The Reconstruction of Georgia Part 6

Land. Town and Total City Property. Property.

1868[331] $79,727,584 $40,315,621 $191,235,520 1869[332] 84,577,166 44,368,096 204,481,706 1870[333] 95,600,674 47,922,544 226,119,519 1871[334] 96,857,512 52,159,734 234,492,468

Nevertheless, the reconstruction government spent the public money extravagantly. This fact is shown by a comparison of the expenditures of the state under Bullock's administration and under that of his predecessor. Such a comparison, it is true, has been employed to prove the contrary. Governor Bullock was wont to rebut charges of extravagance by showing that the state spent more under Jenkins' administration than under his, in proportion to the time occupied by each.[335] This was true, as the following figures show:[336]

Gross expenditures in 1866 and 1867 $3,223,323.46 Average annual expenditure during these years 1,601,661.73 Gross expenditures from August 11, 1868, to Jan. 1, 1870 2,260,252.15 Gross expenditures in 1870 1,444,816.73 Gross expenditures in 1871 1,476,978.86 Average annual expenditure during this period 1,554,614.32

A comparison of gross expenditures, however, is of no significance unless the sums contrasted represent payments for the same purposes. Under the earlier administration the government undertook large expenditures for the relief of dest.i.tute persons, especially of wounded soldiers and the relicts of soldiers.[337] This accounts for the remarkable size of the amounts credited to "special appropriations" in the report for 1866 and 1867. Under Bullock's administration the government spent nothing for these purposes. For a fair comparison of the economy of the Johnson government and the reconstruction government, it is necessary to compare the amounts which they spent respectively for the same objects. Their payments for the more important administrative purposes are shown in the following table:[338]

+----------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ 1866. 1867. 1868. 1869. +----------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+ Civil Establishment $20,771.66 $75,222.44 $50,373.72 $85,666.41 Contingent Fund 6,128.62 15,430.74 10,059.06 19,968.16 Printing Fund 1,021.75 16,114.90 20,452.96 7,673.38 Special Appropriations 304,955.05 879,897.77 210,916.11 261,097.37 +----------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+

+----------+----------+ 1870. 1871. +----------+----------+ $77,851.77 $78,365.21 38,284.44 20,296.95 60,011.78 20,000.00 260,442.05 806,419.08 +----------+----------+

These figures show that almost all the annual expenditures of Bullock's administration, aside from "special appropriations," were well above those of the preceding administration, and that the payments from the printing fund, especially in 1870, and from the contingent fund in 1870, were so large as to convict the administration of great extravagance.

The reconstruction legislature was reproached because of its large _per diem_--nine dollars. This _per diem_ was established by the Johnson government,[339] and is, therefore, not a charge against reconstruction.

But the other expenses of the legislature fully corroborate the charges of extravagance made against it. This is shown by the following table:[340]

+-----+---------------------+-------------+-------------------+ Length of Session. Total Average Expenditure Expenditure. per month. +-----+---------------------+-------------+-------------------+ Dec. 4 to Dec. 15. 1865 Jan. 15 to March 13. and Nov. 1 to Dec. 14. $121,759.75 $33,207.18 1866. ------------------- 3-2/3 months. +-----+---------------------+-------------+-------------------+ 1867. No session. +-----+---------------------+-------------+-------------------+ 1868 July 4 to Oct. 6. and Jan. 13 to March 18. $446,055.00 $84,161.33 1869. ------------------- 5-3/10 months. +-----+---------------------+-------------+-------------------+ Jan. 10 to Feb. 17. Apr. 18 to May 4. 1870. July 6 to Oct. 25. $526,891.00 $95,798.32 ------------------- 5-1/2 months. +-----+---------------------+-------------+-------------------+

The state debt created by the reconstruction government was of two kinds; direct and contingent. When the reconstruction government went into operation the state debt was $6,544,500.[341] The reconstruction government incurred a bonded debt of $4,880,000.[342] This includes bonds to the amount of $1,880,000 which were issued to a railroad in exchange for its bonds to a greater amount and bearing interest at the same rate.

This amount, therefore, was not a burden on the state, provided the railroad remained solvent; though in form a direct, it was virtually a contingent liability. Further, $300,000 of the money borrowed was used to pay the princ.i.p.al of the old debt. Deducting these two sums, we find that the burden of direct debt was increased by $2,700,000.

Contingent debt was incurred by the indors.e.m.e.nt of railroad bonds. In 1868 the state offered aid of this kind to three railroad companies,[343] in 1869 to four,[344] and in 1870 to thirty.[345] The state offered to indorse the bonds of each of these companies to the amount, usually, of from $12,000 to $15,000 per mile, sometimes more and sometimes less. If all the roads had accepted the full amount of aid offered, the state would have become contingently liable for about $30,000,000.[346] But only six roads accepted, and the contingent liability thus created was $6,923,400.[347] The laws offering the aid involved little risk to the state; they made substantial progress in construction and substantial evidence of soundness conditions precedent to indors.e.m.e.nt, and secured to the state a lien on all the property of each road in case it defaulted.

