 
 
88 
 
 History of the 
 
 denied all right of defence, and judgment went 
 against him of course, and when the execution went 
 out it was for $18.93d^ This is no exceptional case. 
 The amount of taxes in each case is small, and in 
 the great majority two or three judgments made the 
 costs amount to more than the original debt. 
 
 For some time prior to the passage of the Act of 
 May, 1887, the bondholders had had a representative 
 in Virginia, one James P. Cooper, a citizen of Great 
 Britain, engaged in selling coupons to the tax-payers, 
 and giving to each one who bought a guarantee to 
 save him harmless. He could well do this while he 
 could keep out of the State’s own courts, because, 
 if the State’s officers molested his clients, he could 
 sue them for damages in an impartial tribunal — the 
 United States Circuit Court— and make the officers 
 answer for their wrongful acts. When the Act of 
 May, 1887, the “ Coupon Crusher,” was passed, 
 Cooper at once saw that it produced a very serious 
 case for himself and the tax-payers. It required 
 them to prove their coupons to be genuine in the 
 
 See records of the Court, Commonwealth vs. Neurohr. See 
 papers on motion to advance McGahey vs. Virginia, on file in 
 Clerk’s Office, Supreme Court U. S., October term, 1888, for 
 way in which this act was put in execution all over the State. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 89 
 
 State’s courts. The only evidence by which this 
 could be done was the bond from which the coupons 
 came, or the testimony of expert witnesses. He had 
 bought his coupons in the open market, and he did 
 not know where the bonds were from which they 
 came, nor could he produce them. Virginia’s 
 highest court had decided that the Act requiring the 
 bonds to be produced and the Act forbidding the 
 use of expert Avitnesses Avere valid, constitutional 
 Acts, and these Acts Avere binding on her lower courts 
 in which the suits were to be brought. It looked, 
 therefore, if the “ Coupon Crusher ” Avere a valid 
 Act, as though he and his clients were caught in a 
 mash-trap. He accordingly filed a bill in the Cir- 
 cuit Court of the United States, setting forth all the 
 facts, and praying the Court to restrain and enjoin 
 the Attorney-General of the State and the attorney 
 for the Commonwealth for each county from putting 
 this Act into force and effect. The Circuit Court 
 granted the injunction. 
 
 The eleventh amendment to the Constitution of 
 the United States provides that “ the judicial poAver 
 of the United States shall not be construed to extend 
 to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prose- 
 
90 
 
 History of the 
 
 cuted against one of the United States by citizens of 
 another State, or by citizens or subjects of any 
 foreign States.” Uow, the officers of the State 
 claimed that Cooper’s suit, while nominally against 
 E. A. Ayers, the Attorney-General of Virginia and 
 the others named, attorneys for the Commonwealth 
 for each county, was really and in effect a suit 
 against the State of Virginia, and a suit, therefore, 
 which the Circuit Court of the United States was 
 forbidden to entertain by the eleventh amendment 
 to the Constitution of the United States. The 
 Attorney-General, Mr, Ayers, accordingly violated 
 the injunction. He was summoned before the court 
 to answer for a contempt, and was fined §500 and 
 committed to jail until the fine should be paid. He 
 applied to the Supreme Court of the United States 
 for a writ of habeas corpus, praying that he might 
 be discharged, upon the ground that the Circuit 
 Court of the United States was forbidden by the 
 eleventh amendment to entertain jurisdiction of the 
 suit. The question raised by this application was 
 not a new one. It had been raised and passed on bj' 
 the Supreme Court of the United States in the cele- 
 brated contest between the Bank of the United 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 91 
 
 States and the old State Banks. The old State 
 Banks, which dominated the Legislature of Ohio, 
 wished to exclude their powerful rival, the Bank of 
 the United States from any share in the banking 
 business of Ohio. They, therefore, moulded the 
 statute laws of Ohio to this end. The celebrated 
 case of Osborn vs. the Bank of the United States, 9 
 Wheat, p. 738, was the result of this contest. By 
 an Act of the Legislature of Ohio, passed in 1819, 
 the State of Ohio undertook to impose an annual 
 tax of $50,000 upon each of the two branches of the 
 Ignited States Bank established in Ohio. The Act pro- 
 vided that the auditor of the State, Ralph Osborn, 
 should issue his warrant to any person he might ap- 
 point, commanding him to collect from the bank the 
 amount so charged against it. Osborn being about 
 to put the Act into force and effect, the bank applied 
 to the United States Circuit Court for an injunction 
 to restrain him. A preliminary injunction was 
 awarded which was served upon Osborn. Notwith- 
 standing which, he issued his warrant to one Harper, 
 who went to Chillicothe and forcibly entered the 
 vaults of the Bank of the United States situated there 
 and took from them the sum of 8100,000. Whilst 
 
92 
 
 History of the 
 
 Harper was on his way to Columbus to turn the 
 money over to the treasurer of the State, the injunc- 
 tion was served on him also, but he proceeded nev- 
 ertheless, and delivered it to the treasurer of the 
 State, who entered it upon the books of his office as 
 so much of the State’s money, and charged himself 
 as treasurer with it. He did not mix it with the 
 other moneys of the State, but kept it in the treasury 
 separate and apart to itself in a trunk. The cause 
 proceeded to a final decree, when the Court decreed 
 that the treasurer should return the money to the 
 bank, which he refused to do, and for refusing to do 
 this the Court attached him for contempt, and com- 
 mitted him to jail. It also appointed three seques- 
 trators, and directed them to seize this identical fund 
 and bring it into court. The sequestrators went 
 into the State’s treasury, by virtue of the command 
 of the order of sequestration, seized the fund and 
 brought it into court, when it was returned to the 
 bank, and the State’s officers were perpetually en- 
 joined from putting the Act of the Ohio Legislature 
 into force and effect. Much of this !Mr. Wheaton’s 
 report of the case fails to disclose. But an inspec- 
 tion of the record in the clerk’s office of the Supreme 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 93 
 
 Court of the United States will disclose it all. The 
 case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, where the action of the lower court 
 was approved and affirmed. This was in the good 
 old days before labor strikes, Farmers’ Alliances, 
 Virginia Repudiators, and Silver Legislation had 
 demoralized Legislatures and overawed all the func- 
 tionaries of government. It was claimed in Osborn 
 vs. the Bank, that the suit, while nominally against 
 the State’s officers, was really against the State of 
 Ohio, as she was the party really interested, but the 
 Supreme Court replied in the following propositions: 
 
 (a) That a Circuit Court of the United States, in 
 a proper case in equity, may enjoin a State officer 
 from executing a State law in conflict with the Con- 
 stitution of the United States, when such execution 
 will violate the rights of the complainant. 
 
 (b) That when the State is concerned, the State 
 should be made a party if it can be done. That it 
 cannot be done is a sufficient reason for the omission 
 to do it, and the case may proceed to decree against 
 her officers, in all respects as if she were a party 
 to the record. 
 
 (c) That in deciding who are parties to the suit 
 
94 
 
 History of the 
 
 the Court will not look beyond the record. That 
 making a State officer a party does not make the 
 State a party, although her law may prompt his 
 action, and she may stand behind him as the real 
 party in interest. That a State can be made a party 
 only by shaping the bill expressly with that view, 
 as where individuals or corporations are intended to 
 be put in that relation to the case.” 
 
 These doctrines were again announced and acted 
 on by the Supreme Court, in Davis vs. Gray, 16 
 Wallace, S. C. R. 203 ; when it enjoined the Gover- 
 nor of Texas from executing an Act of the Legis- 
 lature which was repugnant to the Constitution or 
 the United States. They announced a plain, intel- 
 ligible rule for determining whether a given suit 
 was a suit against a State ; to-wit : whether she is 
 named upon the record. If she were it was a suit 
 against the State. If she were not, then the suit 
 was not against her. Tested by this rule. Coop- 
 er’s suit was certainly not against the State of 
 Virginia, for she was not named as a defendant. 
 Ilis suit wms against her officers alone, to enjoin them 
 from putting into force an Act of the Virginia Leg- 
 islature, which the Constitution of the United 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 95 
 
