The total increase in the debt of all these Southern States was then nearly $140,000,000.] Not all of this increase was due to carpetbag government.

While, of course, the debts incurred for military purposes had been repudiated in accordance with the Fourteenth Amendment, several of the States had issued bonds for other purposes during the War or immediately afterwards before the advent of the Reconstruction governments.

There were other millions of unpaid interest on all varieties of debts incurred before or after 1860.

The Reconstruction debts had been incurred for various purposes, but bonds issued ostensibly to aid in building railroads, canals, or levees made up the greater part of the total.

These bonds, however, had been sold at a large discount, and only a small part of the money realized was applied to actual construction.
Some of the States had escaped almost entirely any considerable increase of debt; others were burdened far beyond their ability to pay, especially as property valuations had declined nearly one-half.
The wholesale repudiation of their debts injured the credit of all the Southern States, and they have been loudly denounced for their action.
Their spokesmen have justified their procedure in regard to the bonds issued by the carpetbag legislatures on the ground that they were voted by venal governments imposed by military force; that many of the bonds were fraudulent on their face; and that those who purchased them at a great discount were simply gambling upon the chance that the governments issuing them would endure; that the greater part of these bonds were stolen by the officers; and that little or no benefit came to the State.
Not all of the bonds which were repudiated or scaled down, however, belonged to this class.