notes, in which taxes were paid, necessitated not only the levy
of special taxes, but an increase in the number and rates of the
specific objects taxed. Notable among the additions to the regular
tax schedule were taxes of five cents a pound on all seed cotton
over one bale of 500 pounds of lint, raised by a single hand; of 2
per cent. on the gross profits of iron foundries, machine shops,
dealers and speculators[76] in grain, provisions, etc.; of 50 per
cent. on the wages of mechanics in excess of 75 per cent. profit
above the actual cost of labor and material; of twenty cents on every
hundred dollars of railroad stock which paid 3 per cent. per annum.
Heretofore the State had encouraged railroad enterprise by exemption
from taxation and before the war had even gone so far as to levy
special railroad taxes in the several counties in payment of stock
subscriptions to these enterprises. But financial expediency dictated
that premiums for industrial progress be withdraw and that all the
State's fiscal energy be conserved for the business of war. Emergency
taxation was supplemented as a fiscal device by depreciated cotton
money, Confederate currency and Mississippi Treasury notes, and this
extreme economic tension was only relaxed after the last troops of the
Confederacy had surrendered.
Upon the downfall of the Confederacy in 1865, the Constitutional
Convention assembled by Gov. Sharkey organized Mississippi as a
regular State government. The financial problem confronting this
Post-Confederate government was as hard a Gordian knot to cut as that
which confronted the Confederacy itself. Land was worthless as an
object of taxation, because it had no value. Industries were paralyzed,
and needed bonuses rather than increased burdens. The debt contracted
during the war was not repudiated, and there was a State government to
support. How was the difficulty to be solved?
The Constitutional Convention of 1865 and the State legislatures of
1865, 1866 and 1867 acted in a sensible and heroic way in dealing with
the situation. A direct tax of $1 per bale was levied on all cotton
brought to market and sold; an inheritance tax of 1 per cent. of the
gross amount of all collateral inheritances; a tax of 3-10 per cent.
upon the amount of the annual rents and tenements. Privilege licenses
were exacted from the larger corporations best able to bear them, a
notable instance of this being the license of $2000 per annum imposed
upon express companies.[77] This selection of taxable objects proved
most fortunate, the cotton tax alone yielding sufficient revenue to
support the whole state administration. The commonwealth's indebtedness
was scaled, and Mississippi was rising Phoenix-like from the ashes of
financial despondency.
But in 1867 there was fastened upon the State the reign of
"Reconstruction and Radicalism," which meant untold retrogression in
fiscal policy. This reign of mongrelism, ignorance and depravity
was formally ushered in by a motley assemblage known as "the black
and tan convention," so called from the negroes and carpet-baggers
composing it. The special taxes levied to cover the profligacy and
extravagance of this convention, whose expenses for a period of less
than five months aggregated nearly a quarter of a million of dollars,
were prophetic of the future. Cotton, cotton gins, grist and saw mills,
ferry and wharf boats, grocery, drug and provision stores, banks,
hotels, photograph galleries, railroad and steamboat companies--all
were impaled on reconstruction's fork. Even the freedom of the press
was not respected, sums ranging from $20 to $50 being levied on
each daily, tri-weekly and weekly newspaper published in the State.