 States had forbidden that Legislature to pass. The 
 Supreme Court, however, revised the doctrine of 
 Osborn vs. the Bank, and Davis vs. Gray, and held 
 that they did not furnish the true rule. That the 
 true question was whether the State was the party 
 really interested, whoever might be named on the 
 record, and that the State of Virginia was the party 
 really interested in Cooper’s suit, and that it was 
 therefore, really a suit against Virginia, and one of 
 which the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction. It ac- 
 cordingly discharged the Attorney-General from 
 custody.^^ 
 
 This decision relieved the officers of the State 
 from all embarrassment, and placed those who had 
 tendered coupons at their mercy. Suits were pros- 
 ecuted against them all over the State; the State 
 courts refused to allow them to make any defence ; 
 judgments with costs were entered against them ; 
 second judgments on these with second costs were 
 added; third judgments with third costs were added 
 to these, and so the iniquity went on. 
 
 Meanwhille test cases were made up and carried 
 to the Supreme Court of the United States, calling 
 
 ^^Ex-parte Ayres 123, U. S. R., 443. 
 
m 
 
 History of the 
 
 in question the constitutionality of the “ Coupon 
 Crusher” and the Acts which authorized the bonds 
 to be called for, and which forbade the use of expert 
 testimony. These came on to be heard by it in the 
 spring of 1890, and are reported in the 135th rob U. 
 S. R., 662, McGahey vs. Virginia. The Court held 
 the Act requiring the bond to be produced, and the 
 Act forbidding the use of expert testimony, to be 
 repugnant to the Constitution of the United States 
 and void, but it declined to pass upon the question 
 whether the Act requiring tax-payers to be sued was 
 valid or void, wholly ignoring that question, which 
 was the first one presented to it in McGahey’s case, 
 and the really vital one ; the others being of no con- 
 sequence Avhatever, if the State w-as to be allowed 
 to drag coupon tenderers before her own courts to 
 be dealt with there as she desired. 
 
 If the Court had not ignored the question whether 
 the “ coupon crusher ” was valid or not, this long 
 controversy would soon have been brought to a con- 
 clusion in one way or the other. If it had held, as 
 it w^as bound to hold if it passed on the questions, 
 that the Act impaired the obligation of the State’s 
 contract and was void, the creditors would have been 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 97 
 
 put back to the position they occupied when it was 
 passed, aud they would very soon have compelled 
 the State to make a settlement that would do them 
 justice. I at once prepared new cases and carried 
 them to the Supreme Court. Each case involved 
 the single question whether the “ coupon crusher 
 was or was not constitutional, and in deciding these 
 the Court would have been compelled to pass upon 
 the validity of the Act. It had used the following 
 language, however, in deciding McGahey vs. Vir- 
 ginia : 
 
 “ It is certainly to be wished that some arrange- 
 ment may be adopted which will be satisfactory to 
 all parties concerned aud relieve the courts as well 
 as the Commonwealth of Virginia, whose name and 
 history recall so many interesting associations, from 
 all further exhibition of a controversy that has be- 
 come a vexation and a regret.” 
 
 The alternatives now oftered to the bondholders 
 were very embarrassing. On the one side there 
 were the obvious arguments that proved the “cou- 
 pon crusher” to be void, and in speaking of it the 
 Court, while not expressly condemning it, had used 
 language which seemed to indicate that it would 
 
98 
 
 History of the 
 
 condemn it when it should pass upon it. On the 
 other, here w&s this distinct request from the Court 
 tliat the parties should settle the controversy hy ne- 
 gotiation and remove it from the courts. 
 
