Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II, Part 6

Author: Goodspeed Brothers
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed
Number of Pages: 1314

USA > Mississippi > Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II > Part 6

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Char13Galloway 1

MEMOIRS OF MISSISSIPPI.

Allen's service closed in 1885, Mr. Barry's in 1889 and Mr. Morgan's in 1891. Mr. Catch- ings' service has extended to the present term, which closes in 1893. In 1886 Chapman L. Anderson and Thomas R. Stockdale's election occurred, the former's service closing in 1891, and that of the latter extending to the present term, which closes in 1893. Clark Lewis was elected in 1888, and was reelected to his present term.

The members elected to the first Confederate congress were seven in number: J. W. Clapp, Reuben Davis, Israel Welsh, H. C. Chambers, O. R. Singleton, Ethel Barksdale and John J. McRae.

The governors of the state have already been mentioned in a preceding chapter. It is most unfortunate that the records of the state and the library branch of it should have been so despoiled during the war, that a connected list of very many lines of detail are thus ren- dered impossible to historical writings, and often, where apparently possible, wholly unre- liable. It is only those who have attempted historical work under such circumstances that will appreciate its difficulties.

It may be of interest to note how Mississippi compares with other states as regards the salaries of her public servants, and to illustrate let one example be taken-that of the guber- natorial salary. The terms of governors in this country vary from one year, as in the case of Massachusetts, to four years, as in the case of about half the states of the Union, includ- ing Mississippi. The annual salaries also vary from $1,000, as in Rhode Island, Michigan, New Hampshire and Vermont, to the generous proportions of $10,000, as only the great and wealthy states of New York and Pennsylvania seem able to afford. Mississippi takes a stand midway and alongside of Massachusetts, Iowa, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Louisiana, Mary- land, North Carolina and Washington, paying $4,000 per annum to her governor.

It may show her relative public spirit, too, to compare her legal holidays with those of other states, omitting Sundays and labor day, the latter a recent institution. Of fourteen such days recognized in all or parts of this country are: New year's day, January 1; anniversary of the battle of New Orleans, January 8; Washington's birthday, February 22; anniversary of Texan independence, March 2; fireman's anniversary of New Orleans, March 4; mardi-gras; anniversary of the battle of San Jacinto (Texas), April 21; Good Friday; memorial day, April 26 in Georgia; decoration day, May 30 in most Northern states; July 4; independence day; general election day; thanksgiving day and Christmas day; of which Mississippi makes legal holiday new year's day, independence day, thanksgiving and Christmas.

This state's position politically among her sister states has always been a prominent one. It has rarely been that, like Indiana or New York, the term "doubtful " could be applied to her. As a general chapter on politics elsewhere in these volumes deals with this subject, only presidential majorities will be given here, and that only since 1824. In 1821 the state joined the era of good feeling and voted for Monroe and Tompkins, but in 1824 she turned out a democratic majority of one thousand four hundred and twenty-one for her idol, in whose honor, only a short time before, she had named her capital city-Jackson. In the next cam- paign she increased her democratic majority to five thousand one hundred and eighty-two for him, when the ticket was Jackson and Calhoun in 1828, while in 1832, with still increasing ardor for the doughty old general who whipped Indians, the money-king Biddle, the Brit- ish and most other enemies he attacked, Mississippi gave Jackson and Van Buren a demo- cratic majority of five thousand nine hundred and nineteen. In the thirties, however, they fell upon days of financial. disturbance and whig predominance, and in 1836 the democrats began to waver and the whigs to rejoice. These were the days of the great whig, Daniel C

BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL

Webster, and the popular old Hoosier, Gen. William Henry Harrison, and the big democratic majority of 1832 was, in 1836, cut down to the narrow margin of two hundred and ninety-one majority for Van Buren and Johnson. The financial troubles of the great panic of 1837 caused great popular dissatisfaction all over the Union, as such times always do, and the whigs grew and waxed strong all over the broad land, and with especial strides in Mississippi under the influence of the famous "hard cider" campaign, when, in 1840, they did what has rarely been done in the entire career of the state of Mississippi-broke her democratic major- ity and gave the whig candidates, Harrison and Tyler, two thousand five hundred and twenty-three majority. This was destined to be but an incident, however, for the revival of financial confidence and the ominous mutterings of the fifteen or sixteen years' distant civil war led Mississippi to spring back with a bound, as if to her normal condition, with a demo- cratic majority in 1844 almost exactly to a figure the same as that of 1832 (five thousand nine hundred and nineteen), this of 1844 being five thousand nine hundred and twenty for Polk and Dallas. These were the years of the great compromises and compromisers, and the whigs made another stupendous effort in 1848 with the great hero of the Mexican war, Gen- eral Taylor, and Mississippi, whose soldiers did such noble service under their old commander of Buena Vista, as if to do him honor, dropped their democratic majority of five thousand nine hundred and twenty to only six hundred and fifteen majority for the democratic candi- dates, Cass and Butler. The campaigns of the fifties witnessed the increasing welding pow- ers of the slavery agitation which swept Mississippi votes more and more into democratic lines. Of course these figures must be considered in connection with the fact of increased population-an increase in this style in round thousands by decades beginning with the year 1800: seven thousand, thirty-one thousand, seventy-five thousand, one hundred and thirty-six thousand, three hundred and seventy-five thousand, six hundred and six thousand, and seven hundred and ninety-one thousand in 1860. This shows almost doubling by decades, so the majorities must be interpreted by this fact. The first campaign of the fifties, that is in 1852, rose again to democratic majorities, state and national, Pierce and King receiving Missis- sippi's majority of nine thousand three hundred and twenty-eight, the largest so far ever given. In 1856 the increase is still greater, giving to Buchanan and Breckinridge a majority of eleven thousand two hundred and fifty-one. The heat of the campaign of 1860 raised the political thermometer still higher, and a majority of twelve thonsand four hundred and sev- enty-four was given for Breckinridge and Lane, whose entire vote was only eight hundred and forty-five thousand seven hundred and sixty-three, the great mass of the democratic party of the country having gone for Stephen A. Douglas, with one million three hundred and sey- enty-five thousand one hundred and fifty-seven, while the republican candidate, Lincoln, went in with one million eight hundred and thirty-eight thousand one hundred and sixty-nine. The actual vote of this state was forty thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven for Breck- inridge; twenty-five thousand and forty for Bell, and two thousand two hundred and eighty- three for Douglas. This was when the free population was three hundred and fifty-three thousand nine hundred and one, and the slaves four hundred and thirty-six thousand six hun- dred and thirty-one, this state and Sonth Carolina being the only states having an excess of slave population over free.

This condition led to Mississippi's attempted withdrawal from the Union by unanimous vote, and the campaign of 1864 found her, with ten other states, practically defeated, and with no political status in the Union. Even the campaign of 1868 found her outside the pale when all the other of the eleven states were readmitted except herself, Texas and Virginia. Meanwhile preparations were making that provided an influx into her legal vote of the great

MEMOIRS OF MISSISSIPPI.

mass of her slaves of a few years before. In 1860 the votes were drawn from a white popu- lation of three hundred and fifty-three thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine, whose slave population was nearly a hundred thousand greater-four hundred and thirty-seven thousand four hundred and four-and the voters from these were all republicans. In 1870 both were increased, but bore somewhat similar proportions-that is, three hundred and eighty- two thousand eight hundred and ninety-six white to four hundred and forty-four thousand two hundred and one colored. Of course in the campaign of 1872, although for once only, the republican majority, which means practically the colored majority, was thirty-four thou- sand eight hundred and eighty seven for Grant and Wilson. The great revolution of 1876, for white supremacy, however, threw the state into the democratic ranks as of yore, with fifty-nine thousand five hundred and sixty-eight majority for Tilden and Hendricks, and she has continued democratic and under white control ever since, with immaterial variation. In the campaign of 1880 the majority for Hancock and English was thirty-five thousand and ninety-nine; the plurality for Cleveland and Hendricks, in 1884, was thirty-three thousand and one; and Cleveland and Thurman's majority, in 1888, was fifty-five thousand three hun- dred and seventy-five. The relative population of 1890 was five hundred and thirty-nine thousand seven hundred and three whites and seven hundred and forty-seven thousand seven hundred and twenty colored, the latter, however, representing a great mass of ignorant votes, which the new constitution makes less of a menace to intelligent government, by providing both an educational and property qualificatiou, somewhat as Rhode Island and Delaware Iras long had.

