In the meantime, Mr. Williams, one of the arrested members, applied for and obtained a writ of habeas corpus. It was made returnable to Thomas N. Frazier, Judge of the Criminal Court of Davidson County, who, upon the hearing of the case, discharged Mr. Williams from the custody of the Sergeant-at-arms. On account of this decision, the House of Representatives preferred articles of impeachment against Judge Frazier. He was tried by the Senate, sitting as a Court of Impeachment. It sustained the articles of impeachment, and deposed Judge Frazier from office. He was also forever disqualified from holding any office of profit or trust in the State. His disqualifications were however removed by the Constitutional Convention of 1870, and he was afterward re-elected Criminal Judge.
The Fifteenth Amendment was submitted to Tennessee in 1869, just before the close of the radical era. The suffrage had been conferred upon the negro by an act of the Legislature of the previous year, but it was known that the whole question would be reopened by the Constitutional Convention which had just been called. The Legislature, therefore, refused to take final action on the amendment. It was referred to the Committee on Federal Relations, from which it was never reported.
[13] Acts of Tennessee, Extra Session, 1866.
CHAPTER VII
FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION OF THE RADICAL GOVERNMENT
The joint resolution of July 24, 1866, completed, so far as Congress was concerned, the restoration of civil government in Tennessee. Her Senators and Representatives were admitted to their seats, and the State, to all intents and purposes, was restored to the same position it had occupied prior to the attempted withdrawal in 1861.
The political basis of the restored government was, as we have pointed out, the loyal people of the State. They consisted mainly of four elements, namely, the inhabitants of the small towns and the upland farms of East Tennessee, and poor whites, or “white trash,” as they were commonly called, scattered throughout the State, a few “old-line” Whigs in West and Middle Tennessee, and lastly the negro and the carpetbagger. This ruling minority was, therefore, neither an aristocracy of wealth, intelligence, nor social position. It could not be expected that the management of public affairs by such hands would be just and conservative. From the beginning it showed a tendency toward reckless expenditures and an entire disregard of property rights. Mr. Brownlow, in his first message to the Legislature, advised a general increase in the salaries of State officials. This advice came at a time when the finances were at a low ebb, and the whole industrial and agricultural interests of the community were thoroughly demoralized. Nevertheless, the Legislature was only too ready to carry these suggestions of Governor Brownlow into execution. They passed a bill increasing the salaries of the supreme judges from $2000 to $5000 a year. This was followed by other bills increasing the salaries of the various State officials. This resulted in an enormous increase in the current expenditures of the State.
The whole expenses of the State government for the years 1851 to 1861, inclusive, had been about $6,500,000. The entire expenses during the Brownlow administration, which lasted only three years and a half, were $7,301,352. The taxes in 1868 were fourfold greater than in 1861, yet on the former date, the Comptroller announced in his report to the Legislature that the State was on the verge of bankruptcy.
But the most troublesome legacy Mr. Brownlow left the people of Tennessee was an increase in the State debt of $21,647,000.
By an Act of the Legislature in 1852, known as the General Internal Improvement Law, the Governor had been empowered to issue State bonds to the amount of $8000 per mile in aid of railroad companies, upon the following conditions: “1. That the company shall first secure bonafide subscriptions to its capital stock to an amount sufficient to grade, bridge, and prepare for the inner rails the whole extent of the main trunk line proposed to be constructed; 2. That it be shown by the company to the Governor that the said subscriptions are good and solvent; 3. That the company shall have graded, bridged, and made ready to put down the necessary timbers, for the reception of rails, and fully completed a specified number of miles at either terminus in a good and substantial manner, with good material for putting the iron rails and equipments in place, and that the State shall be given a first-mortgage lien on their property; 4. That the Governor shall be notified of these facts by the written affidavits of the Chief Engineers and President of the Company, together with the written affidavit of a competent engineer appointed by the Governor to examine the specified section; and shall be furnished with an affidavit of the President of the Company, and a resolution of a majority of its Board of Directors for the time being, pledging that the bonds issued to it shall not be used for any other purpose than that of procuring the iron rails, chairs, spikes, and equipments, and for putting down the iron rails on the specified section for which they are issued; and that the President shall deposit in the office of the Secretary of State a full and accurate list of all the stockholders, with the sum subscribed by each and every stockholder.”