Dropped stitches in Tennessee history

by John Allison

On September 29, 1789, an act was passed providing that the military pensions which had been granted and paid by the states, respectively, in pursuance with the foregoing acts to invalids who were wounded and disabled during the late war, should be paid by the United States from the fourth day of March, 1789, for the space of one year.

The act of March 26, 1790, appropriated the sum of $96,979.72 for paying pensions which may become due to the invalids.

The act of April 30, 1790, provides for one-half pay pensions to soldiers of the regular army disabled while in line of duty; and the act of July 16, 1790, provides that the military pensions which have been granted and paid by the states respectively shall be continued and paid by the United States from the fourth day of March, 1790, for the space of one year.

There were several other similar acts providing for the yearly payment of pensions, but the first general act which made a regular provision for the pensioning of commissioned and non-commissioned officers, musicians, soldiers, marines and seamen, disabled in the actual service of the United States, and in line of duty, by known wounds received during the Revolutionary war, was the act approved on March 10, 1806, which provided by its terms that it should remain in force for and during the space of six years from the passage thereof, and no longer; but it was subsequently revived and kept in force by the acts of April 25, 1812, May 15, 1820, February 4, 1822, and May 24, 1828.

And so it appears, that the “Governor, Legislative Council and House of Representatives of the Territory of the United States of America, south of the river Ohio,” passed an act unconditionally and permanently pensioning disabled soldiers and militiamen, and the widows and orphans of such as had died from wounds, twelve years before such an act was passed by the Congress of the United States.

It would not be in keeping with the main purpose of this modest effort to catch up and put together in their proper places some dropped stitches in Tennessee history, to go into an examination in detail of the various acts passed by the legislative authority of the territorial government and by the earliest sessions of the general assembly of the state. Believing, however, that it may be profitable, at this time, to bring into public view some of the great doctrines, principles and policies that seem to have guided our early legislators, as gathered from what they did, they will be briefly mentioned, with date, substance, objects, etc.

The first of the policies indicated was that counties and municipalities should not contract interest-bearing debts and postpone their payment for a long period of years. This policy was fixed and not deviated from; for in every act which authorized a county or municipality to expend money for the erection of public buildings of any kind, or for any other purpose, such county or municipality was also required to levy a tax to pay for it; and, to prevent extravagance or the erection of a building or buildings for public uses not required, the act fixed a limit in excess of which tax should not be levied or collected. Was this because they were wiser than we are? No. They read the constitution, took an oath to support it, and found that it said, as it does now, that “the general assembly shall have power to authorize the several counties and incorporated towns in this state to impose taxes for county and corporation purposes respectively”; and they had not then become wise enough to construe the true meaning out of this provision, and make it mean that the general assembly shall have power to authorize counties and incorporated towns to borrow money and issue promises and obligations to pay it ten, twenty or thirty years after date, with interest payable semi-annually. If some holder of such promises to pay, or of bonds issued by a county or an incorporated town or city, should be called upon to point out that provision in our constitution which gives power to the general assembly to authorize a county or municipality to enter into and deliver such obligations, what section, clause, line or word could be found to make such bonds legal, valid and binding?

They had the “fee question,” the “school question,” public roads, the regulation of private corporations, the “gold” or “specie contract” question, all to deal with; and they dealt with all of them prior and up to the year 1801, taking hold of and settling these complicated, vexatious problems in a courageous and statesmanlike way.

The fee act, passed in April, 1796, not only regulated the compensation of public officers, but fixed the fees of attorneys in civil suits, from “twelve dollars and fifty cents in any suit in equity,” down to “one dollar and twenty-five cents in any appeal from the judgment of a justice of the peace to the county courts.” The fees allowed attorneys were specified in each character of the various suits, the greatest sum allowed being twelve dollars and fifty cents.

Two acts, however, ought to have special prominence given to them in Tennessee at this particular time (March, 1897). One of these, bearing on the subject of “gold” or “specie contracts,” with the cunning methods used to ultimately accomplish the repeal of the most important section in it, is here given in full: