USA > Mississippi > Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II > Part 22
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McLaurin's Administration (1896-1900). Governor A. J. Mc- Laurin was inaugurated January 21, 1896. The State officers elected in 1895 were J. H. Jones, lieutenant-governor ; J. L. Power, secretary of State; W. D. Holder, auditor ; A. Q. May, treasurer ; A. A. Kincannon, superintendent of public education; E. W. Brown, clerk of the supreme court; Wiley N. Nash, attorney- general; John M. Simonton, land commissioner ; J. J. Evans, M. M. Evans, J. D. McInnis, railroad commissioners; Wirt Adams, State revenue agent.
In his inaugural address Governor McLaurin discussed the struggle of people in all times to be free from social oppression and usurpations, as manifested in revolt against tyranny and spe- cial privilege. If there were a live interest in government and law by every citizen, he said, "We need not give ourselves con- cern about the growth of our wealth or the prospect of our pros- perity. We need not give ourselves alarm about the building of railroads and factories or the developing of the slumbering re- sources of the State. Among the acts of the legislature was a bill exempting from taxation for ten years all permanent factories and plants of the sort named therein, that should be established before January 1, 1906. The sale of bonds for $400,000 and a State tax levy of 6 mills was considered sufficient provision for the financial situation of the treasury, which was practically without funds and carrying a temporary loan of $150,000. But in the last six months of the same year, the treasury had no funds to pay warrants. The governor called a meeting of the State officers and presiding officers of the legislature, and was advised to call a special session of the legislature. He felt that he had no authority to borrow money. When the legislature met in January, 1897, he made an able statement of the financial condition, showing that the re- ceipts of the fiscal year, 1895-96 had been $1,777,586, including the proceeds of the bonds, and the current expenditures had been $1,759,759. He added: "The people of the State of Mississippi
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have the property, real and personal, upon which to base credit, and there is no good reason why the credit of the State should not be as good as that of the United States." He recommended an ad valorem tax sufficient to defray the general expenses of the State government, and a special fund for the common schools, composed of the ad valorem tax and the privilege taxes, the entire school appropriation to be distributed in January, to stop the system of deficit in school resources. The legislature authorized the governor to obtain a temporary loan of $200,000, raised the State tax levy half a mill, and became involved with the governor in a dispute regarding the plans for building a new capitol, that resulted in his veto of the bill adopted. (See Capitol, New.)
In 1897 the revenue agent began suit against the Illinois Cen- tral, and Yazoo & Mississippi valley railroad companies for back taxes of about $750,000 which the companies claimed exemption from by their charters. In discussing the subject in his message of 1898 Governor McLaurin advised the repeal of such exemptions. "I would not have the State break faith with any one with whom it deals, whether the most opulent railroad company or the hum- blest and poorest individual. It cannot break faith with any one and preserve its honor untarnished. While this is so, it is true that it is the duty of the State-just as sacred-to see that the rich and powerful bear their lawful and just share of the expenses of the government, and that they be not permitted to shift the burden of their taxes on to the poor and weak." The repeal was made and sustained by the supreme courts of the State and United States. In 1897 the penitentiary convicts were employed for a time on the Mississippi levees, in danger from high water. There was a falling off in the price of cotton in 1897 that reduced the returns of agriculture about $15,000,000. The condition of the treasury was much improved in the years 1898-99, and the administration closed with a large balance in the treasury. (See Finances.)
In 1897, 1898 and 1899 the State was again visited by yellow fever epidemics, and business was checked by the quarantine reg- ulations, but a recurrence of the disastrous days of 1878 was pre- vented. During this administration both Senators George and Walthall died while in office. Mississippi sent to the Spanish- American war in 1898 two ,regiments, a battalion, and part of the 5th Immune infantry regiment. (See Spanish War.) The Demo- cratic convention in 1899 nominated a ticket headed by A. H. Longino for governor and the Peoples party nominated a ticket headed by Dr. R. K. Prewitt. The Republican party made no nominations. The vote was, Longino, 42,273; Prewitt, 6,007. An amendment to the constitution, making the judges of all the courts elective, was voted upon at this election, but, as subse- quently decided by the supreme court, did not receive a consti- tutional majority. (See Judiciary.)
