e,
and a decree is entered for payment of the bonds. And yet the State
persists in repudiation, and Jefferson Davis defends her course. When
the High Court of Errors and Appeals of Mississippi first decided this
question, it was composed of Chief Justice Sharkey, and Justices Turner
and Trotter (one of the framers of the Constitution). When, again, in
1851, suit was brought against the State on one of these repudiated
Union Bank bonds, and a decree for its payment rendered by the
Chancellor, that decree, on full argument on appeal, was unanimously
confirmed by the highest judicial tribunal of the State, composed
entirely of different judges, namely, Chief Justice Smith, and Justices
Yerger and Fisher. Here, then, are eight judges, all chosen by the
people of Mississippi, concurring in 1842, as well as in 1853, as to the
validity of these bonds; and yet Jefferson Davis justifies their
repudiation. The judges of Mississippi all take an oath to support the
Constitution, and it is made their duty to interpret it, and especially
this very clause: the Legislature is confined to law making, and
forbidden to exercise any judicial power; the expounding this
supplemental law, and the provisions under which it was enacted, is
exclusively a judicial power, and yet the Legislature _usurps_ this
power, repudiates the bonds of the State, and the acts of three
preceding Legislatures, and the decision of the highest tribunals of the
State: Jefferson Davis sustains this repudiation, and the British public
are asked to take new Confederate bonds, issued by the same Jefferson
Davis, and thus to sanction, and encourage, and offer a premium for
repudiation. These so-called Confederate bonds are issued in open
violation of the Constitution of the United States; they are absolute
nullities, they are tainted with treason, they never can or will be
paid, and yet they are to be thrust on the British public under the
sanction of the same great repudiator, Jefferson Davis, who applauds the
non-payment of the Mississippi bonds, and thus condemns hundreds of
innocent holders, including widows and orphans, to want and misery. Talk
about _faith_, about _honor_, about _justice_, and the _sanctity of
contracts_. Why, if such flagrant outrages, such atrocious crimes, can
be sustained by the great public of any nation, small indeed must be the
value of their bonds, which rests exclusively on good faith.

Suppose some astute lawyer could find some informali