The plunderers modestly concluded their infamous schedule with the
provision "that a special tax of 50 per cent. on the State tax be
levied in addition to the State tax now assessed upon real and personal
property."[78]
The Constitution framed by the "black and tan convention" was rejected
and the Conservative administrations of Governors Alcorn and Powers,
both property owners and taxpayers in the State, had the effect of
tempering fiscal excesses. However, this temperance was only temporary
and, as compared with the former period, might be called rank
intoxication. In 1869 the State levy was only 1 mill on the dollar; in
1870, 5 mills; in 1871, 4 mills; in 1872, 8-1/2 mills; and in 1873,
12-1/2 mills. This was only the State tax. In many counties a county
tax of 100 per cent. on the State tax was added, besides a Special
tax in some counties to pay the interest on their bonded debt, and a
Special tax in the incorporated towns of from 5 to 10 mills on the
dollar for town purposes. In this way it happened that the total tax
paid by citizens was 2 8-10 per cent. outside the cities, and from
3-1/2 per cent. to 4 per cent. in cities and towns.[79]
With the election and inauguration of Adelbert Ames as Governor in
1874, the spirit of plunder and revenge which animated the aliens and
negroes burst forth with a fresh fury. The tax on land was increased
to 14 mills, a rate which virtually amounted to confiscation. Cotton
was taxed $10 per bale and the proceeds were invested in the Freedman's
Savings Bank, a gigantic swindling agency at Washington. The poll was
increased from $2 to $6 a head, and the responsibility for the payment
of the negroes poll was saddled on his white employer. This farce
fiscal comedy reached its climax in the imposition of a 1 per cent. tax
on all amounts expended by the citizens of the State in travel.[80] The
people simply could not pay these taxes, and over 6,400,000 acres of
land were forfeited for nonpayment.
On January 4, 1875, the taxpayers driven to desperation by this
confiscation of their property met in convention and submitted to
the Legislature a most respectful appeal for relief. The Legislature
treated the petition with contempt, an action which resulted in the
organization of taxpayers' leagues over the State and the speedy
overthrow of carpet-bag government.
This struggle between taxpayers and tax-layers in Mississippi is but
another illustration of the truth of Edmund Burke's saying that "from
the earliest times the great battles for human freedom have been fought
out on the question of taxation."
But the price of the victory was dear and the penalty paid for
experience was great. In addition to a payable and interest-bearing
debt of $984,200, the carpet-baggers left outstanding, unpaid on
January 1, 1876, non-interest bearing Auditor's warrants amounting to
$414,958.31. During the last six years of their regime, as is shown
by the Auditor's and Treasurer's books for these years, they spent
$8,501,337.86, strictly on account of the expenses of State government,
an average of $1,484,699.55 per annum. They collected nearly a million
dollars of what is known as the Common School fund, and spent it all
in riotous governmental living, save the pittance of $57,000 in U. S.
bonds left in the treasury to the credit of that fund.
This money was not spent on the common schools, the purpose for which
it was collected, but was misappropriated and unaccounted for, and a
debt against the State on account of that fund, was left January 1,
1876, amounting to $830,378.18. This, too, in spite of the fact that
the average rates of State and county taxation during the six years in
question were 8.87-1/2 mills and 12.49-2/3. mills respectively, making
a combined average of $21.37-1/2 on the thousand.
Indebtedness was thus the legacy which the "Modern Period" [1876-1898]
in Mississippi's fiscal history received from the period of
"Reconstruction and Radicalism." Although burdened with this incubus
and with increasing expenditures for educational and eleemosynary
institutions, the "Modern Period" has been characterized by a decrease
in both State and County tax rates and by a proportionate reduction in
State indebtedness, both in amount and interest charge.
The first year of this period, i. e. 1876, gave earnest or fiscal
reform. State taxes were reduced from 9-1/2 mills on the dollar to
2-1/2 mills. The taxing power of county boards of Supervisors was
restricted, a law being passed which prohibited them from levying taxes
for county purposes, which added to the State tax, would exceed 16-1/2
mills on the dollar, except for indispensable purposes. Supernumerary
officials were dismissed, the common school system improved, sinecures
abolished and salaries reduced. The highest rate of compensation was no
longer paid for the lowest standard of qualification. This policy of
economy in State administration has yielded substantial results.
The average rate of State taxation for the past 22 years, inclusive of
1876, has been 4.66 mills, as opposed to an average of 8.87-1/2 mills
for the six years preceding 1876. The average rate of county taxation
for the same period has been 11.1 mills, as opposed to 12.49-1/2 for
the six years preceding. Combining averages, we find a saving to the
credit of home rule of 5.60-1/2 mills on the dollar, or 5.60-1/2 on the
thousand.
Reduction in tax rates has meant a reversal of the policy of
confiscation. Of the 6,400,000 acres of land forfeited for nonpayment
during Reconstruction rule, all save 250,000 acres have been redeemed.
Property valuation has largely increased, the value of real and
personal property in the State today being estimated at $156,432,328.
Conservative capital is seeking investment in all branches of
industrial enterprise and economic progress is following in the wake of
fiscal reform.
Although the total payable debt of the State has increased from
$830,750 in amount and $45,507.50 in interest charges in 1876 to
$1,105,780.41 in amount and $53,421 in interest charges in 1897, this
increase is seen to be a proportionate decrease when all the facts are
considered.
The obligations, amounting to $876,256.57 in principal and interest,
handed down from reconstruction times have all been paid. During
the past 22 years $6,755,706.57 has been appropriated and actually
paid to common schools, as opposed to $1,323,765.62 appropriated and
$327,742.25 paid during the six years preceding 1876.
During the "Modern Period" the State University at Oxford, the Alcorn
University, the Normal Schools at Holly Springs and Tugaloo have been
liberally supported. The A. & M. College has been established, built,
equipped and supported at an aggregate expense of $697,909.95. The
Industrial Institute and College has been built and supported at a cost
of $329,735.99.
Higher education has been liberally supported, eleemosynary
institutions established and equipped, and the Confederate pension fund
largely increased.
Yet these extraordinary expenditures have only meant an addition
of $282,943.91 in principal and interest to the State's payable
indebtedness. This fact alone gives character to the administration
of the State's finances, and bodes well for a wise use of the
commonwealth's taxing power in the future.
FOOTNOTES:
[65] Lowrey and McCardle: Hist. Miss., p. 71.
[66] Miss. Laws, 1799, pp. 121-133.
[67] For provisions, Cf. Digest of the statutes of M. T., 1816, pp.
415-424.
[68] Revised Code of Miss., 1857, pp. 72-73.
[69] Hutchinson's Code of Miss., (1798-1848) pp. 188 and 202.
[70] Miss. Rev. Code, 1875; pp. 417-18.
[71] Miss. Rev. Code., 1857, pp. 70-72.
[72] For provisions, Cf. Proceedings of Constitutional Convention,
1861, pp. 12-15.
[73] Miss. Laws, 1862-63, p. 70.
[74] Indigent beneficiaries were divided into three classes, viz: (1)
Those entirely dependent. (2) Those deficient in breadstuffs. (3) Those
deficient in bacon. No beneficiary could receive more than 6 bushels of
corn, 1 bushel of wheat, and 50 pounds of bacon during the year.
[75] Miss. Laws, Feb'y and March, 1865, pp. 3-10.
[76] Miss. Laws, 1862-63, pp. 153-155.
[77] Miss. Laws, 1866-67, pp. 412-414.
[78] Miss. Constitutional Convention, 1868, pp. 215-220. This
Convention dropped that provision, found in the Constitution of 1832,
restricting the origination of money bills to the lower house. The
Constitution of 1890 expressly declares that all bills may originate in
either house and be amended and rejected in the other.
[79] Lowry and McCardle: Hist. Miss., p. 230, Cf. also Barksdale:
Reconstruction in Mississippi, p. 339 (In Noted Men of the Solid South.)
[80] Miss. Laws, 1875, p. 46.
TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF MISSISSIPPI
J.M. WHITE, M. S.
In 1783 the independence of the Thirteen Colonies in America was
recognized. Fifteen years later on April 7, 1798, Congress passed
an act a part of which was as follows: "All that country bounded
on the west by the Mississippi river; on the north by a line to be
drawn due east from the mouth of the Yazoo river to the Chattahoochee
river; on the east by the river Chattahoochee; and on the south by
the thirty-first degree of north latitude, shall be, and hereby is
constituted one district, to be called the Mississippi Territory." More
than half of this territory is now embraced in the state of Alabama,
and the portion that remains to Mississippi constitutes something like
one-third of the area of the state. Very little of the boundary of the
original territory remains intact, and in so far as Mississippi is
concerned all that remains of this original boundary is that around its
south west corner, extending from Pearl river along the thirty-first
degree of north latitude to the Mississippi river and up that stream to
the mouth of the Yazoo river.
The lands that have been added to the original territory lie to the
north and to the south of it--that added on the north comprises the
South Carolina and Georgia cessions, and that on the south a portion of
the Louisiana Purchase, or Spanish cession.
Before going farther into this subject it is necessary that we examine
briefly some of the old grants made by Great Britain for the purpose
of stimulating the formation of Colonies in the New World. By such an
examination we hope to get a clearer idea of the subject, and how it
is that some of the boundaries of our state are where they are. The
first of these grants to embrace the territory now in Mississippi was
that made by Charles I. to his Attorney General, Sir Robert Heath,
in 1629. This grant known as Carolina was possibly the largest ever
made to any one individual, covering as it did almost all that part of
the United States south of the present southern boundary of Virginia
and of Missouri. Mississippi was completely swallowed up in this
princely domain. Thirty years later (1659) soon after the death of
Oliver Cromwell and about the time of the restoration of the Stuart
kings to power in England, this charter for non-user was voided, and
in 1663 Charles II. gave to eight of his royal favorites, the Lords
Proprietors, a charter to Carolina, and by a supplemental charter
two years later (June 30, 1665) granted on the petition of the Lords
Proprietors, he extended the territory of Carolina so that its northern
boundary was 36 degrees thirty minutes north latitude and its southern
29 degrees north latitude.[81] All of Mississippi was in like manner
embraced in this grant. This charter was surrendered to the King by
seven of the proprietors, act of Parliament July 25, 1729.[82] It had
been one hundred years since the grant to Robert Heath. (The eighth
proprietor gave up his claim Sept. 17, 1744.) It was at this time that
Carolina was divided, South Carolina having remained a part of it until
this date. The western portion of the line separating the Carolinas,
now forms the northern boundary of Mississippi.[83]
Three years later June 9, 1732, George II., King of Great Britain,
granted a charter for the establishment of the Colony of Georgia in
America. The lands embraced by the provisions of this charter lay
within the royal province of South Carolina, between the Savannah
and the Altamaha rivers and the zone lying between parallels passing
through the head waters of these streams and extending to the Pacific
Ocean.[84]
Now the line passing through the head waters of the Savannah left a
zone twelve or fourteen miles wide belonging to South Carolina, and
lying between said line and the southern boundary of North Carolina.
This strip east of the Mississippi embraced 4900 square miles and was
generously ceded by South Carolina to the United States in 1787, and
today forms the northern part of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.
South Carolina's right to this zone was not questioned nor was
Georgia's right to her western zone lying between the parallels
passing through the head waters of the Savannah and Altamaha rivers.
This zone became, as did the South Carolina zone, a part of the
Mississippi Territory, and together they constituted the lands added
to the original Mississippi territory on the north as above indicated.
But as to the original territory, viz., the zone lying between the
thirty-first and the thirty-second and one-half degrees of north
latitude, a number of disputes at different times arose. South Carolina
claimed it, Georgia claimed it, Spain claimed it, and the United
States claimed it. The contentions that arose in consequence of these
conflicting claims were protracted over a quarter of a century.
