At issue was whether or how to pay almost $34 million in debt that the Commonwealth of Virginia incurred when it sold bonds between 1822 and 1861 to raise money to subsidize construction of canals, toll roads, and railroads. The state sold most of the bonds during the 1850s for railroad construction and used the money to purchase stock in the corporations that the General Assembly created for constructing what at the time were called internal improvements. Most of the debt was in the form of bonds that paid 6 percent annual interest and matured in thirty-four years. The Virginia debt was by far the largest of any southern state when the Civil War began, and by small margins it was the third largest in the United States, after only Pennsylvania and New York. Per capita or per taxpayer, it was actually two or three times the Pennsylvania or New York debts. At that time, the debt did not appear to present a potential future problem for Virginia. Its creation reflected the overall confidence of the state’s business and political leaders that Virginia would prosper as an integral participant in the increasingly sophisticated and integrated national economy. Railroads were the key to that national and state prosperity.