devoted his time to scientific investigation not only to gratify
himself but to serve the public. His love of science for its own sake
made "favorite amusements" of labors that would otherwise have been
very onerous. His desire to benefit others through these investigations
led him to fulfill that true test of all greatness,--service to one's
fellow-man. This extract shows further the contagion of an enthusiastic
devotion to a great cause. Dunbar and his friends, remote from the
intellectual centers of the world, constituted themselves into a
society, which spent a larger sum of money for scientific purposes
than perhaps any other private scientific organization in the history
of the State. He sought the co-operation of all thinking men with whom
he came in contact. He was active in his efforts to collect all facts
of scientific interest throughout his part of the country. That he was
often disappointed in these efforts, is shown by more than one passage
in his writings. In his "Description of the Mississippi and its Delta"
he expresses his regret over "the extreme inattention of persons, even
of some education, to the most curious phenomena passing daily under
their review."
Philip Nolan, the dauntless hero of one of Edward Everett Hale's
most interesting stories,[61] was a warm personal friend of Dunbar
and was often mentioned in the Jefferson correspondence in the most
complimentary terms. This relationship was probably due to the fact
that Nolan had a remarkably wide range of information gathered from
the remote western wilds and he took pleasure in imparting the results
of his observations to Dunbar.
He was a warm friend to all students of nature. Only a few months
before his death, he had the pleasure of entertaining in his own home,
"the Father of American Ornithology," Alexander Wilson. Upon hearing
that Wilson was in Natchez, Dunbar wrote him the following letter:
FOREST, 20th May, 1810.
"SIR:--It is very unfortunate that I should be so much
indisposed as to be confined to my bedroom; nevertheless I
cannot give up the idea of having the pleasure of seeing you
as soon as you find it convenient; the perusal of your first
volume of Ornithology, lent me by General Wilkinson, has
produced in me a very great desire of making your acquaintance.
"I understand, from my boy, that you propose going in a few
days to New Orleans, where you will see some small cabinets of
natural history that may interest you. But as I presume it is
your intention to prosecute your inquiries into the interior of
our country, this cannot be done better than from my house, as
your headquarters; where everything will be made convenient to
your wishes. My house stands literally in the forest, and your
beautiful orioles with other elegant birds, are our courtyard
companions.
"The bearer attends you, with a couple of horses, on the
supposition that it may be convenient for you to visit us
today; otherwise he shall wait upon you any other day that you
shall appoint.
"I am respectfully, &c.,
"WILLIAM DUNBAR."[62]
In writing of this visit, Wilson says in his Journal:--"I was
received with great hospitality and kindness, had a neat bedroom
assigned me; and was requested to consider myself as at home during
the time I should find it convenient to stay in exploring this part
of the country." In his great work on Ornithology he acknowledges the
assistance of Dunbar in securing two or three new species of birds.
He also refers to Dunbar as a man "whose life has been devoted to
science," and he says "the few happy days I spent there [at 'The
Forest'] I shall never forget."[63] In writing to Dr. Bartram from
Philadelphia, Sept. 2, 1810, Wilson says, "Mr. Dunbar of Natchez,
remembered you very well, and desired me to carry his good wishes to
you."[64]
The most prominent trait of Dunbar's character was his love of nature.
He admired her in all of her manifestations. She was attractive to him
not only because of her beauty but because of her mysteries. With the
spirit of a true philosopher, he ever inquired into the laws which
regulated her actions. To paraphrase slightly his own language, he
never observed any phenomena without endeavoring to ascertain the
cause of them. He did not read at random, pages from the great book
of nature, but read as continuously as circumstances would permit. He
read it in the howling wind, the turbid current, the trembling needle,
the growing plant, the blazing comet, the silent stone, the lifeless
fossil. He read it critically; he read it appreciatively. That he often
raised his eyes from the well-conned pages of this great book to fix
them on the omniscient Author himself is shown in more than one passage
from his writings.
The career of this great pioneer scientist of Mississippi ended in the
month of October, 1810. Although he was then in his sixty-first year,
his work was incomplete and his plans but partially executed. In the
words of Pliny, "The hand of death is ... too severe, and too sudden,
when it falls upon such as are employed in some immortal work. The
sons of sensuality, who have no other views beyond the present hour,
terminate with each day the whole purpose of their lives; but those who
look forward to posterity, and endeavor to extend their memories to
future generations by useful labors:--to such death is always immature,
as it still snatches them from amidst some unfinished design."