 Under these circumstances the bondholders re- 
 solved to enter into negotiations. They were set on 
 foot under the superintendency of ex-President 
 Cleveland, Hon. Thomas P. Bayard, Hon. E. J. 
 Phelps, and a number of gentlemen distinguished 
 in finance; and the State’s authorities, mindful of 
 the terrible drubbings they had received, became 
 reasonable, and the negotiations happily resulted in 
 a settlement which increases the amount that the 
 bondholders will receive very materially; so that 
 the creditors really scored a great triumph by their 
 long and persistent litigation. In spite of all their 
 disadvantages, they drove the State from the posi- 
 tion on which she had planted herself, and forced 
 her to pay them much more than she had declared 
 as her ultimatum. I was very proud of the result, 
 for, single-handed and alone, I had forced this settle- 
 ment, with the legislative, executive, and judicial 
 departments of the government, and an overwhelm- 
 ing majority of the people of the State against me. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 99 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 S O far this history has dealt with those matters 
 which create a connected narrative. There 
 have been many incidental matters, however, 
 which are quite well worth relating, and these will 
 now be grouped in narrative form as nearly as their 
 nature will permit. 
 
 The white people of Virginia are not a people to 
 do things by halves. Whilst they believed a moral 
 obligation rested on them to struggle for the pay- 
 ment of their debt they struggled for it with all their 
 energy and force. When the conclusion was finally 
 reached that they had done all for the debt that their 
 duty call ed on them to do, and that since a further strug- 
 gle for it might endanger their civilization, the whole 
 people solidified to the proposition that they would 
 beat the coupon if it were in the power of the State 
 to destroy it, and their purpose manifested itself in 
 every possible way. Tax-payers were necessary for 
 the use of coupons, and almost all the tax-payers are 
 
100 
 
 History of the 
 
 white. It was with the utmost difficulty I could 
 first get tax-payers enough to allow me to use their 
 names to make up the necessary cases to test the 
 State’s laws. From the tiuie the Legislature elected 
 in the fall of 1883 assembled it commenced the en- 
 actment of statutes aimed at supplementing and 
 making eflectual the statutes passed by the Read- 
 justers to destroy the coupons. On the 21st of 
 December, 1883, it passed joint resolutions declaring 
 the settled purpose of the people of Virginia to re- 
 pudiate and to refuse to pay the coupons.^ The 
 same thing was again resolved as earnestly as before 
 on the 19th March, 1884.- This Act provided that 
 whenever a coupon found its way into the treasury 
 it should be charged against the principal of the 
 bond from which it came, and when enough so came 
 in the principal of the bond should be declared paid 
 in full. 
 
 Another statute forbade any person to sell the 
 State’s coupons to her tax-payers unless he paid her 
 ^1,000 per annum license tax in towns of more than 
 10,000 inhabitants and §500 in other counties and 
 
 ’Acts 1883-’84, p. 7. 
 ■■’Acts 1883-’84, p. 721. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 101 
 
 towns, and in addition 20 per cent, tax on the face 
 value of the coupon sold. This Act has since been 
 declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of 
 the United States in a case I took there.^ 
 
 Another statute charged any lawyer who should 
 bring a suit under the act to recover back money 
 paid on coupons (Coupon-Killer Ko. 1) a license tax 
 of $250 in addition to his regular license tax.'^ 
 
 Another Act provided further, that whenever a 
 judgment was rendered against the State under the 
 Act for recovering back money paid after a tender of 
 coupons, the attorney for the Commonwealth should 
 take an appeal, whether there were grounds'for the 
 appeal or not. Of course the plain object of this 
 Act was to have many thousand cases pending at 
 once upon the docket of the appeal court, which 
 would postpone suitors so long they would give up 
 the contest.® 
 
 An Act already referred to" forbade any court to 
 enjoin a collector from seizing on a tax-payer’s prop- 
 
 ’Jn re Brown, 135 U. S. R. 701. 
 
 ‘Acts 1883-’84, p. 596. 
 
 *Acts 1883-’84, p. 504. 
 
 °Act of January 26, 1882. 
 