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McLeod, a post-hamlet of Noxubee county, 8 miles east of Macon, the county seat, and the nearest railroad and banking town. Pop- ulation in 1900, 20.
McMurran, John T., an eminent lawyer, was a native of Penn- sylvania, who read law with his uncle, Judge Thompson, of Chilli- cothe, Ohio, and came to Natchez with a letter of introduction to John A. Quitman, about 1828. After the death of W. B. Griffith be became the law partner of Gen. Quitman, and surpassed the latter in professional ability. Mr. McMurran married a daughter of Chief Justice Turner. He never embarked in politics.
McNair, a post-village in the southern part of Jefferson county, on the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley R. R., 4 miles south of Fayette, the county seat and nearest banking town. This is one of the oldest settled sections of the State, and was known in the early history of the county as the Scotch settlement, where Gaelic was long the prevailing language. Population in 1900, 250.
McNeill, a post-hamlet in the southern part of Pearl River county, 12 miles south of Poplarville, the county seat and nearest banking town. It is a station on the New Orleans & North Eastern R. R., and has a money order postoffice and an express office. A branch of the A. & M. College Experiment Station is located here. The population in 1906 was estimated at 250.
McNutt. This old town was the first county seat of Sunflower county when that county was created in 1844. It took its name from the little lake on which it is located, and the lake is said to have been named in honor of Governor Alexander G. McNutt. The first public building in the town was a rude log courthouse and jail. Afterwards a frame building was erected to take its place, and in 1858, a fine brick courthouse was built. The act which created the county of Leflore out of part of Sunflower county in 1871, directed that the county records, together with the buildings and grounds at McNutt, now in Leflore county, should become the property of the new county of Leflore. Greenwood, 12 miles to the southeast, became the county seat of Leflore and the county build- ings at McNutt were sold and became private property. The brick court house was used successively as a school building, a Masonic hall, and a Methodist church and parsonage. In the year 1901, it passed into the possession of Mr. C. M. Dixon. The old cemetery, two churches, and a few other buildings still survive to mark the site of the old town, and it is still a postoffice. Its population in 1900 was 62.
The pioneers of the town were Randall Bluett, Thomas Randle, Eli Ethridge, Hezekiah McNabb and Ben Jones, planters. A few years later, the following men became residents of McNutt: Daniel Pond, T. G. Ellesberry, J. W. Gleason, farmers; D. A. Outlaw, H. S. Smith, - Lightfoot, lawyers; Drs. Rutledge and Lovelady, physicians. (See Dr. F. L. Riley's Extinct Towns and Villages).
McNutt, Alexander G., governor of Mississippi, 1838-42, was born in Rockbridge county, Va., in 1801; was graduated at old Washington college; moved to Mississippi in 1824, and settled
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with the intention to practice law at the town of Jackson, just founded, but soon changed his residence to the equally young and more promising village of Vicksburg. In this early period he was slovenly in habit and addicted to the common vice of intemperance in such a degree that only his genuine force of mind sustained him in popular esteem. Henry S. Foote, an enemy, writes that he made his acquaintance in 1831, and learned that he had little suc- cess as a lawyer, but had made considerable money as collector of accounts for the wealthy retired merchant, Mr. Huff.