The war has left many other scars and monuments in the state besides in its politics. As monuments to the fearfulness of the struggle are the all too-full cemeteries of the dead of both sides; the Confederate dead in multitudes of cemeteries throughout the state, and the Federal dead in three of the seventy-nine national cemeteries scattered throughout the Union, all but twelve of which are in the South. These three are at Vicksburg, Natchez and Corinth; that at Vicksburg containing sixteen thousand six hundred, of whom twelve thousand and thirty-two are unknown. These cemeteries are increasing somewhat in the number of their dead, especially on account of the deaths of colored men, of whom seventeen thousand eight hundred and sixty nine out of Mississippi served in the Federal army.

One of the greatest interests of the state, however, is its financial basis and its methods in dealing with the subject. It seems strange to the present generation that the state which now receives and disburses over $1,000,000 annually for current expenses should have at one time been the property of an individual in private life, but such it was, although it scarcely amounted to more than a technicality. In 1630 it was part of a grant made by the king of Great Britain to Sir Robert Heath, and was transferred seven years later by Heath to Lord Maltravers. It afterward became the property of plain Dr. Daniel Coxe of the province of New Jersey. Now, however, a man is one of wealth if he but own a small share of this great state. Even in 1811, six years before the period of statehood began, the taxes col- lected for that year were $31,845.46, and economy was so well before the minds of territorial managers of the state's finances that the expenditures for that year were but little over half this amount, or $17,911.43, leaving a balance of $9,690.38. These were not the days of great state institutions, however. In 1817, the year statehood began, and but two years after the exhausting wars of the earlier half of that decade, the receipts reached a few thou- sand more-$45,836.66, while a balance of nearly the same proportions as above was still kept-namely, $8,269.92, after the disbursement of $37,506.74 for current expenditures. About eight years after this the receipts rose considerably above this to the sum of $77,925.00,

BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL

but the expenditures rose only to $41,475. This was the year 1825, and in all these con- siderations of finance the remarkable increase of population, nearly or quite doubling by decades, must be taken into account. About a dozen years later, in 1838, the receipts of the treasury were the round sum of $157,198.41, and these were the days of the great panic and the bank explosions that play so large a part in Mississippi's financial history.

Let us see what state banking facilities there were in 1836. First there was that stu- pendous concern, the Planters' bank of Natchez, whose capital reached the, for those days, fabulous sum of $4,000,000. It was what would now be counted a syndicate of banks, however, for it had branches at Manchester, Vicksburg, Port Gibson, Woodville, Monticello, Jackson and Columbus. Its president was James C. Wilkins. Then there was another company with a like capital of $4,000,000, one of those numerous companies that arose during the years when railroad building was in the raw exuberance of an overgrown boyhood. This was the Mis- sissippi & Alabama Railroad & Banking Company of Brandon, which also had a branch at Paulding. There were several institutions of a capitalized power of $2,000,000, and these were the Agricultural bank of Natchez, with a branch at Pontotoc; its president was Mr. A. Fisk; the Commercial bank of Natchez, president, L. R. Marshall; the Grand Gulf Railroad & Banking Company, president, Joseph Johnson, with a branch at Gallatin; the Commer- cial & Railroad bank of Vicksburg, president, J. M. Taylor, with its branch at Vernon, and the Commercial bank of Manchester. Those of $1,000,000 capital were the West Feliciana Railroad & Banking Company of Woodville, president, Joseph Johnson; the Commercial bank of Rodney, president, Thomas Freeland, and the Aberdeen and Pontotoc Railroad & Banking Company; one other was the Princeton & Deer Creek Railroad & Banking Com- pany, president, Z. K. Fulton, and capital $600,000. This was in 1836, but in 1840, only four years later, there were twenty banks in the state with aggregated resources of $28,989,- 090.62, while the total capital incorporated for these purposes, between 1832 and 1838 reached the princely proportions of $53,750,000. This might indicate wealth in abundance through- out this great state, but in reality it was the most rank inflation and insolvency. The only railroad that resulted from it was a few paltry miles at Natchez, and scarcely fifty miles of the Vicksburg & Brandon route. Speculation ran riot, and it is said that the wild revelry of it was stimulated by a class of speculative adventurers who afterward left the state. These banks dealt in real estate too, dealt in bonds, exchange and bills of credit, made loans and issued their own notes for circulation The crash that began in 1836 seemed to make it all the more reckless, and men seemed to lose their heads and grasp at straws in their despair, and in 1837 the hue and cry led to another great bank of a capital of $1,500,000, and this was the famous ill-fated Union bank of Mississippi, which led to the greatest stain upon the escutch- eon of this state, in the eyes of the world at large, that ever soiled it. The people of the state themselves were divided on the question for many years.

