Constitution. If this were not done, the members of the Legislature, sworn to support the Constitution but not the ordinance, would look upon the two in a very different light, and might easily be persuaded that they were under no legal or moral obligations to observe the latter. The only security we can have for their keeping inviolate a decree of this Convention is their oaths to that effect, and this we could not get unless the decree is incorporated into the Constitution. Put it in there and it will stand forever as an enduring reminder to posterity of the consequences of Rebellion.

Mr. Matthews made another bitter but eloquent speech against the whole ordinance, and against the proposition to incorporate it into the Constitution. He regarded the debt as a debt of honor, as a solemn pledge, which Georgia made to the people of the State; and if there is no honor in that transaction, there is no honor under Heaven. It cannot be repudiated without the violation of the most sacred pledges of Georgia. I do not wish to be represented here as charging the President of the United States with being a tyrant, but it is little less than tyranny to make this demand upon us. I will not crawl in the dust to lick the hand of power. We are not yet slaves; we are the same men we were four years ago; and I bid my associates stand as we stood when we flung the flag of Rebellion to the breeze, as we stood through the long and bloody years in which we upheld that flag! (Hearty applause.) I see no necessity for putting this thing into the Constitution, for an ordinance of this body is just as much a part of the fundamental law as that document itself. I ask gentlemen to be satisfied with a simple repudiation. Let the damning instrument which records our everlasting shame and disgrace be kept as inconspicuous as possible, let it go into darkness among the musty archives of the State, so that our children need not be called upon to blush at its sight, so that future generations must seek long to find it, and, haply, not discovering it, may cherish

the hope that we were found to be not slaves, but men of honor, even in our hour of sorest distress!

Mr. Hammond thought the fears of the friends of the original ordinance were groundless. A debt once repudiated would never be assumed. Besides, he did not like this distrust of the Legislature. Georgians were not scoundrels, and their word was good as any man's oath. If the Legislature was disposed to disregard the action of the Convention they could do it, Constitution or no Constitution. Let the Convention do its work with proper respect for those who sent them here.

Mr. Hill rebuked the gentlemen who kept up the fight in favor of the war debt. He thought the course of the Secessionists who fled the country much more honorable than that of those who remained, got pardoned, and were continually renewing agitation. As for himself, he was not acting at the dictation of the President or any one else, but from his own sense of right and duty. He opposed the motion to strike out the last clause of the ordinance. He wanted it to stand in the Constitution as a landmark for all coming generations of Georgia's children, to warn them against the mischiefs, evils, and curses of secession. He would have all classes keep it continually before them, so that they may see if in the future any man is inclined to break faith upon the subject.

Mr. Seward had no doubt of the illegality of the war debt. If secession was null and void, all contracts under it were null and void also; and that it was null and void is the very thing decided by the war. If there is no right of secession, then secession is treason, and all obligations issued to sustain it, being likewise treasonable, are wrong in morals as well as in law. He could see no valid reason for declining to make the ordinance a part of the Constitution.

The previous question was then called by Mr. Seward, and the words, "This ordinance shall be a part of the Constitution and fundamental law of the State," were stricken out by a vote of 156 to 107.

On the twelfth day, that is, this morning, Mr. Chappell moved to reconsider the vote by which this clause was stricken out; but the motion was lost by 89 to 117.

And then, without further words, the great contest came to a close, and the ordinance as amended passed by a vote of 135 to 117. It is in the following words:

"Be it ordained by the people of Georgia, in Convention assembled, That all the debts contracted or incurred by the State of Georgia, either as a separate State or as a member of the late partnership or confederacy of States styled the Confederate States of America, for the purpose of carrying on the late war of secession against the United States of America, or for the purpose of aiding, abetting, or promoting said war in any way, directly or indirectly, be, and the same are, hereby declared null and void; and the Legislature is hereby prohibited forever from, in any way, acknowledging or paying the same debts, or any part thereof, or from passing any law for that purpose, or to secure or provide for the said debts, or any part thereof, by any appropriation of money, property, stocks, funds, or assests of any kind to that object.

