THE European, and particularly the British journals, are in the habit of speaking of the failure, or rather temporary delay, on the part of some of our State governments to meet the payments of interest due on the loans which they have contracted abroad, as an instance of dishonesty entirely unexampled in the history of the civilized world, as a lasting disgrace to the American name, and even as a proof that our political institutions are incompetent to effect the most necessary objects of an efficient government. Without feeling the slightest disposition to extenuate what we regard as a very grave error in the administration of the delinquent States, we must nevertheless be permitted to say, that there are few nations in Europe which have a right to take upon this subject the high denunciatory tone to which we have alluded. If the financial history of that part of the world were brought under review for this purpose, it would be much easier to find precedents for delinquency than for a practical discharge of national debts. The United States are the only community which, after once contracting a large public debt, have punctually paid it off to the last dollar; and this honorable distinction ought to entitle them, whether in their united character or as individual States, to a charitable construction of any

course of conduct which may wear an appearance of a disregard for the obligation of contracts,-especially where such conduct is obviously in a considerable degree the result of temporary causes that are rapidly losing their influence.

Great Britain herself, though she has thus far succeeded in paying the interest of her enormous public debt by laying the whole habitable globe under contribution, and imposing burdens upon labor at home which have reduced a large part of her working population to a state of actual or virtual pauperism, and which threaten the existence of her political institutions, is yet by no means free from the reproach of having violated her promises to the public creditor. The celebrated Order in Council by which the Government prohibited the Bank of England from paying its notes, impaired the obligations of contracts more directly, though in a different way, than the failure of some of our States to pay the interest on their debts. This prohibition was not, as is well known, a temporary and transient thing, as will certainly prove to be the case with the delinquency of our States, but was maintained for twenty years in succession, and furnishes one of the few examples in which Repudiation has not only been practised, but publicly proclaimed and

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enforced, as the law of the land.

The bad example which was set by Great Britain on that occasion, has been twice imitated in this country,—in the general suspension of bank payments that took place during the war, and in the year 1837. These were authorized or countenanced to a greater or less extent, by the General and all the State Governments, and they brought home the moral responsibility for Repudiation to the doors of a very large portion, perhaps we may say a majority, of our active citizens, whether considered in their private or political character. If, therefore, foreign nations have very little right to assume on this subject the high tone of injured innocence, it is equally true that the various classes, professions, and parties, into which we are divided among ourselves, have as little right to indulge in the language of harsh recrimination in regard to each other. Those, also, who profess the strongest zeal for the maintenance of the credit of the States-as for example, the Ex-President of the United States Bank--are dyed more deeply, perhaps, than any other portion of the community, with the stain of Bank Repudiation. We are all, both as communities and individuals, to a greater or less extent, involved in the responsibility for the state of things which has occurred; and, what is more to the point in reference to the tone taken upon the subject abroad, the foreign communities and institutions that complain most loudly, share with us largely in this responsibility, and have been themselves, in no small degree, the immediate authors of the evils under which they are now suffering.

For is not true, as has been at times asserted or insinuated, that there has been in any part of these transactions any deliberate fraud, or intention to deceive, on the part of any of the State Governments. The debts have been all contracted in good faith, under circumstances which authorized a reasonable expectation of being able to provide from them, principal and interest; and for the most part, for purposes not only right and proper, but highly honorable to the contracting parties. The origin of these debts contrasts, in fact, most favorably with that of the immense masses of public debt now existing in Europe. These have generally had their source in the reck

less ambition or wasteful prodigality of the rulers of nations. The financial embarrassments that were the immediate cause of the French Revolution, grew out of the boundless expense of the wars of Louis XIV., and the incalculable amount which he lavished upon court favorites and festivals. The beginning of the present Spanish debt was a loan of forty millions of hard money, equal to at least a hundred and twenty at the present day, contracted by Philip V., for the purpose of laying out a garden with fountains, in imitation of the splendid bauble of Versailles. The present debts of Great Britain, France, and the other principal nations, are, for the most part, the results of the wars of the French Revolution; and although a just and necessary war carried on for the defence of a country, is the highest and noblest object to which the public funds can be devoted, and takes precedence, from the nature of the case, of any other claim, it may well be doubted how far any of the late European struggles realize, on either side, any near approach to that character.

The origin of most of our State debts is entirely different. They were contracted for the purpose of covering the expense of important works of public improvement, and have been applied to this purpose with as much fidelity and discretion as can be expected in cases of this description. New communications have been opened by rail-roads and canals between different parts of the country, generally at points where they were really wanted, and will be of immediate service. In some few cases the rage for speculation and facility of obtaining loans, which characterized the period when the debts were contracted, may have given rise to projects, not precisely of this character; but of these the worst that can be said of them is that they are premature. The population and business of the country are growing up to them so rapidly, that those which now seem the least necessary, will become in a few short years crowded thoroughfares. The results of the vast enterprises of a similar kind which had partially been undertaken and carried through by States-especially that of the New York Canal-created, and to a certain extent authorized the expectation that they would produce an income sufficient to pay the interest, and finally