384 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [Feb. 18

two hundred and fifty dollars of the property of the
people of the State to pay it.

In this appalling condition of their finances, with
the exasperation of extravagance and injustice, with
ruin threatening the taxpayers of the State, the cry of
"Repudiation" was raised all over Maryland, and is-
sue was joined with the people, before the bar of pub-
lic opinion and at the urns of decision by the electors
of the State. There was an almost overwhelming;
opinion in the State to repudiate the State debt, sup-
ported by that inherent principle of self-interest, ever
ready to find some loophole to escape its just obliga-
tions.

Thomas G. Pratt represented the standard of honesty,
obligation, liquidation. With the ardor of a knight,
who had lifted his lance to defend a cause for which
he was willing to offer his life on the altar of its hopes,
with zeal and dauntless courage, he threw himself
into the campaign as candidate for Governor on the
platform that the honor of the proud and illustrious
State of Maryland should be handed down in stainless
purity to the generations that were to succeed that
generation which struggled and almost fell under its
heavy and grievors burdens.

It was a contest unequalled in Maryland in rancor,
severity and bitterness. The battle cries and throes,
of that memorable campaign, still reverberate in the
corridors of Maryland history, and mighty were the
issues that hung trembling in the uncertain balance.
Its fury, and its consequences attracted the attention
of the nation, and called to our commonwealth the
great house of Rothschilds whose millions hung on
the decision. Pratt was elected Governor by the nar-
row majority of 541 votes, and with him a Legislature
close but sure, pledged to protect the credit of the
State.

He began the work he had undertaken, and for
which he was elected, immediately upon assuming the
office of Governor. In his inaugural address, he im-
pressed upon the General Assembly the duty of meet-
ing the sacred obligations of the State, and followed
this abstract advice with the practical counsel of pro-