A glance at the banking career of the state will explain this: Organized in territorial days the Bank of Mississippi was enlarged in 1818 with its location at Natchez, the metropolis of the state. The greatly increasing need of the growing young state for banking facilities led to the incorporation of the Planters' bank of the state of Mississippi on April 10, 1830, with $3,000,000 capital. The state was to take two-thirds of the capital stock and issue bonds on the market for it, the rest to be taken by individuals. The faith of the state was pledged to secure all losses either from principal or interest, and each and every stock- holder was made individually liable to make good all losses of any character. The bonds were to be sold by the governor for specie only, and almost every section emphasized the pledging of the faith of the state to recoup all possible losses. The state was to choose seven

MEMOIRS OF MISSISSIPPI.

of the thirteen members of the directory. The bonds were sold in 1830 to the amount of $500,000, and in 1833 the remaining $1,500,000 as the law directed, and the prosperity of the bank was unquestioned until the crash of 1837 throughout the union. Its bonds had " sold at a premium of thirteen and one-fourth per cent," says a writer in De Bow's Review in 1853, "so that after paying the bank two millions the state had left a net of $250,000 which was placed in the bank as a sinking fund, to which was to be added the dividends, and from which the interest was to be paid. As the dividend averaged ten per cent. for years the interest was kept up to September 1, 1839, when the state stock was transferred to the Natchez Railroad Company. At this time the balance sinking fund was about $800,000. This belonged to the state, but a large part of it was lost in the crash of 1836-9. A commission held the remainder, about $60,000 in 1854-what next? By calculation, on paying $250,000 annually it would take twenty-two years to liquidate-about 1876." The result was, however, that in 1854 the debt of this bank was $3,518,080, as far as the state was concerned.

The new constitution of 1832, however, put the following limit on the state's financial action: "No law shall ever be passed to raise a loan of money upon the credit of the state, or to pledge the faith of the state for the payment or redemption of any loan or debt, unless such law be proposed in the senate or house of representatives, and be agreed to by a majority of the members of each house, and entered on their journals with the yeas and nays taken thereon, and be referred to the next succeeding legislature, and published for three months previous to the next regular election, in three newspapers of this state; and unless a majority of each branch of the legislature so elected, after such publication, shall agree to and pass such law, and in such case the yeas and nays shall be taken, and entered on the journals of each house; provided, that nothing in this section shall be so construed as to prevent the legislature from negotiating a further loan of one and a half million of dollars, and vesting the same in stock reserved to the state, by the charter of the Planters' bank of the state of Mississippi."

This was the condition of affairs on January 21, 1837, when the governor approved the Union Bank act "so far as the action of this legislature is recognized." This act provided that only citizen real estate owners of Mississippi could become stockholders, with privilege of transfer to other Mississippi real estate owners only after five years, with the especial stipulation that well-secured mortgages should be given even in that case. The faith of the state was pledged to secure both the capital and interest, and that she should issue seven thousand five hundred bonds of $2,000 each, eighteen hundred and seventy-five payable in twelve years, eighteen hundred and seventy-five in fifteen years, the same amount in eighteen years, and the same again in twenty years, bearing interest at five per cent. These were transfer- able to anyone by the governor, and special provision was made for payment of both capital and interest when due. A most elaborate security was hedged around the subscription to stock so that the certainty of its payment seemed absolute, even from that source. Of the thirteen directors, five were to be chosen by the legislature, and three commissioners were to be elected to see to the thoroughly solid condition of would-be subscribers.