The permanent results of Dunbar's life-work may be summarized as
follows:
1. He helped to locate and to survey part of the present
boundary line between Mississippi and Louisiana.
2. He first directed the attention of the world to the manufacture
of cotton-seed oil.
3. He invented the screw press for packing cotton, and
helped to perfect the process of packing it in square bales.
4. He made the first accurate meteorological observations
in the valley of the Mississippi.
5. He made a critical scientific study of the Mississippi
River and its Delta.
6. He made important contributions to geographical knowledge,
by determining the latitude and the longitude of many
places.
7. He was the first to give a scientific account of the Hot
Springs and an analysis of its water.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] The writer acknowledges, with pleasure, the valuable assistance
rendered him by Major William Dunbar Jenkins, of Natchez, Miss.,
great-grandson of Sir William Dunbar.
[22] In the ruins of the old Elgin Cathedral, which, on the authority
of Billings, was once "the most stately and beautifully decorated of
all the ecclesiastical edifices" of Scotland, may still be seen many
evidences of the greatness of this family. Over the great Western, or
Alpha window of this building have existed for upward of 450 years
the arms of the Stewarts and Dunbars, "two families whose names are
closely associated with the civil and ecclesiastical history" of
Morayshire. "The north end of the transept was called Dunbar Aisle,
probably from its having been the burial place of the Dunbars who
have been landowners in Moray for upwards of five hundred years." The
following are a few of the names of members of this illustrious family,
whose remains are deposited here:--Columbo Dunbar, Bishop of Moray;
Sir Alexander Dunbar of Westfield, Knight (M. P.); Mr. Patrick Dunbar,
Chancellor of Aberdeen; Sir James Dunbar, heritable Sheriff of Moray;
Gavin Dunbar, Preceptor of King James V., Archbishop of Glasgow, and
Lord High Chancellor of Scotland.
The tomb of Gavin Dunbar, Bishop of Aberdeen, may be seen in 'Bishop
Gavin Dunbar's Aisle,' in the transept of the Cathedral at Aberdeen.
(Notes from the "Guide to the Ruins of Elgin Cathedral," 10th ed.
Published for James S. Pozzi, Keeper of the Ruins of the Elgin
Cathedral, 1892.)
[23] Natchez Democrat of Sept. 10, 1873; ibid., Centennial Edition.
(1876.)
[24] Claiborne's (J. F. H.) Miss. as a Province, Territory and State,
200; supplement to Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography.
[25] "Interesting Centennial Reminiscences" by J. F. H. Claiborne in
the Natchez Democrat for 1876.
[26] Peter Force Collection of Historical Manuscripts in the Manuscript
Department of the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.
[27] Manuscript volume in the Manuscript Department of the Library
of Congress, entitled "W. Florida. Respond: Answer A. Chrystie, V.
Chester."
[28] He had been an unsuccessful merchant at Natchez and was well known
to the people of that community. (Claiborne's Miss., 117).
[29] Ibid. 119-120.
[30] Claiborne's Miss., 143.
[31] Claiborne's "Interesting Centennial Reminiscences" in Natchez
Democrat, Centennial number (1876.)
[32] Ib.
[33] Claiborne's Miss., 144.
[34] Natchez Democrat, Centennial Number (1876.)
[35] Manuscript correspondence of Jefferson in the archives of the
State Department, Washington, D. C.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Ibid. This sentence is doubly interesting in the light of the fact
that Mr. Jefferson himself had predicted "that it would be a thousand
years before the country would be thickly settled as far west as the
Mississippi." (See Hart's Formation of the Union, 139.)
[38] Manuscript Correspondence of Jefferson, in the State Department,
Washington, D. C.
[39] Ibid. On Dunbar's Memorial to Congress, in behalf of Jefferson
College, see Gales and Seaton's Annals of Congress, 8th Cong. 2d. Ses.,
pp. 685, 1184.
[40] Natchez Democrat, Centennial Number (1876.)
[41] He retained his English citizenship until Natchez passed into the
possession of the United States, when he took the oath of allegiance to
this government.
[42] Sixteen letters from Gayoso to Dunbar are now in the possession of
Mrs. George T. Green, of Natchez, Miss.
[43] March 9, 1787.
[44] Letter written at New Orleans, Dec. 20, 1797.
[45] Letter written at New Orleans, May 12, 1798.
