"But underneath all this shocking burlesque upon legislative proceedings, we must not forget that there is something very real to this uncouth and untutored multitude.It is not all sham, nor all burlesque.They have a genuine interest and a genuine earnestness in the business of the assembly which we are bound to recognize and respect....They have an earnest purpose, born of conviction that their position and condition are not fully assured, which lends a sort of dignity to their proceedings.The barbarous, animated jargon in which they so often indulge is on occasion seen to be so transparently sincere and weighty in their own minds that sympathy supplants disgust.The whole thing is a wonderful novelty to them as well as to observers.Seven years ago these men were raising corn and cotton under the whip of the overseer.Today they are raising points of order and questions of privilege.They find they can raise one as well as the other.They prefer the latter.It is easier and better paid.Then, it is the evidence of an accomplished result.It means escape and defense from old oppressors.It means liberty.It means the destruction of prison-walls only too real to them.It is the sunshine of their lives.It is their day of jubilee.It is their long-promised vision of the Lord God Almighty."The congressional delegations were as radical as the state governments.During the first two years, there were no Democratic senators from the reconstructed states and only two Democratic representatives, as against sixty-four radical senators and representatives.At the end of four years, the Democrats numbered fifteen against seventy radicals.A Negro succeeded Jefferson Davis in the Senate, and in all the race sent two senators and thirteen representatives to Congress; but though several were of high character and fair ability, they exercised practically no influence.The Southern delegations had no part in shaping policies but merely voted as they were told by the radical leaders.
The effect of dishonest government was soon seen in extravagant expenditures, heavier taxes, increase of the bonded debt, and depression of property values.
It was to be expected that after the ruin wrought by war and the admission of the Negro to civil rights, the expenses of government would be greater.But only lack of honesty will account for the extraordinary expenses of the reconstruction governments.In Alabama and Florida, the running expenses of the state government increased two hundred percent, in Louisiana five hundred percent, and in Arkansas fifteen hundred percent--all this in addition to bond issues.In South Carolina the one item of public printing, which from 1790 to 1868 cost $609,000, amounted in the years 1868-1876 to $1,326,589.
Corrupt state officials had two ways of getting money--by taxation and by the sale of bonds.Taxes were everywhere multiplied.The state tax rate in Alabama was increased four hundred percent, in Louisiana eight hundred percent, and in Mississippi, which could issue no bonds, fourteen hundred percent.City and county taxes, where carpetbaggers were in control, increased in the same way.
Thousands of small proprietors could not meet their taxes, and in Mississippi alone the land sold for unpaid taxes amounted to six million acres, an area as large as Massachusetts and Rhode Island together.Nordhoff* speaks of seeing Louisiana newspapers of which three-fourths were taken up by notices of tax sales.In protest against extravagant and corrupt expenditures, taxpayers'
conventions were held in every state, but without effect.
*Charles Nordhoff, "The Cotton States in the Spring and Summer of 1875".
Even the increased taxation, however, did not produce enough to support the new governments, which now had recourse to the sale of state and local bonds.
In this way Governor Holden's Administration managed in two years to increase the public debt of North Carolina from $16,000,000 to $32,000,000.The state debt of South Carolina rose from $7,000,000 to $29,000,000 in 1873.In Alabama, by 1874, the debt had mounted from $7,000,000 to $32,000,000.The public debt of Louisiana rose from $14,000,000 in 1868 to $48,000,000 in 1871, with a local debt of $31,000,000.Cities, towns, and counties sold bonds by the bale.The debt of New Orleans increased twenty-five fold and that of Vicksburg a thousandfold.A great deal of the debt was the result of fraudulent issues of bonds or over-issue.For this form of fraud, the state financial agents in New York were usually responsible.Southern bonds sold far below par, and the time came when they were peddled about at ten to twenty-five cents on the dollar.
Still another disastrous result followed this corrupt financiering.In Alabama there was a sixty-five percent decrease in property values, in Florida forty-five percent, and in Louisiana fifty to seventy-five percent.A large part of the best property was mortgaged, and foreclosure sales were frequent.
Poorer property could be neither mortgaged nor sold.There was an exodus of whites from the worst governed districts in the West and the North.Many towns, among them Mobile and Memphis, surrendered their charters and were ruled directly by the governor; and there were numerous "strangulated"counties which on account of debt had lost self-government and were ruled by appointees of the governor.
