The Democrats complained of the way the reconstructionists spent the contingent fund of the state. This abuse was never so bad as in other southern states at the time, but still there was continual stealing on a small scale. Some examples[1610] may be given: Governor Lewis spent $800 on a short visit to New York and Florida;[1611] the governor’s private secretary received $21,000 for services rendered in distributing the “political” bacon in 1874;[1612] the treasurer drew $1200 to pay his expenses to Mobile and New York, though he had no business to attend to in either place, and travelled on roads over which he had passes; ex-Governor W. H. Smith, when attorney for the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad, was paid $500 by the state for services rendered in connection with his own road, and the committee was unable to discover the nature of these services; the secretary of state charged $952 for signing his name to bonds, though it was his constitutional duty to do so without charge; a bill of stationery from Benedict of New York cost $7761.58, when the bid of Joel White of Montgomery on the same order was $4336.54; $50 was allowed to John A. Bingham (presumably a relative of the treasurer) for signing enough bonds to purchase a farm for the penitentiary. Such purchases as these were common: one refrigerator, $65; one looking-glass, $5; one clothes-brush, $1.50. Very few of the small accounts against the contingent fund were itemized. In no case were any of them accounted for by proper vouchers. The private secretary of the governor was in the habit of approving and allowing accounts against the contingent fund, even going so far as to approve the governor’s own accounts. The Investigating Committee said that the private secretary seemed to be the acting governor.[1613]
The Florida commissioners, J. L. Pennington, C. A. Miller, and A. J. Walker, who were appointed to negotiate for the cession to Alabama of West Florida, spent $10,500, of which Walker, the Democratic member, spent $516, and Miller and Pennington spent the remainder, “according to the best judgment and discretion” of themselves. They claimed that part of it was used to entertain the Florida commissioners, and part to influence the elections in West Florida.[1614]
The governor was accused of transferring appropriations. In one case, he drew out of the treasury $484,346.76, ostensibly to pay the interest on the public debt, and used it for other purposes. A committee appointed to investigate was able to trace all of it except $75,196.56, which sum could not be accounted for. The accounts were carelessly kept. The auditor, treasurer, and governor never seemed to know within a million or two of dollars what the public debt was. The reports for the period from 1868 to 1875 do not show the actual condition of the finances, and the Debt Commission in 1875 was unable to get accurate information from the state records, but had to advertise for information from the creditors and debtors of the state.[1615]
Effect on Property Values
The misrule of the Radicals in Alabama resulted in a general shrinkage in values after 1867, especially in the Black Belt, where financial and economic chaos reigned supreme, and where the carpet-bagger flourished supported by the negro votes. Recuperation was impossible until the rule of the alien was overthrown. This was done in some of the white counties in 1870. At that date land values were still 60 per cent below those of 1860, and the numbers of live stock 40 per cent below. This was due largely to the condition of the Black Belt counties under the control of the Radicals.[1616]
Thousands of landowners were unable to pay the taxes assessed, and their farms were sold by the state. The Independent Monitor, on March 8, 1870, advertised the sale of 1284 different lots of land (none less than forty acres) in Tuscaloosa County, and the next week 2548 more were advertised for sale, all to pay taxes. Often, it was complained, the tax assessor failed to notify the people to “give in” their taxes, and thus caused them trouble. In some cases, where costs and fines were added to the original taxes, it amounted to confiscation. In 1871, F. S. Lyon exhibited before the Ku Klux Committee a copy of the Southern Republican containing twenty-one and a half columns of advertised sales of land lying in the rich counties of Marengo, Greene, Perry, and Choctaw.[1617] One Radical declared that he wanted the taxes raised so high that the large landholders would be compelled to sell their lands, so that he, and others like him, could buy.[1618] Property sold for taxes could be redeemed only by paying double the amount of the taxes plus the costs. A tax sale deed was conclusive evidence of legal sale, and was not a subject for the decision of a court.[1619]
There were hundreds of mortgage sales in every county of the state during the Reconstruction period. At these sales everything from land to household furniture was sold. The court-house squares on sale days were favorite gathering places for the negroes, who came to look on, and a traveller, in 1874, states that in the immense crowds of negroes at the sales there were some who had come a distance of sixty miles.[1620] Each winter, from 1869 to 1875, there was an exodus of people to Texas and to South America, driven from their homes by mortgages, taxes, the condition of labor, and corrupt government. Landowners sold their lands for what they would bring and went to the West, where there were no negroes, no scalawags, and no carpet-baggers.[1621]
Most of the farmers and tenants of that period were unable to send their children to school and pay tuition. The reconstructed school system failed almost at the beginning. Consequently, tens of thousands of children grew up ignorant of schools, most of them the children of parents who had had some education. Hence the special provision for them in the constitution of 1901. The first Democratic legislature restricted taxation to three-fifths of one per cent and local taxation to one-half of one per cent. The rates were lowered gradually, until in the early nineties the rate was only two-fifths of one per cent. Since that time, the rate has again increased until in 1899 the state tax was again three-fourths of one per cent, the increase being used for Confederate pensions and for schools.
But in addition to the expenditure of the sums raised by extraordinary taxation, the Reconstruction administration greatly increased the bonded debt of the state and by mortgaging the future left a heavy burden upon the people that has as yet been but slightly lessened.