Business; Capitalists and financiers -- United States; Speculation; Wall Street (New York, N.Y.)
Governor Bullock: “Any information in my possession is at your
service. I have published from time to time, over my own
signature, my views on this subject, and I have no objections to
repeating them. I desire to say, however, that I am in no wise a
party to the recent proceedings which have been had before the
Attorney-General of New York. I was in the city on private
business and without any previous knowledge of the proposed
hearing. I attended the hearing out of curiosity, expecting to
hear an argument by ex-Chief Justice Lochrane, and while there
was invited by the Acting Attorney-General to respond to his
inquiries. This I did with the result as reported in your
valuable paper. During my administration in 1868-’69-’70 and
’71, bonds of the State were issued for State purposes, and the
endorsement of the State was placed upon certain railroad bonds
under the authority of law.
During the wild excitement that resulted in and followed the
overthrow of the Republican government in Georgia, nearly all
the acts of Republican administration were repudiated, among
them its financial transactions, and up to this day and hour the
questions of fact have never been permitted to reach any
judicial tribunal.
The people of New York State are fair-minded, law-abiding and
honest, and whenever they can be informed of the truth will
fearlessly follow it; but with regard to the real merits of this
repudiation, no light has reached them because our courts have
been closed.
It is asserted by the holders of these repudiated
obligations—and in this assertion I concur—that every bond was
issued in accordance with law, and that the State is now in the
enjoyment of the benefits resulting therefrom. In the exciting
times to which I have referred, a majority of the then
Legislature decided that the State was not bound by the acts of
its predecessors, and therefore these obligations were null and
void.
This is, of course, a question of law, and not of legislation. I
am sure that now, when partisan passion has subsided, both
parties to this controversy would cheerfully acquiesce in any
decision reached by our Supreme Court, and that the holders of
these defaulted securities would accept whatever is awarded them
in a long term bond at a low rate of interest, and on such an
adjustment all parties, at home and abroad, could unite in
maintaining the high financial credit to which the Empire State
of the South would then be entitled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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