All the forms of law having been carried out, in 1838 the legislature repassed it as the limitation provided, and Gov. Alexander G. McNutt, who afterward loved to be called "the great repudiator," approved it on February 5, (1838). Ten days later (15) a supplementary act was approved to clinch the bargain all the more firmly, so that, while these bonds were made as a loan to the bank the state was to take fifty thousand shares of the bank's stock and pay for it out of the proceeds of the bond sales, and the profits of it were to go to the state funds for internal improvement and educational purposes. Its most marked provision, however, was that in the sales of bonds no sale was to be made under their par value,

BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL

The bonds, to the amount of $5,000,000, were put by the bank into the hands of the following gentlemen to negotiate sale: James C. Wilkins, of Natchez; W. M. Pinckard, of Vicksburg; and E. C. Wilkinson, of Yazoo city, who succeeded in disposing of them by August 18 to Nicholas Biddle, president of the United States bank of Pennsylvania, pay- ments being made in $1,000,000 amounts on November 1, 1838, and January 1, March 1, May 1, and July 1, 1839. About $2,000,000 of these bonds were afterward resold by Mr. Biddle, through the agency of the United States bank in Europe, and the remainder, with other state stocks, plated as security for money borrowed in England, France and Holland. "To the thinking, cool, clear-headed people, and there were many such at that day," says a recent writer, " the Union bank was foredoomed to a disastrous and ignominious failure. The entire banking system of that period was radically defective, but the theory upon which the Union bank was founded, that of 'relieving' people who were hopelessly insolvent, was a grotesque absurdity. The system of loans on mortgages of real and personal property, prescribed in the act of incorporation, for twelve months, renewable for eight years upon the payment of the interest and one-eighth of the principal, at the end of every twelve months, would have wrecked the Bank of England. The payment of the bonds as they fell due, and the interest thereon, which the bank was required to pay from the funds in its vaults, was a sheer impossibility. By the terms of the charter, the fifteen and a half millions of bonds, to be delivered to the bank, were made payable in four installments. The first installment was made payable in twelve, the second in fifteen, the third in eighteen, and the fourth in twenty years. In other words, the legislators of that period were insane enough to pledge the faith of the state for the payment of the enormous amount of fifteen and a half millions of dollars in the brief space of twenty years, together with the annually accruing interest, which amounted yearly to more than three-quarters of a million of dollars. And all this was to be the result of the profits of the Union bank in the course of two decades. Nothing can better expose the blind fatuity of the legislators of that day, or the mad, reckless temerity of the so-called financiers of the times."*

Gov. Alexander G. McNutt had somewhat of the temper of the great enemy of the United States bank, Andrew Jackson, and in his annual message of January 7, 1840, he sounded the alarm for a general onslaught on the banks of the state-Union, Planters' and all. He says: "I am induced to believe that a large portion of the property accepted as security for that stock is incumbered by judgments, mortgages and deeds of trust; that the valuations of the appraisers were generally very extravagant; that, in many instances, the titles to the property offered are yet imperfect, and that the whole management of the affairs of the bank has been disastrous to its credit, destructive to the interests of the state and ruinous to the institution. The cotton advanced upon by the bank, in some instances, has been attached and the suits decided against the institution. Many of the cotton agents and con- signees are defaulters, and great loss on the cotton account is inevitable. The post notes, issued in violation of law, have greatly depreciated, and if the decisions of several of our circuit judges are affirmed by the high court of errors and appeals, actions can not be main- tained on a large portion of the bills receivable of the bank. I signed and delivered to the managers last summer bonds to the amount of $5,000,000. The president of the bank was dispatched eastward to make a sale, but was unable to effect it. On the 18th of November, 1839, I received a letter from the cashier of the bank, together with two resolu- tions of the directors, one of which informed me that the remaining five million and a half of bonds were ready for my signature. Believing that there was no immediate prospect of sale

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Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II, Part 6

Author: Goodspeed Brothers Publication date: 1891 Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed Number of Pages: 1314

Author: Goodspeed Brothers
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed
Number of Pages: 1314