Civil List and Constitutional History of the Colony and State of New York, Part 17

Author:
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Albany
Number of Pages: 1380

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The Legislature of 1801 (March 20) passed an act providing that

1 In the original Arms the figures are draped in short gown and petticoat, according to the Dutch cos- tume, see initial T shown on Plate 1. On the figures of the second Seal the drapery Is classic, see Seal Chown on Plate G.

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ARMS AND SEALS.

the Arms of the State, the Great Seal and the Privy Scal should remain as described in the records in the office of the Secretary of State, thus maintaining the distinction between the three. The Great Seal authorized by the act of 1809 did not affect the Arms of the State. The Legislature in 1813 (February 25) again enacted that the Arms and Seals should remain as described in the records. From the earliest period, the Colonial and State Arms were pub- lished on the title pages of the Laws. In the third Great Seal the figures appear seated. See Plate L. In the vignette of the State Arms, as published in the Session Laws from year to year, Justice first appears seated in 1815 and Liberty in 1819. These changes were without authority of law.

The fifth and last form given to the Arms, on the Seals of the State, was in 1882. In the year 1875 the attention of the Legisla- ture was directed to the question of what constituted the correct Arms of the State on account of the desirableness of sending a copy of the same to the Centennial Exhibition held at Philadelphia in 1876, to be exhibited with those of the original thirteen States. A painting was prepared and sent, but soon afterward two drawings of the Arms were discovered which were of eight years earlier date than either of those used as guides for the Philadelphia painting. Investigation also disclosed the fact that during the thirty years pre- ceding, the office of the Secretary of State had not contained a written description of the Arms, and that the three early specimens did not in all respects agree with each other. A resolution was adopted by the Senate, May 21, 1880, appointing a commission composed of Governor Cornell, Secretary of State Carr and Comp- troller Wadsworth to ascertain, by examination and comparison of the earliest specimens in existence, what in their judgment was an exact description of the original Arms of the State and to report the same to the Legislature, together with the measures by them deemed necessary to perpetnate the use of the Arms without altera- tion on the Seals in the public offices of the State. The specimens used by the Commissioners as the basis of their investigations were first, the Arms as shown in the initial letter T of a military commis- sion of June, 1778, a copy of which is shown on Plate I. Second, the flag borne by the Third New York Regiment when commanded by Col. Peter Gansevoort, Jr., during the Revolutionary War, this device is shown on Plate H ; and third, the painting suspended in 1785 over the pew of Gov. George Clinton in St. Paul's chapel,

ARMS AND SEALS. 149

New York city, a fac simile of which is shown on Plate J. The Great Seal and the Privy Seal of 1777, which were the foundation of these three, also furnished the commissioners with important in- formation. In their report made to the Legislature of 1881, they say, " We have pursued the investigation of the topies assigned to us with growing convictions of the importance and suitableness of perpetuating with correctness and without variation that device by . which the State in her authority and honor is to be recognized, by her own people, by the people of the United States, and by the world. Every reasonable effort should be made that the citizens of the State who are proud of her position and history should also de- light in her insignia.

"The device of Arms of this State is so perfect1 in its conception that our aim is mainly how we can best restore the original. We onghit not to favor attempts to alter it for the better. It is charac- teristic of the geographical and commercial relations of the State, and symbolizes ideas which are in accordance with the loftiest patri- otism. By the extensive exhibition of this beautiful emblem, not only upon our seals and military standards, but on our public build- ings and on banners at our festivals, we display a most inspiring representation of the authority of the five millions of people of the State, operating through the law at the hands of its administrators."

In 1882, the Arms as approved by the commission were adopted by the Legislature (chap. 190) in an act entitled " An act to re-estab- lish the original Arms of the State of New York and to provide for the use thereof on the public Seals." By this law the Arms are declared to be correctly described as follows, viz .:

CHARGE. Azure, in a landscape, the sun in fess, rising in splendor, or, behind a range of three mountains, the middle one the highest, in base, a ship and sloop under sail, passing and about to meet on a river, bordered below by a grassy shore fringed with shrubs, all proper.

CREST. On a wreath, azure and or, an American eagle, proper, rising to the dexter, from a two-thirds of a globe terrestrial showing the North Atlantic ocean with outlines of its shores.

