equitable a compromise.” The legislature of 1871 entertained a new proposition. The bill introduced provided for a commission whose first duty should be to ascertain and decide whether the bonds were a legal and equitable obligation against the state. If the decision should be affirmative, the commission was to award to each holder the amount due him on the basis of cost, and deliver to him proper amount of new state bonds. The railroad taxes were to be devoted to the redemption of the new bonds. General Sibley had left his retirement and taken a seat in the house of representatives because of his desire to see the old bond matter settled. He had never wavered from his opinion that the state was a debtor to the full amount of the bonds issued. But for his influence the bill could not have passed. He would not believe that Minnesota would not at some time pay what she had promised to pay. Could he so believe, he declared in his speech, he would emigrate to some community in which he would not suffer the “intolerable humiliation” of living in a “repudiating state frowned on by a just and righteous God and abhorred by man.” Governor Austin, although he sympathized with the popular feeling, did not disapprove the bill, but let it go to be mercilessly slaughtered at the polls. The people would not pay mere paper obligations without right or equity behind them. Such they held the bonds to be. Having failed to obtain satisfaction from the political authorities, the claimants presently resorted to the courts. In 1873 Mr. Chamberlain, their representative, sued the St. Paul and Sioux City Railroad Company to recover from that company as assignee of a portion of the land grant, which he claimed to be still subject to the mortgages authorized by the “five million loan bill.” The decision went against him in the Circuit Court of the United States, and he took an appeal to the Supreme Court, to be there finally defeated. Both of these courts, however, took opportunity to declare that the bonds were legal obligations, and that if the state of Minnesota were suable no court of justice could refuse to adjudge her to pay. “Justice and honor alike” bound her to redeem her bonds. The state of Minnesota was thus branded by the highest judicial tribunals of the land as a defaulting, repudiating state, regardless of the claims of honor and justice. These opinions—they were not decrees—had little effect on the Minnesota people, most of whom never heard of them, but they did affect the minds of many of her public men, who smarted under the reproaches they could not help but hear. Governor Davis in his retiring message urged the establishment of a commission to arbitrate between the bondholders and the state. Governor Pillsbury in his inaugural address urged the payment of the bonds in full, to redeem the reputation of the state. To these appeals the legislators gave no heed. To the legislature of 1877 Mr.