With this start he became a partner as a planter with Joel S. Cameron, whose murder, by his slaves, was a great sensation about 1833. This fatality was followed in seven months by the marriage of McNutt to his partner's widow. She was Elizabeth Lewis, a native of Mississippi, and a lady of notable beauty. Foote says that in 1831 McNutt, while attending court at Natchez, was slapped in the face, in the course of argument, by Joseph Smith, and, in confusion of mind, let it pass without retaliation. This was a fatal error, according to the social code of that time, but this seems to have made no difference with McNutt. He was elected to the state senate in 1835, pledged to support Poindexter for the United States senate. At the session of 1837 he was elected president. In the legislature he took an extreme part against the banks and by reason of this secured a nomination for governor in 1837 by the ultra opponents of the bank privileges. McNutt was said by his opponents to be a Bentonian, an agrarian, a demo- gogue, "the Humbug candidate," and accused of sympathy with the sentiment, "Down with the banks; Give us gold." Foote en- tered the campaign against him, and indulged in some bitter per- sonalities. There were two Democratic and two Whig candidates in the field; but one of the Democratic candidates died during the canvass, and McNutt was elected. In 1839 he was reelected. A year or two after the close of his term he made a canvass of the State as a candidate for the United States senate, making about a hundred speeches, of considerable length, followed in each in- stance by Henry S. Foote, who was his nemesis in behalf of the banks. The result was that though he obtained 20 votes in the legislature for senator, a larger number were divided between Foote, Quitman, Thompson and Brown, and finally Foote was elected. Mr. McNutt then returned to private life. He was can- vassing the State as a candidate for presidential elector in 1848, when he died, after an illness of a few days, at Cockrum's Cross- roads, De Soto county, October 22. The striking feature of his career is his great fight against the corruption, which permeated the entire fabric of Mississippi banking institutions. He was charged with causing the failure of the banks by his attacks upon them; but it is evident that his exposure of their rottenness was proper and their collapse was inevitable.
His efforts at reform were not confined to banks and public of- ficials. In 1839 he advised the legislature: "A tax fee of one hundred dollars for each conviction would soon drive the faro
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dealers from the purlieus of the capitol and from the towns and villages which they have been so long robbing." Reuben Davis says (Recollections, p. 84), "In some respects he was the most remarkable man I ever knew. It was not because he could debate with great force and speak with captivating oratory. Many of his contemporaries could compete with him on the rostrum, al- though he was admitted to be one of the best speakers of a time singularly fertile in such talent. Two qualities marked him out as an individual type entirely distinct from the class of speakers and thinkers to which he belonged. The first was a matchless ingenuity in spinning a web of sophistry, more consistent, more plausible, and more like truth than the honest truth itself. He could take any question, and so change and mould and adorn it that the most subtle intellect should fail to detect the falsehood." He also had a remarkable power of ignoring the "code of honor" without suffering in the esteem of his fellows. "He was regarded as embodied intellect, with no animalism to make him combative." The last words may be misleading. He was physically a huge bulk of a man, not particularly refined. He was a hammer, not a rapier.
It may, perhaps, precisely illustrate Davis' thought to quote the declaration of repudiation from Governor McNutt's last message, as follows: "I have deemed it my duty to advise the bond-holders that this State never will pay the $5,000,000 in State bonds deliv- ered to the Mississippi Union bank, or any part of the interest due or to become due thereon. An appeal has been made to the sovereign people of the State, on this question; and their verdict, from which no appeal can be taken, has triumphantly sustained the principles for which I have long contended. No power can compel them to pay a demand which they know to be unjust. This result has gloriously sustained the sacred truth, that the toiling millions never should be burthened with taxes to support the idle few. Our constituents have wisely resolved that the highest obligations of honor, faith and justice, demand of us a strict adherence to the constitution and that the laws of the land cannot be set at defiance. Whenever a different principle shall prevail, and the doctrine be firmly established, that any agent or corporation can, in violation of law, burthen unborn generations with onerous debts-freedom will no longer exist, and our star will be blotted forever from the constellation of republican States." He advised a thorough investigation. "The facts will prove that Mississippi stands fully justified in the stand she has taken, and that her faith, justice, honor, dignity and glory remain untarnished."
To these words the governor immediately added that $5,000,000 more of the same kind of bonds, executed by him in the fall of 1839 and delivered to the bank to sell, had not been disposed of, "fortunately." These also, if they had been sold, he would have repudiated with the same amazing self-righteousness, entirely oblivious of the fact that when he signed the bonds he abnegated
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all his "principles" and made himself a partner in guilt with the New York and Amsterdam bond "sharks." He and the legisla- ture manufactured the goods, the bankers and sharks sold them, and the victims among the common people bought them. His act of repudiation protected the bankers and sharks, ruined thou- sands who were innocent of anything but speculation, and im- paired the credit of the State for many years.
Yet, despite his faults, it must be remembered that McNutt was the great enemy of the "grafters" of his day in Mississippi. Furthermore, perhaps an obituary notice of 1848 did not err in saying that in later life the errors of his early manhood were cast off, and no man in the State was more respected and beloved.