102 
 
 History of the 
 
 erty after a tender of couponB. Another Act forbade 
 any one to sue a collector for damages for levying on 
 his property after a tender of coupons/ Another 
 Act forbade license taxes to be paid with coupons, 
 whether by a straight tender, or under the act of 
 January, 1883. (Coupon-Killer Ko. 1.)* On the 1st 
 of March, 1886, it passed an Act providing that any 
 lawyer Avho gave the benefit of his professional ser- 
 vices to any one asserting legal rights based on the 
 State’s coupons should be guilty of barratry and be 
 disbarred.® And at the same time it passed another 
 providing that whoever, not being a lawyer, should 
 give any one assistance in making good his rights 
 based upon her coupons, should be guilty of cham- 
 perty and be fined $300 and imprisoned sixty days. 
 
 When these statutes were passed I had succeeded 
 in forming a very considerable party of tax-payers 
 who were tendering coupons and refusing to pay 
 anything else. Instigated by the executive oflicers 
 of the State, the grand jury of the city of Richmond 
 commenced finding criminal indictments against me. 
 
 ’Acts 1883-’84 p. 527. 
 
 “Acts 1883-’84 p. 603, section 112. 
 “Acts 1885-’86 p. 384. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 103 
 
 under the statutes against barratry and champerty, 
 and also against my clients who were standing on 
 their tender of coupons in defiance of the State’s 
 laws. I at once saw that this was the most danger- 
 ous blow that had yet been aimed at me, and that 
 unless T could parry it, it would break down my 
 party. Tax-pa^’ers would not sufier criminal indict- 
 ments and trials for the saving involved in the use 
 of coupons. 
 
 The Acts of the State, which the grand jury was 
 setting in motion, were plainly repugnant to the Con- 
 stitution of the United States, and the matter had 
 been so fully discussed in every form that each grand 
 juror knew very well he was giving his aid to en- 
 forcing statutes forbidden by the Constitution. The 
 grand jury was composed of merchants, and there is 
 nothing a merchant dreads more than a suit. I took 
 a very advanced resolution. I sued the members of 
 the grand jury in the United States Circuit Court 
 for damages, for giving their aid and assistance to 
 enforcing State laws repugnant to the Constitution 
 of the United States, and I announced through the 
 public press that whenever the grand jury found an 
 indictment against me or one of my clients under 
 
104 
 
 History of the 
 
 the State’s unconstitutional laws, I should sue it for 
 damages in the United States Court. This action 
 produced a prodigious sensation. The grand jury 
 have always been looked on in Virginia as something 
 sacred, and for profane hands to be laid upon it, was 
 like desecrating the very altar itself. My course 
 had the desired effect, however. The grand jury re- 
 fused to make any more presentments and handed 
 in a written report to the Court, in which it stated 
 that it had sufficient evidence on which to indict Mr. 
 lioyall, but that as he had announced he would sue 
 them for damages in the United States Court if they 
 
 10 Their report is as follows: 
 
 To the Hon. Thomas S. Atkins, 
 
 Judge of tlie Hustings Court: 
 
 The grand jurors for the February term, 1887, respectfully 
 represent to your Honor, that in the discharge of their duties, 
 and after tliej' had been properly sworn, there was presented 
 and sent to them an indictment charging one William L. 
 Royall with an offence against the laws of this State, known 
 as barratry. They would represent there was sufficient evi- 
 dence before them to justify bringing in a true bill against 
 said Royall, for the alleged offence, but they respectfully de- 
 cline to bring in said true bill, because: 
 
 1st. They are informed that the previous special grand jury 
 have been sued in the Circuit Court of the United States for 
 the Eastern District of Virginia, in damages for bringing in 
 a similar indictment against said Royall. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 105 
 
 indicted him, they must decline to find the indict- 
 ment.'” 
 
 On this the Court issued a rule against me requir- 
 ing me to show cause why I should not be fined and 
 imprisoned for intimidating the grand jury in the 
 discharge of its duties, and the attorney for the 
 Commonwealth filed an information against me un- 
 der the statute for intimidating the grand jury in the 
 discharge of its duties. I was tried on this, con- 
 victed, fined $150, and committed to jail until the 
 fine should be paid." 
 
