But suppose the bonds were sold below par, that is, that the State had lost $170,000, or less than four per cent., on bonds for five millions of dollars. Was that a just or valid ground for repudiating the whole, principal and interest? The plea of _usury_ is always disgraceful, even if true, especially where the security was negotiable to bearer and had passed, for full value, into the hands of _bona fide_ holders. But if such a plea is disgraceful to individuals, what shall be said when it is made on behalf of a State? And what shall be thought of those who make such an objection? What of a Governor, or of a United States Senator, who urges such objections on behalf of a State? Do we not feel as if the State were some miserable culprit on trial, and some pettifogging lawyer was endeavoring to screen him from punishment, by picking a flaw in the indictment. Yet such are the pleas on behalf of a State, urged by Governor McNutt and Senator Jefferson Davis. On reference to the letter before referred to, of Jefferson Davis, it will be found that he does not confine himself to the constitutional objections. In his first letter, before quoted, of 25th May, 1849, Mr. Jefferson Davis says, 'Those bonds were purchased by a bank then tottering to its fall--purchased in violation of the charter of the bank, or fraudulently, by concealing the transaction under the name of an individual, as may best suit those concerned, purchased in violation of the terms of the law under which the bonds were issued, and in disregard of the Constitution of Mississippi, of which the law was an infraction.' These positions are deliberately repeated by Jefferson Davis, in his second letter, before referred to, of the 29th August, 1849. That is, the State should pay _none_ of the money received, because the purchaser, as alleged, had no right to buy the bonds--and because the sale was, as erroneously stated, an infraction of the law, that is _usurious_, or a sale below par. He insists the money was not received by the State, because, he says, 'Mississippi had no bank, and could not have a bank of issue, because forbidden by the tenth section of the first article of the United States Constitution--'no State shall emit bills of credit.'' Surely Mr. Davis must have known, that in the case of the Bank of Kentucky, a State bank of issue owned exclusively by the State, it was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, that such a bank was constitutional, and no politician of the secession school can object to that decision. (2 Peters 257.) But however this might be, what kind of a plea is this? Why, if, as alleged by Mr. Davis, Mississippi had violated the Federal Constitution, by establishing a bank of circulation, that therefore the _bonds_ of the State should be repudiated. Is it not incredible that a Senator should assume such a position on behalf of his State? But, if this be sound, it clearly follows, that, inasmuch as the Confederate bonds are issued in plain