payment of the principal and interest on these bonds, amounting then to over $700,000. It was not alleged by Mr. Davis, or by any other person, that these bonds were unconstitutional. No such pretext was ever made even by the State of Arkansas. It was a most atrocious case of open repudiation. And here, it matters not, so far as this question is concerned, what may have been the obligation of the Government of the United States to make good these funds. That is a totally distinct and independent question. The true and real issue in this case is this: Was not the State of Arkansas bound to pay these bonds, both interest and principal, as it fell due, in, which bonds, by the request and authority of the State, the Government of the United States had invested this Smithsonian fund? This obligation of the State of Arkansas, both moral and legal, is undisputed and indisputable; and yet Mr. Davis moved the resolution before quoted, absolving the State from the payment of the principal and interest of these bonds, except so far as the assets of her own Bank, then notoriously bankrupt, should avail to make good these obligations. That is, the Congress of the United States, by solemn act, was to authorize the State of Arkansas to repudiate her solemn obligations. Recollect, this was not a case of Mississippi bonds, of which State Mr. Davis was then a Representative in Congress, but it was the case of Arkansas, another State, having on the floor of Congress its own Senators and Representatives. But it is a very remarkable fact, that Mississippi, for many years, had then repudiated her own bonds, that Mr. Davis justified and sustained that repudiation, and that now he appears on behalf of Arkansas to induce Congress, by solemn act, to authorize that State to repudiate her obligations also. Thus was it that Mr. Davis travelled out of his own State into another, to make the Government of the United States a party to the repudiation of her bonds by the State of Arkansas. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not mean to say, that Mr. Davis proposed or intended that the Government of the United States should repudiate its faith, plighted to the British Court of Chancery, to make good this fund. That is not the question. It is entirely collateral. But, what he did do was this, and there stands his own resolution, offered by himself in the Congress of the United States, which, if carried into effect, would have released the State of Arkansas from these bonds, or, in Mr. Davis's own words, 'The said State shall be and is hereby declared to be _absolved from the promises_ on the face of her bonds, by which the said State heretofore _pledged her faith_ for the due payment of the principal and interest of said bonds.'