[46] This was the limit of the cultivated lands at that time.
[47] Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. V., 216,
Footnote.
[48] They separated ten miles east of the point of starting.
[49] Manuscript copy of Dunbar's Report, presented to the writer by
Major William Dunbar Jenkins, of Natchez, Miss.
[50] Transactions of the Amer. Phil. Soc. V., 203.
[51] Ellicott's Journal, (1803) 56.
[52] See Publication of the Amer. Hist. Association for 1897, 181,
Footnote; Publication, Miss. Hist. Soc. for 1898, 55, Footnote.
[53] This letter was written at New Orleans, Feb. 12, 1799. It is found
in the Manuscript Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson in the archives of
the State Department, Washington, D. C.
[54] The exact title of this report is: "Account of the Commencement
and Progress of the First 18 Miles of the Line of Demarcation,
beginning at the River Mississippi and proceeding East along the most
northerly part of the 31st degree of North lat. between the Territories
of Spain and the United States of America, concluding with Observations
and Remarks on the Country, its Climate, Production, &c., by William
Dunbar."
[55] Natchez Democrat of September 10, 1873.
[56] He here refers to a conflict between the theories of Bernardin de
St. Pierre and Sir Isaac Newton respecting the nature of the rainbow
and claims that this phenomenon demonstrates the correctness of the
latter.
[57] Pages 421-434.
[58] Letter in the possession of Mrs. George F. Green of Natchez, Miss.
[59] A fortnight later, he wrote that he had failed to reanimate what
he had supposed to be bivalves in this water. In fact, he was mistaken
in his supposition, as has been shown by subsequent analyses.
[60] "The following is a list of articles ordered by Dunbar from John
Swift, London:
1 Pocket Chronometer, 30 guineas.
1 Telescope, £150.
1 Astronomical Circle, £100.
1 Parallel Ruler.
1 Brass Sextant and Stand, 20 guineas.
1 Improved Astronomical Telescope.
1 Hair Compass.
1 Bow Compass.
1 Pneumatic Apparatus.
1 Electrical Machine with apparatus for philosophical and medical uses.
1 Double-barrel rifle gun, to be made after my own plan, as
follows: Barrels 27 inches; weight 12 pounds; astronomical
telescope magnifying ten times, 1-3/8 to 1-3/4 inches in
diameter, 12 to 14 inches in length. With this rifle carrying a
4 oz. ball, you may shoot a mile into a ten inch circle. By one
vertical hair and several horizontal ones, the sights in the
focus of the telescope may be regulated for optical distances.
By this instrument we may compute the velocity of the ball
and its general decrease; the fall of the ball by the power
of gravitation; the comparative velocity with and against the
wind; the lateral action of the wind, &c."--Natchez Democrat,
Centennial Number (1876.)
[61] See "Philip Nolan's Friends; or 'Show Your Passport's'" in
Scribner's Monthly, Vols. XI, XII, and XIII. Dunbar recognizes the
value of Nolan's assistance, particularly in the study of the language
of signs of the Indians.
[62] Wilson and Bonaparte's Amer. Ornithologist, Phila. Introduction
pages C.-CI.
[63] Ib. 70.
[64] Ib. CI.
HISTORY OF TAXATION IN MISSISSIPPI.
CHARLES HILLMAN BROUGH, PH. D. (JOHNS HOPKINS)
The history of fiscal legislation and development in Mississippi has
five distinct phases and is therefore comprised within the compass
of five distinct periods. These periods, with rough chronological
indices for each, are: (1) Territorial (1798-1817); (2) Transitional
(1817-1861); (3) Confederate and Post-Confederate Governments
(1861-1867); (4) Reconstruction (1867-1876); (5) Modern (1876-1898).
By an act of Congress approved April 7, 1798, all that tract of land
which today includes the States of Mississippi and Alabama, was
constituted one district and called the "Mississippi Territory." Major
Winthrop Sargent, a native of Massachusetts, was appointed governor
and judges were empowered to frame a code of laws for the Territory,
to be drawn from the statutes of other States. This code, known as
"Sargent's Code" has been characterized by an able political writer
as "directly at variance with all Statute law in America, and utterly
repugnant to any known system of jurisprudence derived from the
common law of England."[65] Certainly this is true of that part of it
"directing the manner in which Money shall be Raised and Levied to
defray the charges which may arise within the Several Counties."[66]
According to its provisions, the court of general quarter sessions in
each county was authorized to make an estimate of the county's average
annual expenditure, the estimate to be submitted to the governor and
one or more of the territorial judges for approval. The amount approved
was then apportioned among the several towns within the county by
commissioners biennially appointed by the court of common pleas.
