As the fallen drunkard illustrates the evils of intemperance, so does Mississippi illustrate the evils of Repudiation. Look at her! But there are men who would degrade our Republic to this wretched condition. Forgetting what is due to our good name as a nation at home and abroad,--forgetting that the public interests are bound up with the Public Faith, involving all economies, national and individual,--forgetting that our transcendent position has corresponding obligations, and that, as Nobility once obliged to great duty, (“_Noblesse oblige_,”) so does Republicanism now,--there are men who, forgetting all these things, would carry our Republic into this terrible gulf, so full of shame and sacrifice. They begin by subtle devices; but already the mutterings of open Repudiation are heard. I denounce them all, whether device or muttering; and I denounce that political party which lends itself to the outrage. * * * * * Repudiation means Confiscation, and in the present case confiscation of the property of loyal citizens. With unparalleled generosity the nation has refused to confiscate Rebel property; and now it is proposed to confiscate Loyal property. When I expose Repudiation as Confiscation, I mean to be precise. Between two enactments, one requiring the surrender of property without compensation, and the other declaring that the nation shall not and will not pay an equal amount according to solemn promise, there can be no just distinction. The two are alike. The former might alarm a greater number, because on its face more demonstrative. But analyze the two, and you will see that in each private property is taken by the nation without compensation, and appropriated to its own use. Therefore do I say, Repudiation is Confiscation. * * * * * A favorite device of Repudiation is to pay the national debt in “greenbacks,”--in other words, to pay bonds bearing interest with mere promises not bearing interest,--violating, in the first place, a rule of honesty, which forbids such a trick, and, in the second place, a rule of law, which refuses to recognize an inferior obligation as payment of a superior. Here, in plain terms, is repudiation of the interest and indefinite postponement of the principal. This position, when first broached, contemplated nothing less than an infinite issue of greenbacks, flooding the country, as France was flooded by _assignats_, and utterly destroying values of all kinds. Although, in its present more moderate form, it is limited to payment by existing greenbacks, yet it has the same radical injustice. Interest-bearing bonds are to be paid with non-interest-bearing bits of paper. The statement of the case is enough. Its proposer would never do this thing in his own affairs; but how can he ask his country to do what honesty forbids in private life?