McNutt's Administration. Alexander G. McNutt was inaugu- rated January 8, 1838. He was elected as an opponent of the dan- gerous privileges of the banks. As president of the senate in 1837 he had signed the bill creating the Union bank, with a capital of $15,500,000 in mortgages on land, buildings and slaves, and now as governor in February, 1838, he signed the bill on its second passage, and a supplementary bill, by which the State subscribed for 500,000 shares in the bank, to be paid for out of the profits to accrue to the State under the original bill. This bill madc the State a partner in the scheme, as well as surety. "Union banks," which had the peculiarity of slave as well as land security, were also established in other States, but the Mississippi venture was the most ambitious and notorious one of all. The bill, as it passed two sessions of the legislature, provided for raising the money by selling bonds, and the faith of the State was pledged for their pay- ment, principal and interest. The bill was passed twice, as re- quired by the constitution to be done, in any case where the faith of the State was to be pledged for such purposes.
In his message of January, 1839, the governor said the season had been bad for cotton, but "We have been blessed by the giver of all good with an abundant harvest of grain and the enjoyment of better health than usual. Penury is unknown in the land-the elements of our wealth remain-unwise legislation has brought upon us a great calamity. For about two years the planter and merchant have alike suffered. Every indication warrants us in expecting better times-confidence is nearly restored. Most of our banks have resumed specie payments, and the residue will be compelled to follow their example or close their business. The price of cotton has advanced fully fifty per cent, and the crop of last year will, no doubt, sell for as much as that of 1837. A sound currency will greatly diminish the cost of its production. Our amended constitution has been in operation about six years. More liberal in its provisions than those of our sister states, it leaves to the people the periodical election of all their officers, and has realized the expectations of its framers. No code of laws has yet been enacted to carry out its provisions and many of its injunctions have been disregarded."
Property qualifications for suffrage and office having been re-
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pudiated, common schools were necessary, and the resources of the State were ample to maintain them. The seminary fund amounted to $314,000, exclusive of interest and a half section of land. This arose from the donation of 36 sections. The money was at loan and generally well secured, but many of the notes were long under protest.
Of the late auditor, John H. Mallory, the governor said, "It appears that he is a defaulter to the amount of $54,079, nearly all on. account of town lots and the Three per cent, seminary and sinking funds. Great looseness appears to have prevailed in both the auditor's and treasurer's office during the years 1836 and 1837."
The treasurer, James Phillips, had been authorized to receive the distribution of surplus from the United States treasury. "No authority was given him to receive of the government of the United States anything but gold and silver, or the notes of specie paying banks, yet, in defiance of law, he received payment of the treasury drafts in such depreciated paper as the Agricultural bank chose to give him. About $200,000 of this was deposited in the Planters' bank at Jackson, and that branch has, ever since the suspension, refused to pay out anything to the public cred- itors except Brandon money." "It is deserving of your serious consideration whether the embezzlement of the public money should not be made felony, and punishable by imprisonment in the State prison."
J. A. VanHoesen was appointed in September, 1838, to suc- ceed Phillips, deceased, as treasurer. Twenty thousand dollars was held out by the representatives of Phillips for some time, and then paid in uncurrent money, and VanHoesen reported that he could not ascertain the true situation of the late treasurer's books. The secretary of state, 1838-39, was David Dickson; auditor, A. B. Saunders, 1837-42. T. F. Collins was attorney-general, 1837-41. Gen. Silas Brown, who went into office as treasurer in January, 1839, died in June.
The treasury receipts of 1838 were $196,920; expenditures, $350,644. The treasurer's report showed $140,000 in the treasury, but the receipts of the treasury at this time were nearly all in bank notes that no one else would take, the legislature having made them all equally good in payment of taxes.
In his statement of the public debt Governor McNutt included $382,335, deposited by the general government and liable at any time to be withdrawn ; also $2,000,000 in bonds sold to take stock to that amount in the Planters' bank, and $5,000,000 sold to take stock to that amount in the Mississippi Union bank, "amounting in all to the sum of $7,382,335, and the annual interest on that sum, most of it payable in Europe, amounts to the sum of $370,- 000. To preserve the honor of the State unsullied, and her credit unimpaired, it is of the last importance that the interest should be punctually paid, at the places designated, and ample funds pro- vided for the redemption of the principal-it is usually much
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easier to borrow and spend money than to provide for the means of payment."
