Chap. 3.—JOINT RESOLUTIONS declaring the acceptance by the
people of Virginia of the settlement of the debt of the state, provided
for by the act known as the “ Riddleberger Bill,” and calling upon
the creditors of the state to fund their claims and bonds under the pro-
visions of that law.

Approved December 21, 1888.

The questions of the ascertainment and settlement of the
debt of the state having for thirteen years profoundly agitated
the people of Virginia, persistent, repeated and earnest but
unavailing efforts having been made by a large body of the
citizens and taxpayers of the state to effect and carry out a
settlement of this debt under which a much larger sum would
have been recognized and assumed by the state than has been
assumed by the act approved February fourteenth, eighteen
hundred and eighty-two, popularly called the “ Riddleberger
Bill,” resulting in political contests which have convulsed
the popular mind, given repeated and ruinous shocks to the
business interests of the state, retarded the prosperity and
threatened the safety of the people, and all of the issues in-
volved in the final adjustment of this debt having at length,
in eighteen hundred and eighty-one and eighteen hundred
and eighty-two and eighteen hundred and eighty-three, after
years of discussion and controversy, been submitted to the
arbitrament of the people and the courts, and the people hav-
ing, after a thorough canvass of the questions of fact and of
right involved, given their sanction at the polls to the
measures, mode and principles of settlement substantially
embodied in the “ Riddieberger Bill,” and the highest courts
of Virginia and of the United States, having sanctioned the
validity and the constitutionality ot the law designed to give
effect to the adjustment thus enacted, and it being of impera-
tive importance to the people of Virginia, and essential to the
security of the public creditors, that this settlement shall be
taken as a finality, and that further agitation and controversy
shall cease; therefore be it resolved by the general assembly
of Virginia,

1. That the people of Virginia have accepted the act of
February fourteenth, eightcen hundred and eighty-two,
known as the “ Riddleberger Bill,” as the ultimate settlement
of the debt of this state; that it is their unalterable purpose
that that settlement shall be final, and that any expectation
that any settlement of the debt of this state upon any other
basis will ever be made or tolerated by the people of Virginia,
is absolutely illusury and hopeless.

2. That the interests of the public creditors, as well as the
safety and welfare of the state, require that this settlement
shall be accepted by the creditors as well as by the state, and
therefore the general assembly of Virginia, on behalf of all
of the people of the state, hereby advise and call upon the
holders of all of the bonds and claims against the common-
wealth to come forward with promptness and fund the same
under the provisions of the act of February fourteenth, eigh-
teen hundred and eighty-two.

3. That the governor of the commonwealth be required to
communicate these resolutions to the holders of the bonds
and claims against this state by proclamation to be published
in such manner as may in his judgment be most effectual.