It will be remembered that at that time there was a surplus of revenues in the Treasury. This surplus was not given away in premiums to bond-holders as Mr. Cleveland gave sixty million dollars a few years ago. It was not deposited with the National Banks to be used in their business as Mr. Roosevelt now disposes of $56,000,000 of the public funds. In the days of Calhoun, governmental robbery of the taxpayer for the benefit of the non-taxpayer had not been reduced to a science as it has since been. In Mr. Calhoun’s day, it was believed that when the Government had collected from the taxpayer a greater sum than was needed for governmental expenses, the excess should, as a matter of common honesty, be returned to the taxpayer. [Illustration: John C. Calhoun] It being impracticable, however, to restore the money in exact proportion to each individual taxpayer, the Government did the next best thing—it divided the surplus pro rata, among the states. In his letter to Dawson, Mr. Calhoun estimates the entire amount of the surplus, extending over a series of years, at seventy or eighty million dollars. The share of Georgia and South Carolina, he estimates at $3,500,000. Now what does he advise shall be done with this money which has been drawn from the taxpayers of the two states? _He advises that it be spent by Georgia and South Carolina in building railroads to connect those two states with the lines leading to the West and Southwest._ Spent in that manner, the surplus taxes of the two states would be so invested as to benefit all the people of Georgia and South Carolina. It wouldn’t go to fatten a handful of greedy, millionaire bond-holders. It wouldn’t go to a few pet National banks to be loaned out as private capital. It being public money, it would be used for a public purpose; and the great public roads which it would build would belong to and benefit all the people of the two states which had paid the taxes into the Federal Treasury. Says Mr. Calhoun: “To make this great fund available for so important an object, the legislatures of the states interested ought to move forthwith. I hope Georgia will take the lead. The action of no other state could have half the influence.” Mr. Calhoun, with marvelous foresight, sketched the system of railroads which has since been built. Just where he declared in 1835 that the railroads ought to be, they are now to be found. Had his counsels been followed, those public highways would now be the property of the public. Folly, stupidity, sordid franchise-grabbing had their own way, however, and the magnificent system of highways which Calhoun laid out for the people belongs to the corporations. _Judge Du Bose’s Letter and the Public Debt_ MONTGOMERY, ALA., JAN. 6, 1906. Hon. Thos. E. Watson: