into a sinking fund for the payment and liquidation of said loans.  The bill, as the title purports, simply provides for the transfer of the stock now held by the State in the Planters’ Bank, and that the same shall be invested in the stock of the Mississippi Railroad Company, leading from Natchez to Canton, which has banking privileges to twice the amount of capital stock paid in.  The transferring of the stock and dividend to another irresponsible corporation, and the appropriation of the same to the construction of a road, is a violation of and impairing the obligation of the contract made and entered into with the purchasers or holders of the bonds of the State, under a solemn act of the Legislature.  If it should be thought that a people, composed of so much virtue, honor, and chivalry, as the noble and generous Mississippians, would disdain, and consequently refrain, from repealing or violating their plighted faith, it may be answered, that the faith of the State, solemnly and sacredly pledged by an act of the Legislature, with all the formality and solemnity of a constitutional law, is violated by the provisions of this very bill under consideration.  The faith of the State is pledged to the holders of the bonds, by the original and subsequent acts incorporating the Planters’ Bank, as solemnly as national or legislative pledges can be made, that the stock and dividends accruing thereon shall be faithfully appropriated to the redemption and payment of said loans and all interest thereon, as they respectively become due; the appropriation of this fund to an other purpose is, therefore, a violation of the faith of the State.’  (House Jour. 443.)

Thus was it, that the stock of the bank, which for so many years had been yielding a dividend far exceeding the interest on the loan, and which stock had been pledged for the redemption of the loan, was diverted to the building of a railroad, which never did or could yield a single dollar, and the company soon became insolvent.  By another clause of this act of 1839, the Planters’ Bank, which, by the loan act, was made responsible (together with the State) for the payment of these bonds, was released from the obligation to make such payments.

And now, what is the answer of Jefferson Davis on this subject?  He says, in his letter of the 25th May, 1849, before quoted: 

‘A smaller amount is due for what are termed Planters’ Bank bonds of Mississippi.  These evidences of debt, as well as the coupons issued to cover accruing interest, are receivable for State lands, and no one has a right to assume they will not be provided for otherwise, by or before the date at which the whole debt becomes due.’

To this the London Times replied, in its editorial of the 13th July, 1849, before quoted, as follows: