giving a speech at a Readjuster meeting that evening. He was eventually released after posting $1000 bail and agreeing not to duel for a year. However, dueling would become the subject of two laws passed during the Readjuster dominated legislative session of 1881–1882. On December 21, 1881, as the new legislative session began with a significant Readjuster majority, legislators elected Riddleberger to the U.S. Senate (even though the seat would not become vacant for more than a year). During that legislative session, Riddleberger reintroduced his debt readjustment legislation as three bills, all of which became law after passage by both houses and Gov. Cameron's signature (although litigation concerning them would continue for a while after Riddleberger succeeded John W. Johnson and served as U.S. Senator from March 4, 1883, until March 4, 1889). The "Riddleberger Debt Act," provided for $21,035,377.15 in 3-percent fifty-year bonds, issued in exchange for the prewar bonds (which reduced the interest rate by half and principal by about a third), and prohibited paying state taxes with coupons. Readjusters also funded public education, abolished (temporarily) the poll tax, and for the first time tried to levy real taxes on railroads and other corporations. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the first "coupon-killer" bond act in 1883. U.S.Senator In the U.S. Senate, then equally divided between Democrats and Republicans, Riddleberger and Mahone caucused with the Republicans. Riddleberger became chairman of the Committee on Manufactures (which later became the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation). He was not a candidate for reelection in 1888, since the Readjusters had lost their majority in 1883 (in an election shortly after the Danville Massacre), failed to regain it in 1884 and 1885 (after newly elected President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, removed prior Republican patronage employees). The new Democratic majority had accepted the debt reduction as well as free schools, but also put local election boards under statewide legislative control and selected Funder Major J.W. Daniel to succeed Mahone. Meanwhile, Riddleberger earned reputations for hard drinking and eccentricity in the Senate. In early 1885, Riddleberger became the only senator to vote against a resolution condemning an Irish separatist attack in London, and later became the only senator to vote against confirmation of Delaware's U.S. Senator Thomas Bayard as Secretary of State (because of his support for Britain's Irish policy). He also condemned the departing Senator Mahone as arrogant and stubborn and for the party's