.[1]

[Footnote 1: J.G. de R. Hamilton, _Reconstruction in North Carolina_,
pp. 448-449, 659-661.]

Not all of the creditors of the State accepted the compromise at once,
but the offer was left open and, as the years went on and the State
showed no signs of a change of intention, the bondholders gradually
recognized the inevitable. In 1893, nearly fifteen years after this
offer had been made, more than $1,000,000 of the old bonds were still
outstanding. In 1901, a New York firm presented to the State of South
Dakota ten of the class which had been made convertible at twenty-five
cents on the dollar. That State brought suit in the Supreme Court of the
United States and collected the amount sued for.[1] No progress has been
made in collecting the special tax bonds issued during Reconstruction
though some New York bond houses hope against hope, and the Council of
the Corporation of Foreign Bondholders in its annual reports plaintively
regrets the perversity of this and other Southern States.

[Footnote 1: South Dakota v. North Carolina, 192 U.S. Rep., p. 286]

South Carolina presented such a carnival of incompetence and corruption
that the total amount of bonds issued has never been accurately
determined. Apparently there was a valid debt of about $6,666,000 in
1868, which was increased to about $29,000,000 within three years. The
carpetbag Legislature of 1873 repudiated $6,000,000 of this debt, and
attempted to compromise the remainder at fifty per cent, but the State
could not carry even this reduced amount. Judicial decisions destroyed
the validity of some millions more, and finally the debt, reduced to
something more than $7,000,000, was funded. The debt of Georgia was
increased directly and by indorsement of railroad bonds. The Legislature
of 1872 declared $8,500,000 void and in 1875 repudiated about $600,000
more.

Louisiana suffered most from excessive taxation. At the beginning of the
carpetbag period the debt was about $11,000,000, but railroad and levee
bonds were issued rapidly. Though a constitutional amendment in 1870
forbade the State to contract debts in excess of $25,000,000, the
Legislature went steadily on until in 1872 the debt was variously
estimated at from $41,000,000 to $48,000,000. In 1874, when W.P. Kellogg
was Governor, the State began to fund valid obligations at sixty cents
on the dollar. By action of the courts the debt was reduced to about
$12,000,000 bearing interest at seven percent. Th