In 1752 the Georgia charter was surrendered, and by virtue of the
French and Indian war which soon followed, and the treaty of Paris
1763, Great Britian made good her claim, over France, to all lands east
of the Mississippi river and began at once to occupy this territory,
which prior to 1732 had been a "sort of free zone of doubtful
ownership." The King of Great Britain issued a proclamation, Oct. 7,
1763, creating the provinces of East Florida and West Florida and by
the same proclamation the Georgia territory according to the charter of
1732 was extended so as to take in the lands lying between the rivers
Altamaha and St. Mary's. This proclamation also settled temporarily a
dispute which had arisen between the provinces of South Carolina and
Georgia as to the right to the said territory. The provision is as
follows: "We have also, with the advice of our Privy Council aforesaid,
annexed to our province of Georgia, all lands lying between the rivers
Altamaha and St. Mary's." Thirteen years later the Colonies declared
their independence, and, as was natural, each claimed jurisdiction over
areas previously determined by royal charters, proclamations, &c. At
this time Georgia's claims were bounded on the east by the Atlantic
Ocean and the Savannah river; on the north by a line passing through
the head waters of said river to the Mississippi; on the west by the
Mississippi river; and its southern boundary was one with that of the
United States. Her title to all of this territory was the charter of
1732, King George III's proclamation of Oct. 7, 1763, extending the
area as provided by said charter, and a commission[85] to Governor
Wright Jan. 20, 1764, which gave him jurisdiction as far west as the
Mississippi and as far south as the thirty-first degree of north
latitude.[86]
Acting upon these claims, in 1785 the legislature of Georgia
established the County of Bourbon in the extreme southwestern limit of
her claim, and 1788 authorized the sale of large bodies of land lying
between the Tombigbee and the Mississippi rivers to certain companies
known as Virginia Yazoo, South Carolina Yazoo, and the Tennessee
Yazoo. These sales were made; but when the State Treasurer refused
to accept Georgia bills of credit in payment, the Virginia company
withdrew the moneys that she had previously paid and the South Carolina
Company brought suit against Georgia in the supreme court of the United
States; but the ratification of the eleventh amendment to the Federal
Constitution, privileging a state from being sued, cut short the
suit.[87]
In 1795 another act was passed authorizing the sale of these lands, but
on investigation it was found that many members of the Legislature--in
fact all the members voting for the sale except one--were interested in
these sales in a pecuniary way and a third Legislature, 1796, declared
the act of the previous legislature null and void, because obtained by
fraud and corruption, and the records of all the sales and conveyances
made under it were blotted out and destroyed.
This, however, did not vitiate the titles of these companies to said
lands.[88] The supreme court of the United States decided that the act
of the Georgia legislature in repealing the prior act for the sale of
the land was unconstitutional and void, was in violation of a contract,
and that the titles of claimants were good and valid.[89]
In the midst of all this confusion the United States planted the
Mississippi territory with boundaries as given above, justifying
her right to do so in her belief that these lands did not belong to
Georgia or to any other state at the time of the signing of the peace
treaty in 1783, but to the United States in common as the result of
their combined effort in establishing independence. In deference,
however, to Georgia's claims, Congress in authorizing the establishment
of a government in the Mississippi territory provided, "That the
establishment of this government shall in no respect impair the right
of the state of Georgia, or of any person or persons, either to the
jurisdiction or the soil of the said territory; but the rights and
claims of the said state, and all persons interested, are hereby
declared to be as firm and available as if this act had never been
made."
Section I. of this act is as follows: "That the President of the United
States be, and he hereby is, authorized to appoint three commissioners,
any two of whom shall have power to adjust and determine, with such
commissioners as may be appointed under the legislative authority of
the state of Georgia, all interfering claims of the United States and
that state, to territory situated west of the river Chattahoochee,
north of the thirty-first degree of north latitude, and south of the
cession made to the United States by South Carolina; and also to
receive any proposals for the relinquishment or cession of the whole or
any part of the other territory claimed by the state of Georgia, and
out of the ordinary jurisdiction thereof."[90]
To all this Georgia protested vigorously and asserted her right to the
land in question. Commissioners were, however appointed as provided.
They were not long in reaching an agreement, which led to the cession
of these lands to the United States. The terms were about as follows:
The United States gave Georgia in exchange for these lands, a strip
about twelve miles wide now forming the northern part of Georgia;
agreed to extinguish the Indian titles within her limits; to admit
the ceded territory into the Union as a state, when the population
should number sixty thousand souls; to confirm all grants recognized
by Georgia as legal; to set apart five million acres to satisfy claims
such as those of the Yazoo companies and other companies which Georgia
did not consider legal; and to pay a million and a quarter dollars
to the state of Georgia from the proceeds of lands sold in the said
district.[91] All this having been agreed to by Congress, the cession
was formally made in 1802 and two years later, together with the South
Carolina Cession lying just to its north, became the Mississippi
territory. But the contest did not end until Congress voted eight
million dollars in 1814 in land script to satisfy all claimants.[92]