If the town numbered sixty or more free citizens, two commissions
were appointed; if one hundred or more, three commissioners. These
commissioners received the returns of taxables in each township, and
assessed the property therein. It was specified that the commissioners
should ascertain "the names of all free men, inmates, hired male
servants (being twenty-one years of age) and whether profitable or
chargeable to the employers" * * * and obtain "a list of all lands
not being the property of the United States or appropriated to public
uses, the tenements, houses, cabins or other buildings wherein people
dwell and which are rented and afford an income to the owners, and all
ferries, stores, shops, warehouses, mills, gins, keel or batteaux,
boats of the burthen of twenty barrels and upward producing a yearly
income, and of the bound male servants and male slaves above the age
of sixteen and not exceeding fifty; draught oxen, saddle and draught
horses, cows penned or kept up and immediately productive to the
owners; together with the stock cattle, including sheep and swine
intended for market and thereby productive of annual income and profit."
Lands were assessed "in just proportion to their value," with special
regard to their annual profit, and no one having visible property less
than one dollar per head annually, save by a due proportion of labor
in the opening and keeping in repair highways and public roads. This
enumeration, viewed in the light of modern interpretation, virtually
means a graduated income tax applied to town and county government.
The valuation of real estate was determined, not by its intrinsic
worth or actual selling value, but by the annual income [profit]
which, on the average, it was deemed likely to produce. Taxation was
altogether local, there being no territorial levy as distinguished from
the biennial county and township levies. This localization of fiscal
activity, an income [profit] valuation, and the fact that visible
specific property bore all, or nearly all the burden of taxation,
are thus the most striking characteristics of Mississippi's primitive
scheme of taxation.
The collection of taxes was vested in the sheriff, who was _ex-officio_
the county collector, as he is today. This officer had powers of
imprisonment and distraint. The commissioners appointed by the County
Court as assessors were allowed $1 per day, and the sheriffs were
authorized to keep 1% of their collections before making their reports
to the county treasurers.
This crude fiscal system devised by Sargent remained in effect without
substantial modification until 1815. In that year a law was passed
providing for a distinct territorial tax and specifying that county
taxes should be levied upon the same property and objects enumerated as
were within the territorial schedule.[67] County taxes, however, could
not exceed one-half of the territorial tax. Henceforth, there was to
be commonwealth taxation, as distinguished from purely local taxation.
The territorial schedule comprised a general list of ratable objects
with fixed valuations. Land was divided into six classes, each class
having three qualities. The bases of classification were proximity to
the city of Natchez and distance from the Mississippi, Chickasawhay
and Tombigbee Rivers. Thus, class number one contained all lands lying
within eight miles of the city of Natchez, the first quality of which
was rated at $12 per acre; the second, at $8; and the third, at $3.
Class number two contained all land lying within fourteen miles of
the Mississippi River, with valuations according to quality ranging
from $2 to $7. In short, valuations decreased in proportion as the
distances from commercial centres and water courses increased; lands,
lots and buildings within any city, borough or town were subject to a
uniform ad valorem tax of 2 mills; and merchandise and bank stock, to
an ad valorem tax of 2-1/2 mills. Capitation taxes of 50 and 62-1/2
cents respectively were levied on each slave and free white male
above the age of twenty-one. Slave traders were taxed $5.00 on each
slave imported into the Territory, a tax containing the germs of the
privilege license system. The schedule was further strengthened by a
tax of $1.25 on every pleasurable carriage.
It was provided that assessing and collecting officers were to be
appointed by the Governor, rather than by the County Court, as
heretofore--a change probably due to the differentiation between
commonwealth and county taxation.
We may, for the lack of a better designation, call the period from
1817, the date of Mississippi's admission into the Union, to the
outbreak of the Civil War, the period of ante-bellum Statehood. Such
a division in fiscal history would seem to be perfectly artificial,
yet it is justified by the fact that during this period the tax system
of the State underwent substantial change. The increased expenses of
State administration, an accumulation of State indebtedness, minuter
differentiation in industry, giving rise to more numerous classes of
wealth and progress in democratic thought--all demanded an extension of
the State's fiscal system.
