There was not an honest white person who lived in the state during Reconstruction, nor a man, woman, or child, descended from such a person, who did not then suffer or does not still suffer from the direct results of the carpet-bag financiering. Homes were sold or mortgaged; schools were closed, and children grew up in ignorance; the taxes for nearly twenty years were used to pay interest on the debt then piled up. Not until 1899 was there a one-mill school tax (until then the interest paid on the Reconstruction debt was larger than the school fund), and not until 1891 was the state able to care for the disabled Confederate soldiers. The debt has been slightly decreased by the retirement of state obligations, but the bonded debt remains the same. In 1902 it was $9,357,600, on which an annual interest of $448,680 was paid,[1637] about one-fourth of the total income of the state.
The corrupt financiering in itself was not, by any means, the worst part of Reconstruction. It was only a phase of the general misgovernment. Though the whites were conservative and economical during the period of the provisional government and did not spend money or pledge credit recklessly, yet when the carpet-baggers began to loot the treasury, the people were not at first alarmed. Many were in sympathy with any honest scheme to aid internal improvements. Their Confederate experience made them accustomed to the appropriations of large sums—in paper.
Though from the first there were several newspapers that denounced the financial measures of the reconstructionists and warned purchasers against buying the bonds issued under doubtful authority, still it was only the thinking men who understood from the beginning the danger of financial wreck. When the railroads became bankrupt, the people began to understand, and when the state failed two years later to meet its obligations, they had learned thoroughly the condition of affairs. Extraordinary taxation had helped to teach them.
CHAPTER XVIII
RAILROAD LEGISLATION AND FRAUDS
Federal and State Aid to Railroads before the War
For forty years before the Civil War there was a feeling on the part of many thoughtful citizens that the state should extend aid to any enterprise for connecting north and south Alabama. It was an issue in political campaigns; candidates inveighed against the political evils resulting from the unnatural union of the two sections. South Alabama was afraid that the northern section wanted connections with Charleston and the Atlantic seaboard, and not with Mobile and the Gulf; the planters of the Black Belt wanted the mineral region made accessible; the merchants of Mobile wanted all the trade from north Alabama; the Whig counties of south and central Alabama wanted closer connections with the white counties for the purpose of enlightening them and preventing the continual Democratic majorities against the Black Belt at elections.
At first it was proposed to build plank roads and turnpikes between the sections and thus bring about the desired unity. These failed, and then there was a demand for railroads. There were also other reasons for internal improvements. Not only ought the two antagonistic sections to be consolidated, but emigration to the West must be prevented, for thousands of the citizens of the state had gone to Texas during the two decades before the war. There was a general feeling that the state only needed railroads to make it immensely wealthy, and a large “western” element demanded that the state or the Federal government assist in thus developing the resources of the state and in uniting its people. During the session of 1855-1856, though the governor vetoed thirty-three bills passed in aid of railroads, still the legislature voted $500,000 to two roads.