In face of all warnings the legislature passed a bill for still greater privileges to the Union bank, extending the pledge to $15,000,000, and permitting post notes at will. Gov. McNutt vetoed it, saying that if he approved he would feel "guilty of signing the death warrant of the credit of the state, and of the Mississippi Union bank." The bill failed to command quite two- thirds of the senate and so it was killed by the veto.
Adam L. Bingaman, president of the senate, upon adjournment, in his farewell address, said party spirit had steps of descent from principles to measures and thence to blind devotion to men. But there was a still lower deep, "when principles, measures and men are all sacrified to mammon ; and lucre and corruption become the adamantine chains which connect together in indissoluble bonds the degraded victims of party spirit." Such had been the history of all republics, "May the God of nations procrastinate, if he will not avert, the fatal day when it shall become the history of our own.'
The political campaign of 1839 was a memorable one. S. S. Prentiss canvassed the State as the Whig candidate for United States senator, to succeed Robert J. Walker.
The Whig, (Henry Clay) ticket, was A. L. Bingaman and Reu- ben Davis for congress, Edward Turner for governor, Dudley S. Jennings for secretary of state, Gideon Fitz, for treasurer, and John Cruso for Auditor.
The Democratic (VanBuren) ticket, was elected : Albert G. Brown and Jacob Thompson for congress; A. G. McNutt for gov- ernor, Thomas B. Woodward, secretary of state; Thomas Craig, treasurer ; A. B. Saunders, auditor.
Joseph G. Williams succeeded Craig in the office of treasurer, and it was said at his death at Jackson, February 25, 1841, that he was the fourth treasurer to die in two years. Joshua S. Curtis held this office during the remainder of McNutt's administration.
The vote for governor was McNutt, 18,900; Turner, 15,886. The legislature was overwhelmingly Democratic, assuring the defeat of Prentiss.
Gov. McNutt welcomed the legislature of 1840 in January as fresh from the people. "We all come here pledged to aid in re- forming abuses which can be tolerated no longer." The senate on the 44th ballot elected George B. Augustus president, and Jesse Speight was chosen speaker of the house.
The governor construed the election of 1839 as a condemnation of the post note policy of the banks, against which he directed most of his sturdy phillipics. He advised repeal of the bank char- ters. "Our annual export of fifteen millions of dollars will com- mand a sound currency. Money will then become a standard of value, and not used as an article of traffic. The expense of pro- ducing cotton will be reduced at least fifty per cent. A sound currency will soon restore the character of the State.
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Those who produce nothing, who have long lived on the labor of others, will suffer. The honest planter, the enterprising merchant and the laborious mechanic will be benefited."
The revenue of the State in 1839 had been $287,000, and war- rants had been issued for $366,000.
There was "a long list of defaulters" among the tax collectors of the State. The amount in default was at least $100,000.
On this subject the governor said in 1842: "The existing sys- tem relative to the collection of money due by defaulters is radically defective. Experience has demonstrated that but little is paid into the State treasury on such claims. Cases are permitted to slumber on the docket, until the parties to the bond become insolvent. Many thousand dollars are annually lost to the State by delays and failures in the prosecution of suits against defaulters."
As for the system of taxation, many of the banks were evading it. "The dishonest usurer and the fraudulent banker are at pres- ent exonerated and taxes alone collected from the honest laborer.
. Not one-third of the landed estate of the country, subject to taxation, is ever assessed." The banks to which indulgence had been given by the State had all failed to comply with the condi- tions. The whole amount was probably a dead loss. Gen. Silas Brown, when treasurer, in the absence of the governor, allowed the Planters' bank to pay its entire indebtedness in Brandon money. The literary fund was all invested in the Planters' bank, the stock of which was below par. Of the banks' refusal to permit inspection by State commissioners, the governor said: "The grounds of the various refusals show an utter disregard of the laws of the land and a thorough contempt of legislative control."
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