Personal property became as important an object of taxation as real
property. The personal property list was no longer limited to slaves,
pleasure carriages, moneys arising from the sale of merchandise, and
bank stock, but also included gold and silver plate, pianos, weapons,
watches or clocks, cattle in excess of twenty head, saddle and
carriage horses, merchants' and brokers' capital and money loaned at
interest.[68]
This taxation of personal property, usually rated, was supplemented
by the privilege license system, with charges partly rated and partly
apportioned. Thus, in 1857 auctioneers and peddlers were taxed 3 per
cent. on the amount of their sales; saloon-keepers, one-fourth of one
per cent. on all sales of vinous and spirituous liquors by the gallon;
trading in slaves, horses and mules, 3 per cent. on the amount of their
sales; keepers of ferries, toll bridges or turnpikes, one-fourth of one
per cent. on all receipts; circuses $25 for each day's performance;
nine-pin alleys or any like contrivance, $25 each; theatres or places
for theatrical performances, $35 each. Even the poll tax was widened
into its application so as to include free negro as well as free white
males between the ages of twenty-one and fifty years.
Contemporaneously with this external expansion, the tax system of the
State underwent internal changes. Land classifications were abolished,
and annual income was rejected as a device of valuation.[69] A method
was substituted which is in vogue today, viz: Assessment according to
intrinsic value, to be determined by the owner or person in charge on
oath, taking into consideration improvements, proximity to navigation,
towns, cities, villages or roads, and any other circumstances that may
tend to enhance value. The distinction between commonwealth and county
taxes was preserved, but not in the same form as the older distinction
between territorial and county taxes.
County police boards were now authorized to "order a certain [variable]
rate per centum on the amount of the assessment of the State tax," and
"to levy a special tax for the erection or repair of the court house,
jail or other county buildings."[70] Under the territorial regime,
it will be recollected, the county tax could never exceed half the
territorial tax.
This period of ante-bellum Statehood was also marked by a radical
change in the machinery of assessment and collection. During the
territorial period assessing and collecting officers were appointed by
the County Courts or by the Territorial Governor; during this period
they were chosen directly by the people who were directly responsible
for their conduct.[71] The county sheriff was _ex-officio_ the county
collector, but the assessor was a separate officer with distinct
functions. Both were biennially elected, and the compensation of each
was fixed at 5% on the amount of the state tax assessed and collected.
This per centum remuneration could not exceed a fixed sum; the
assessor's maximum being fixed at $500 per annum and the collector's
at $3000. The fiscal machinery thus set in motion during the period
of ante-bellum Statehood is patterned on substantially the same model
today.
Although this period witnessed the establishment of _some_ of the
main features of the modern system of State and local taxation in
Mississippi, it cannot be designated as transitional, in the sense
Prof. Ely uses the term. There was no change from the taxation of
specific kinds of property at varying rates to the taxation of the
collective mass of property at one uniform rate. More specific kinds
of property were taxed, but there was no disposition to bunch property
under a common category at a uniform rate. The objects taxed were as
specific and the rates as variable as ever. The period was marked by an
extension of the tax system, not by its leveling-out.
War demands emergency revenue, and especially was this true of the
Civil War. When Mississippi formally renounced her allegiance to the
Union in 1861, the Constitutional Convention which passed the Ordinance
of Secession supplemented this by an "Ordinance to Raise Means for the
Defence of the State."[72] This ordinance provided for the collection
from each taxpayer of an additional Special State tax of 50% on the
regular State tax, and also a tax from every inhabitant of 3-10 per
cent. upon all money owned or controlled by such inhabitant--the moneys
so collected to constitute a Military Fund.
In 1863 it was further enacted that a special tax of 50 per cent. on
the regular State tax should be levied, to be known as the Military
Relief Tax, the proceeds to be used for the relief of the destitute
families of Confederate soldiers.[73] In 1865, in order the better to
provide for the families of the soldiers a direct tax in kind of 2 per
cent, was levied on the gross amount of all corn, wheat and bacon,
in excess of 100 bushels, 25 bushels and 100 pounds respectively; on
the tolls from all grain mills in the State, on the gross profits
of leather, whether manufactured for sale or received on shares as
commission by tanneries; and on all woolen and cotton factories and
fabrics manufactured for sale.[74]
For the benefit of the County Indigent Fund, the Boards of Police of
the several counties were empowered to levy a tax in kind of 1/2 per
cent. on all corn, wheat and bacon, grown and produced in the State.[75]