 I refused to pay the fine and applied to the Circuit 
 
 2. Said Royall has given notice in the newspapers of the 
 city that he would bring suit against all other grand juries 
 who dared to indict him. For these reasons they respectfully 
 submit that they ought not to bring in the above mentioned 
 indictment, because tliej’ would thereby subject themselves 
 to possible pecuniarj' loss, and loss of time, and until they 
 have ample protection against these intimidations and threats 
 in the discharge of their lawful and sworn duties. 
 
 W. W. TIMBERLAKE, Foreman. 
 
 (See records of the Hustings Court of the city of Richmond 
 for February, 1887.) 
 
 ’^Records of the Hustings Court of the city of Richmond, 
 Commonwealth vs. Wm. L. Royall. 
 
108 
 
 History of the 
 
 Court of the United States for the Eastern District 
 of Virginia, for a writ of habeas corpus, to discharge 
 me from m3' imprisonment, upon the ground that 
 my conviction was repugnant to the Constitution of 
 tlie United States. That Court held that it is one of 
 tlie rights guaranteed to every citizen of the United 
 States, to sue any person whatever in the United 
 States Court, and m3’ conviction was therefore re- 
 pugnant to the Constitution of the United States, 
 and it ordered m3’ discharge from jail.^- An execu- 
 tion was sent out from the Hustings Court against 
 me for the fine of §150, aud I invited the officer to 
 ]e\’3’ it upon my library. lie declined, however, and 
 made the following return upon it to the Court : 
 
 “ The records of the Circuit Court of the United 
 States for the Eastern District of Virginia, show that 
 William L. Ro3’all, after being arrested on a capias 
 issued on the judgment of the Hustings Court, on 
 which the within execution was issued, was discharged 
 on a writ of habeas corpus issued by said United States 
 Court, upon the ground that his conviction was void, 
 as being forbidden b3’ the Constitution of the United 
 
 “Ex-parte tVm. L. Royall — records Circuit Court U. S., E. 
 D. Ya., at Richmond. 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. 
 
 107 
 
 States. It is plain, therefore, that if I levied the 
 within execution, I should make myself liable for 
 trespass in said United States Court, and therefore 
 decline to levy. I submitted the question to the 
 Commonwealth’s attorney of the city of Richmond,, 
 and the Attorney-General of Virginia, and both ad- 
 vised me that I should not levy. 
 
 JOHX MACOJ7, D. S. for 
 
 R. A. Carter, Sergt. 
 
 December 21, 1888.”'^ 
 
 The Legislature continued to enact every scheme 
 that could be suggested into a statute. On the 27th 
 February it passed an act of limitations respecting- 
 the coupons, although on their face they are receiva- 
 ble at any time in the future. In other words, it 
 forbade its officers to pay them ; it forbade them to- 
 receive the coupons for taxes, and it made it as- 
 nearly impossible for the tax-payer to compel the 
 officers to receive them by legal proceedings as it 
 could make them, and then provided that unless they 
 were made use of within a limited period, the}' 
 should not be used at all. The Act provided that 
 
 i^See records Hustings Court city- of Richmond, Common- 
 wealth vs. William L. Royall. 
 
108 
 
 History of the 
 
 they must be utilized within one year from the time 
 they became due, or they would become worthless.** 
 On the 26th February it passed an Act for indem- 
 nifying out of the State’s treasury, all officers who 
 should forcibly compel tax-payers to pay in mone}', 
 notwithstanding their tender of coupons.*'' 
 
 Notwithstanding all, the use of coupons increased, 
 because it was becoming evident to all that the law 
 was with those who used them, and that the United 
 States Circuit Court was an impartial tribunal in 
 
 Acts 1885-’8C, p. 312. The Supreme Court has declared 
 this Act void. Ex. p. Brown 135 U. S. 11. 701. . 
 
 ‘5 Acts 1885-’86, p. 228. 
 