SUPPORTERS. On a quasi compartment formed by the extension of the seroll.

1 More full information relative to the history of the establishment and the significance of the State Arms may be found in the Report of the Commissioners on the Correct Arms of the State, in the Senate documents of Isi, and in The first and second papers on the same subject, by Dr. Henry A. Homes, State Librarian, published in the transactions of the 'Albany Institute. Vol. 10. A copy of the engraved military commission of 177., and copies on canvas, in oil colors by Miss Wrightson, of the Colonel Gansevoort tag painting of 1775, the original of which is in the possession of Mrs. A. Lansing, and of the chapel painting of 1755, and specimens also of the wax Great Seal of 1777 may be seen at the State Library.

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ARMS AND SKALS.

DEXTER. The figure of Liberty proper, her hair disheveled and decorated with pearls, vested azure, sandaled gules, about the waist a cincture or, fringed gules, a mantle of the last depending from the shoulders behind to the feet, in the dexter hand a staff ensigned with a Phrygian cap or, the sinster arm embowed, the hand supporting the shield at the dexter chief point, a royal crown by her sinister foot dejected.

SINISTER. The figure of Justice proper, her hair disheveled and decorated with pearls, vested or, sandaled, cinetured and mantled as Liberty, bound about the eyes with a fillet proper, in the dexter hand a straight sword hilted or, ereet, resting on the sinister chief point of the shield the sinister arm embowed, holding before her her scales proper.

Morro. On a scroll below the shield argent, in sable, EXCELSIOR. The device of the re-established Arms is shown on Plate K.

The act re-establishing the Arms required that the Secretary of State should cause to be engraved upon metal two and one-half inches in diameter, the device of Arms of the State accurately con- formed to the description of the same given above, and the Arms so engraved surrounded with the legend : The Great Seal of the State f of New York ; and it alone be used as the Great Seal of the State. He was also directed to cause to be engraved on metal, the Privy Seal for the office of the Governor, and Seals for the Court of Ap- peals, the Secretary of State, the Comptroller, the Treasurer, the State Engineer and Surveyor and the Adjutant-General, which were to be two inches and a quarter in diameter and to contain the same device of Arms ; and each of said Seals was to have an inscription on its face surrounding the Arms containing severally the name and title of the office.

The Seals of all State officers, other than those named, which are authorized by statute to use a Seal, were required to conform to the device described. The diameter of each to be one inch and three- quarters, and to be surrounded with the appropriate name of the office.

The law also further directed that from and after the first day of January, eighteen hundred and eighty-three, the new Seals only should be used for all the requisite purposes of those offices. The old Seals of the several offices were required to be delivered to the Secretary of State, to be by him defaced with a

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ARMS AND SEALS.

suitable mark and deposited with the ancient Seals in the State Library.

The device of Arms of the State corresponding to the blazon given was directed to be painted in colors upon wood or canvas, and hung upon the walls of the Executive Chamber, the Court of Ap- peals, the office of the Secretary of State and of the Senate and Assembly Chambers

The law prohibited pictorial devices other than the Arms of the State from being used in the publie offices at the capital for letter headings and envelopes used for official business, and required that when persons printing and circulating publie documents under the authority of the State, use a vignette, they shall place upon the title pages of the documents the standard device of the State Arms without alterations or additions. During the hours when the Legislature is in session, the State flag bearing the Arms of the State is required to be displayed from the Capitol together with the flag of the United States.

FINANCES.

At the close of the revolutionary war, New York found itself possessed of an immense extent of unimproved lands lying within its boundaries, which had been the " crown lands," owned by the mother country. There were also quit-rents, which had been re- served on extensive patents granted by the sovereign, which reverted to the State. Chiefly from this source and from the proceeds of the sale of the lands a general fund was made up, the annual revenues of which were intended to defray the expenses of the government and relieve the people from taxation. At that period it was actually a fund, the proceeds of which discharged the State expenses.

From the lands described, the State appropriated liberal bounties to its soldiers, and with the proceeds of one-half million acres con- stituted a school fund, which was, however, for a time diverted from that use and loaned to individuals and corporations. By failures resulting from these loans, 8161,000 was thrown upon the general fund, in accordance with an act passed in 1819 for that purpose. The school fund was in the same year increased by the quit-rents trans- ferred to it from the general fund, and in 1821 the new Constitution transferred all the lands, amounting to 991,659 acres, from the gen- eral to the school fund. In the year 1827 a further transfer of $133,616 in stock was made, and in the following year the premium on a sale of State stock, amounting to $46,551.75, was added to the capital of the school fund, notwithstanding which appropriations a deficit of $81,853, in the amount required to make dividends was, up to 1830, supplied from the general fund.

The history of the school fund for the first forty years of its exis- tence was, in brief, this: Its capital, after deducting losses from bad investments, was $2,031,059, and it had distributed to school districts in dividends extending over a period of thirty years the sum of 82,780,560.

FINANCES. 153

In the years 1786, 1792 and 1808 the State had contracted debts chargeable upon the general fund. In 1814, notwithstanding the operation of the school fund, the capital of the general fund amounted to 84,896,943, and the State debt to the sum of $1, 503,651, leaving $2,593,259 as surplus, out of which the State paid the direct tax levied by the general government for war purposes. On the restoration of peace it imposed a tax to replenish the general fund, which tax ceased in 1826.

In entering upon its system of internal improvements, in 1517, a clear and well-defined policy was adopted. When the construction of the Erie canal was begun it was determined to constitute a fund which should, without possibility of failure, meet the interest on the loans which were required to construct it. To this end certain rev- ennes were taken from the general fund and constituted a canal fund, under the charge of conimissioners, whose duty it was to limit the loans to an amount the annual interest on which should fall within the sum of these revenues. Under their management the loan was disposed of at a premium of $663,623, realized on a total of $7, 737,- 777, borrowed up to the date of the completion of the work, in 1826.

The Constitution of 1821 set apart the tolls on the canal, together with the salt and the auction duties, as a sinking fund for the ex- tinguishment of the canal debt. So well had the policy been observed of placing beyond contingency the payment of the canal debt, that all of it which fell due in 1836 was paid, and a fand of $3,931,132 accumulated to meet the remainder, amounting to $3,762,256, due in 1845, for which the commissioners offered premiums of nine, eigh- teen and even twenty-four per cent, without indneing the holders to surrender it. In 1836, the money to discharge the debt having been realized from the sinking fund, an amendment to the Constitution restored to the general find the salt and the anction duties which had been diverted from it, and also appropriated to it two hundred thousand dollars ammally from the canal revenues. The total yield of these duties to the canal fund from 1817 to 1836 had been 85,647,- 497, being $2,055,458 from salt and 83,592,039 from auction duties, which, with an amount of 873,500 derived from steamboat tax, had been expended upon the canal and had reduced by that amount the debt which would otherwise have been contracted in its con- struction. These duties, aided by the canal revenues, finally dis- charged the debt.

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FINANCES.

In 1825 the construction of lateral canals was undertaken without specifically providing by taxation for the interest, reliance being placed solely upon the prospective revenues of the works to discharge the indebtedness incurred in their construction. In that year a bill was passed to borrow money for the construction of the Cayuga and Seneca canal, which loan was to constitute part of the canal debt to be paid out of the canal fund.

Laws for the construction of other lateral canals followed, which works, proving to be profitless undertakings, threw an additional debt of nearly ten millions of dollars on the canal fund without any provision being made to increase the means to meet it. ~ The enlarge- ment of the Erie canal was advocated at about the same time, and 8721, 441 from the surplus revenues of the canal fund was ex- pended for that purpose prior to 1838, in which year a bill was passed authorizing a loan of four millions of dollars to carry out the work more speedily. The existing debt of the canal fund at that date was given at $10,801,839 and its increase to twenty-one millions of dollars was contemplated in adopting a policy of extensive construction, based upon prospective revenues to be derived from completed works. Under this policy the actual funded debt in 1841 amounted to $17,561,567, while the amount required to finish works in progress was $24,590,026, and at the same time works had been surveyed to complete which would require 826,648,111, making the debt, actual and prospective, at that date 868, 799,704.

In accordance with the policy of loaning the State credit entered upon in 1827, stock to the amount of $5,228, 700 was loaned to ten companies, chiefly railroads. Four of these subsequently failed, and the general fund became burdened with their indebt- edness, amounting to $3,665,700, of which suni three millions' of dollars became chargeable on the failure of the Erie railroad in 1842. This fund, already exhausted by the payment of one mil- lion five hundred thousand dollars of old debt prior to 1825, and the transfer of its revenues to the school and canal funds, had also contracted debts which amounted, in 1842, to the sum of $1, 948,- 000; so that when, in 1840, it was called upon to restore an amount borrowed from the bank safety fund it was found neces- sary to have recourse to a loan, and three hundred and forty-eight thousand dollars in five per cent stoek was issued. The current rey- enues had been barely adequate to meet the annual expenses of the government, and the interest on the stock issued to the defaulting railroads.

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FINANCES.

In this condition of affairs the solvency of the State was put in great jeopardy, and but one course was, by general consent, to be adopted. This was to stop all expenditures upon the public works, to issue stock in order to pay outstanding indebtedness to contractors and preserve the credit of the State, and to impose a tax to make good the deficiency for the support of the government and for interest on the state debt. This course was adopted by an act passed in 1542. At the date of its- passage the canal debt amounted to $18,956,000, and to pay arrearages to contractors, an additional sum of $3,175,000, was borrowed in a seven per cent bond. The act established a sink- ing fund, which was to extinguish the whole debt in about twenty- two years, requiring at that time to meet, in principal and interest, a sum of more than forty millions of dollars or nearly two millions of dollars per amum over and above the State expenses.

The stocks which had been issued by the State up to the year 1845 may be summed up as follows :

PURPOSE OF ISSUE.

ISSUED.

REDEEMED.

OUTSTANDING.

Erie and Champlain Canal

$7,737,771

Other canal issnes ( profitless)

11. 172,257

2,949,531

$11,522,726

Preserving the State credit ..

5,422, 136

316,00

5,076.130

General fund ..

909,500

900, 500)

Bankrupt companies

3,665,700

3,685.700

Solvent companies

1,363,000

500,000

1,063,000

Total

$33,770,364

$11,533, 308

$22, 237,050

Such was the condition of the State debt in 1845. A constitu- tional convention was held at Albany, and a new Constitution adopted October 9, 1846. The first section of the seventh article of the Constitution which was then formed established the canal debt sinking fund to be constituted of the sun of one million three hundred thousand dollars taken ammally from the revenues of the canal until 1855, and one million seven hundred thousand dollars annually after that period to pay the interest and redeem the principal of that part of the State debt called the canal debt, until the same should be wholly paid. The second provision of this article authorized what was called the general-fund-debt sinking fund, consisting of the sum of $350,000, to be annually appropriated and set apart from the revenues of the canals, to pay the interest and redeem the principal of that part of the State debt called the general fund debt, including the debt for loans of the State credit to railroad companies which had failed to pay the interest thereon, and also the contingent debt on State stocks

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FINANCES.

loaned to incorporated companies which had hitherto paid the inter- est thereon, whenever and so far as any part thereof might become a charge on the treasury or the general fund, until the same should be wholly paid. In case, however, the amount taken first to be added to the canal debt sinking fund should absorb too large a part of the canal revenues to enable this payment to be made, then the sum so de- ferred should be paid, with quarterly interest, to the general-fund- debt sinking fund as soon as it could be done consistently with the just rights of the creditors holding the canal debt. It was also provided that when the canal indebtedness should have been liqui- dated, the amount to be paid annually into the sinking fund should be increased to one million five hundred thousand dollars. It was further provided that the sum of two hundred thousand dollars should be paid ont of the surplus canal revenues into the gen- eral fund for the purpose of defraying the current expenses of the State government, and that whatever amount might remain over should be applied by the Legislature to the completion of the Erie canal enlargement and the completion of the Black River and Genesee Valley canals.

After 1854 the sum of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars was authorized to be thus paid into the general fund. These provisions amounted practically at the time to an entire suspension of the public works for an indefinite period. An attempt was made in 1851 to cor- rect this difficulty, and after a remarkable contest in the Legislature, a bill was passed appropriating nine millions of dollars for the comple- tion of the canals, under provisions which were subsequently declared by the Court of Appeals to be unconstitutional. The result was a controversy, to reconcile which the Constitution was so amended in 1854 as to authorize the creation of a new debt for the enlargement and completion of the canals, and of a sinking fund, to be constituted of a sum to be set apart annually, " sufficient to pay the interest as it falls due and extinguish the principal in eighteen years." It was further provided that "the rates of toll on persons and property transported on the canals should not be reduced below those of the year 1852, except by the canal board, with the concurrence of the Legislature." In 1882 the Constitution was so amended as to abolish tolls imposed on persons and property transported on the canals, and the expenses of their maintenance and repairs was provided for by taxation. In case the sinking funds, or either of them, proved insufficient to enable the State to meet its obligations to its creditors

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FINANCES.

the Legislature was required to levy equitable taxes, that it might so "increase the revenues of these funds as to make them, respectively sufficient to preserve the public faith." The Constitution also guards explicitly against the creation of further indebtedness, except in the matter of loans of less than one million of dollars to meet casual deficits or failures in revenues, or for expenses not provided for, or debts which may be contracted to repel invasion, suppress insurrec. tion or defend the State in war. All propositions to create such in- debtedness must be authorized by a law having a specific object, which law must impose and provide for the collection of a direct annual tax sufficient to pay the interest and liquidate the principal within the period of eighteen years. The bill must afterward be submitted to the people at a general election, or an election at which proposed amendments to the Constitution shall have been submitted and receive a majority of votes in its favor. Under this provision of the Constitution the law creating the bounty State debt (chap. 325, Laws of 1865) was enacted. It an- thorized the creation of a debt not exceeding thirty millions of dol- lars, and levied a direct annual tax to pay the interest on the debt as it should fall due, and sufficient to pay the whole principal of the debt within the period of twelve years.

The debt of New York probably reached its maximum in 1865- '66. at which time the canal debt was abont nineteen million five hundred thousand dollars the general fund debt six millions of dollars and the bounty debt 827,641,000, making a total of 853,- 141,000. Since then it has gradually decreased. In 1870, the debt was 832,409,144. In 1850 the bonded debt of the State was $5.988,860. The financial history of New York affords a striking example of the beneficent effect of the aid of the Con- stitutional legislation in the liquidation of the State debt. The gen- eral fund State debt and the bounty debt are to-day all paid, and a large balance in the canal sinking fund leaves the amount of that debt umprovided for on September 80, 1955, the sum of $8,675,971.89, which with $122,694.87 of general fund for payment of Indian an- nuities and one million of dollars of Niagara Reservation bonds, makes the total State indebtedness unprovided for at the above date $4,798,666.26.

The treasury accounts of New York are at present divided into five principal heads. First the general fund, which represents the regular and direet finances of the government ; second, the common

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FINANCES.

school fund; third, the literature fund; fourth, the canal fund; fifth, the United States deposit fund, the latter being the amount of three installments received in 1837 from the Federal Government under the act for distributing the surplus revenue fund. Efforts had been periodically made subsequent to 1830 to induce the goverment to distribute the land revenne or surplus revenue, or to assume the stocks of indebted States and to distribute an equal portion of credit to non indebted States. In 1837 a distribution of the surplus rev- ennes of the United States among the several States, provided for by an act passed in 1836, actually took place. The fund originally pro- posed to be distributed among the States was thirty-six millions of dollars, and $28,101,644.91 was in fact distributed, in three quarterly installments, the first amount transferred being under date of Feb- ruary, 1837, the second amount in April, and the third in July of the same year ; the fourth and last installment, however, was not paid. Of the moneys so distributed, the State of New York re- ceived the sum of $4,014,520.71. A series of disasters, culminating in the panic of 1837, so disordered the finances of the general gov- ernment before the distribution had been completed that it became necessary to have recourse to a new act of Congress, which was passed on the second of October, to direct the postponement of the transfer of the remaining fourth until the 1st of January, 1839. A subsequent act was passed, postponing the payment indefinitely. This last law further provided that the amount deposited should remain with the several States until otherwise directed by Con- gress. ITere the matter has rested for the past fifty years.

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Civil List and Constitutional History of the Colony and State of New York, Part 17

Author: Publication date: 1886 Publisher: Albany Number of Pages: 1380

Author:
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: Albany
Number of Pages: 1380