e treasurer an amount of
their first mortgage bonds equal to the amount of bonds received by them
from the state, and mortgage to the state their roads and franchises.
This was all the security the companies could give, but the underlying
difficulty was that it had no value whatever. There were no roads, no
net or other profits. The lands had no value whatever except such as lay
in the future, which was dependent on the construction of the roads and
the settlement of the country. The bonds of the companies, of course,
possessed only such value as the property they represented, which was
nothing, and the mortgages were of the same character. The whole scheme
was based upon hopes, which the slightest application of sober reasoning
would have pronounced impossible of fulfillment. But the country was
hungry, and willing to seize upon anything that offered a semblance or
shadow of relief.

The proposed amendment was to be submitted to the people for adoption
or rejection, at an election to be held on the fifteenth day of April,
1858. In order to fully comprehend the condition of the public mind, it
should be known that the constitution, with all the safeguards that I
have mentioned, had only been in force since Oct. 13, 1857, a period of
about six months, and had been carried by a vote of 30,055 for to 571
against its adoption.

The campaign preceding the election was a very active one. The railroad
people flooded the state with speakers, documents, pictures, glee clubs
singing songs of the delights of "Riding on the Rail," and every
conceivable artifice was resorted to to carry the amendment. It was
carried by a vote of 25,023 in favor of its passage, to 6,733 against.

To give an idea of the intense feeling that was exhibited in this
election, it is only necessary to state that at the city of Winona there
were 1,102 votes cast in favor of the amendment and only one vote
against it. This negative vote, to his eternal honor be it said, was
cast by Thomas Wilson, afterwards chief justice of the state, and now a
citizen of St. Paul.

In the execution of the requirements of the amendment, the railroad
companies claimed that they could issue first mortgage bonds on their
properties to an indefinite amount and exchange them with the state for
its bonds, bond for bond, but the governor, who was Hon. Henry H.
Sibley, construed the amendment to mean that the first mortgage bonds of
the companies which the state was to receive mu