"Be it further ordained, That inasmuch as the annual income of the State, before and during said war, from taxation and other sources of revenue, was amply sufficient for the support of the ordinary civil government of the State, and for the payment of all its expenses incident to a state of peace, and as the extraordinary expenses which led to the creation of a debt were the offspring and results of the war, it is therefore the judgment, ordinance, and decree of this Convention, that all debts of the State incurred during said war shall be considered, held, and treated as debts incurred for carrying on the war; Provided, that nothing herein contained shall prevent any Legislature hereafter to assemble from making appropriations of money for the payment of any claim against the State originating after the 19th January, 1861, where it shall be made clearly to appear that such claim was founded upon a consideration disconnected with any purpose of aiding or assisting the prosecution of the late war against the United States, and not incidental to a state of war.

“Be it further ordained, That all bills, bonds, notes, or evidences of debt whatever, issued by the State, payable only in Confederate

currency, or on a contingency or contingencies which have never happened, and can now never happen, have ceased to be debts at all, either in whole or part, and are hereby wholly prohibited from being paid, even though originally issued for other purposes than that of carrying on the said war, or aiding or establishing it, directly or indirectly."

This ordinance came originally from Honorable A. H. Chappell, of Columbus; but it was shorn of its strength by an amendment moved by Mr. Hill, viz., the proviso of the second section, in place of which Mr. Chappell had the words, "Except in cases where it shall be satisfactorily shown by impartial and disinterested proof that any particular debt or debts were incurred for other purposes than that of carrying on, aiding, or abetting the war, directly or indirectly." It will be noticed that the vague words of the proviso, "shall be made clearly to appear," can, in the hands of a Legislature of the proper stamp, be made to cover a very wide range of claims; and leading delegates tell me that they will be made to cover at least half the seventeen millions of the so-called war debt. This proviso was adopted by a large majority, without count.

It is noticeable that the men who voted against assuming the debt live in the mountainous and wire-grass regions of the State, where, indeed, the loyal men of 1860-61 were found. Yet it must not be forgotten that the ordinance finally passed could have received scarcely seventy-five votes on the opening day of the Convention. Among those who voted against it are Judge Jenkins, probable Governor, Messrs. Matthews, Cohen, Cabannis, and Cook, each of whom is likely to be elected to Congress, and Messrs. Arnold, Kenan, Reynolds, Simmons, and Stapleton of the Union men in the Secession Convention.

XXXII.

REVIEW OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE STATE

THE

CONVENTION.

MACON, November 8, 1865.

HE State Convention adjourned at noon to-day, subject to the call of its President, having held a session of thirteen days.

Tto the teal of its President, a

The delegates were enabled before leaving town to settle the gubernatorial question quite to their own satisfaction, and I presume to the general satisfaction of the people. Alexander H. Stephens appreciates his position, and declines to run for any office, thus leaving the field clear for Judge Charles J. Jenkins, of Augusta, whose election will take place on the 15th instant.

It would be a mockery to say that this was a Convention of loyal men. The flag was neither raised on the StateHouse where the Convention met nor on the hotel where nine tenths of the delegates boarded; and I know, of my own knowledge, that when an outsider remarked one morning to a knot of four delegates that it would look well to hoist the flag on the Capitol, he was answered, "No, I'll be d-d if anybody gets that up there."

It was found easy enough to invite ex-Rebel generals and ex-Rebel colonels and ex-Rebel politicians to seats on the floor of the Convention, but no motion was made to invite to such seats either Major-General Steadman, commanding the department, or Brevet Major-General Wilson, commanding the district, or Brigadier-General Tillson, State Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, all of whom were obliged to find seats as best they could in the dirty and miserable little gallery. Furthermore, the report getting out that one delegate