 As soon as this Act was passed the Board of Indemnity, 
 created by it, issued a circular letter to all count}' officers in- 
 structing them to compel tax-payers to pay in money, not- 
 withstanding a tender of coupons, and promising them indem- 
 nity for their unlawful acts, out of the State’s treasury. 
 Several actions for unlawful levy and seizure of property were 
 tried in the United States Circuit Court after this circular 
 was issued, which are reported in 29th Feb. Rep. 238 ; Willis 
 va. Miller. I quote, p. 245, a dialogue between United States 
 Circuit Court Judge Bond, who tried the cases, and Mr. Ayres, 
 Attorney-General of Virginia. 
 
 Bond, J.: Mr. Attorney General, when you signed that circu- 
 lar and that guaranty, did you know that the Supreme Court 
 of the United States had decided that it was a trespass for a 
 collector to levy on a tax-payer after a tender of coupons, and 
 
ViRGiKiA State Debt Controversy. 109 
 
 which the rights of those who were injured by the 
 State’s officers would be vindicated. The State’s 
 officers continued to molest my clients, and I con- 
 tinued making them pay for it. K the Supreme 
 Court had left matters as they were, the State would 
 soon have been forced to pay her debt in full. But 
 the Act of May 12, 1887, directing all persons 
 tendering coupons to he sued in the State’s own 
 courts, was passed, and the Supreme Court mrllified 
 all that was done to arrest the State’s officers in put- 
 
 that any law of the State undertaking to protect him on that 
 trespass was repugnant to the Constitution of the United 
 States and void? 
 
 Ayers, Attorney-General: After the last decisions of the 
 Supreme Court of the United States, made in the beginning of 
 February last, I was before the Legislative Committee having 
 charge of that subject. The meaning of those decisions was 
 fully explained to, and understood by, that committee, and the 
 entire Legislature. This Act creating the indemnity board, 
 was the result of the resolution the Legislature came to. 
 
 Bond, J. : Do you think that indemnifying Act a constitu- 
 tional one, or that any Act authorizing one citizen to commit 
 a trespass upon another, and agreeing to indemnify him for 
 all damages he might suffer, would be held to be constitu- 
 tional by the courts of Virginia ? 
 
 Ayres, Attorney General: Well, I think there might be a 
 good deal of discussion concerning that. 
 
 Bond, J.: Well, we won’t discuss it. 
 
110 
 
 History of the 
 
 ting this Act into force. This was a terrible blow 
 to the ereditors. Having been counsel on the losing 
 side when this Act was before the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, I can not expect to be eredited 
 with impartial judgment concerning the decision 
 made. But it must be a source of regret to all con- 
 servative and right-thinking men, that the Supreme 
 Court felt itself eompelled to overthrow the time 
 honored doctrine of Osborn vs. the Bank, in order 
 that the Legislature of Virginia might find a shelter 
 under which to trample on the Constitution of the 
 United States by any tricks and evasions that it 
 chose to devise. 
 
 The State of Virginia was the battlefield of the 
 war, and her people are very far from having reeov- 
 ered yet from its ravages. The great body of the 
 people are very poor, and they feel the public debt 
 as a heavy burden npon them. In the day of her 
 prosperity and power she ceded a royal domain to 
 her sister States comprising with her the Union — the 
 northwestern territory. States teeming with mil- 
 lions of people, possessing thousands of millions 
 worth of property have been formed out of what 
 she cheerfully gave to the common country. In 
 
Virginia State Debt Controversy. Ill 
 
 making this cession she stipulated for but few things, 
 hut one was “ that the necessary and reasonable ex- 
 penses incurred by this State in subduing any Brit- 
 ish posts or maintaining forts or garrisons within 
 and for the defence, or in acquiring any part of the 
 territory so ceded or relinquished, shall be fully re- 
 imbursed by the United States.’'^® 
 
 The United States Government accepted her grant 
 upon the express understanding that it would repay 
 her these expenses, which it has never done. With 
 their accumulated interest these expenses would be 
 a very large sum now. It would be a graceful, a 
 generous, and a just act for the Government of the 
 United States to come now to the aid of the poor 
 old impoverished Commonwealth, and help her out 
 of her trouble by assuming a part of her debt, and 
 relieving her from the burden of that part. 
 
 Va., R. 0., p. 40. 
 

536.3 R888 
 
 309531