The indors.e.m.e.nt of railroad bonds is not a reproach to the reconstruction government. The great policy of that government, when it was sufficiently free from partisan labors to have a policy, was to repair the prosperity of the state, and the construction of railroads was an important means to this end.[348]

The worst stain on the reconstruction government is its management of the state railroad. The Western and Atlantic Railroad, owned and operated by the state until 1871, was placed under the superintendence of Foster Blodgett by the governor in January, 1870.[349] Thenceforth hundreds of employees were discharged to make room for Republican favorites; important positions were filled by strangers to the business; the receipts were stolen,[350] or squandered in purchases made from other Republicans at monstrous prices; and the road suffered great dilapidation.[351]

The preferred object of the Conservative abuse in the reconstruction government was Governor Bullock. We have seen that he was remarkably powerful as well as remarkably active in promoting the interests of his party. He was abused for that. For the extravagance of the state government the governor was held largely responsible. He was abused for that. But he was further accused of fraud in financial matters.

Although this charge has never been established, the public had some excuse for believing it at the time. As a result of the quarrel between the governor and the treasurer, the governor ordered the bankers who were the financial agents of the state to hold no further communication with the treasurer after June 3, 1869, but to communicate only with the governor.[352] The effect upon the public was an impression of great confusion and irregularity in the finances. The treasurer's reports could not give a complete account of state moneys, and the governor was not careful to inform the public of the condition of that part of the finances over which he had a.s.sumed control. Moreover, the governor and the treasurer kept up a constant interchange of accusation and insinuation in the newspapers. In another way the governor put himself in an unfortunate light. In his letter to the Ku Klux Committee his statements regarding his bond transactions were so vague as to give the impression (rightly or wrongly) of a desire to conceal something.[353] The same laxity of statement appears in Conley's statement of the use to which the bonds issued by Bullock had been put.[354] His sudden resignation and departure on the eve of a threatened investigation seemed to confirm the evidence of his guilt.

But though he did not keep the public informed, it has never been established that his accounts were wrong. He spent money freely, and in some cases without authority;[355] but none of his accusers has ever proved that he spent any without regular and correct record by the comptroller. And though he issued bonds perhaps in excess, he issued none without proper registration in the comptroller's records.[356] His apparent efforts to conceal facts do not prove fraud; a sufficient motive would be furnished by desire to conceal the extravagance of his administration. Furthermore, he has been positively acquitted of the charge of fraud. In 1878 he returned to Georgia, and the courts proceeded to give him "a speedy and public trial." Of his many alleged crimes, indictments were secured for three. One indictment was quashed.[357] Upon the other two the verdict was "not guilty."[358] His resignation was explained in a letter to his "political friends," published on October 31, 1871.[359] He said that he had obtained evidence of a concerted design among certain prominent members of the incoming legislature to impeach him (as they could easily do, with the immense Conservative majority), and instal as governor the Conservative who would be elected president of the senate. To resign and put the governorship in the hands of a Republican who could not be impeached was the only way to defeat this "nefarious scheme." This explanation was of course ignored by Bullock's enemies when it was made; but in view of the lack of evidence that he was guilty of any fraud, and in view of the positive evidence to the contrary, there is now no reason to doubt it.

The governor made extraordinary use of the pardoning power. According to a statement sanctioned by him, he pardoned four hundred and ninety-eight criminals, forty-one of whom were convicted or accused of murder, fifty-two of burglary, five of arson, and eight of robbery.[360] The leader of the Conservative party at that time, B. H. Hill, emphatically declared in a public statement that the governor had no worse motive than "kindness of heart."[361]

To sum up the case against the reconstruction government, we have seen that it was extravagant, that it mismanaged the state railroad, and that it pardoned a great many criminals. It was not guilty of the enormities often a.s.sociated with reconstruction; but it was a government composed of men who obtained political position only through the interference of an outside power--it was the product of a system conceived partly in vengeance, partly in folly, and partly in political strategy, and imposed by force. It was hated partly for what it did, but more for what it was.

CHAPTER X

CONCLUSION

A Confederate veteran recently remarked amid great applause at an a.s.sembly in Atlanta that there never was a conqueror so magnanimous as the North, for within six years from the surrender of the southern armies she had allowed the South to take part in her national councils. Nevertheless, within those six years the Congressional Disciplinarians gave the South a discipline which she will never forget. It did not result in permanent estrangement between the North and the South, for sectional bitterness seems extinct. But whether there was any profit in it--whether, in case the South never again attempts to secede, that happy omission will be due to reconstruction--may be doubted.

Was there a clearer gain from the humanitarian point of view? We have seen that at the close of the war a spirit of grat.i.tude and philanthropy prevailed among the most influential of the southern white people as regards the negroes. Instead of allowing this spirit to develop and in the course of time to produce its natural results, the North, believing that suffrage was essential to the negro's welfare and progress, forced the South to enfranchise him, by reconstruction. This caused the negro untold immediate harm (since reconstruction was a contributary cause of Kukluxism), and delayed his ultimate advance by giving the friendly spirit of the white people a check in its development from which it has not yet recovered.

From the point of view of the Republican Politicians, reconstruction at first succeeded, but later proved a mistaken policy. By it they lost the support of the southern white men who had been opposed to secession. These formed a large party in Georgia. The victory of the federal arms had the nature of a party victory for them. They would have added their strength to the Republican party. Reconstruction, with its threat of negro domination, drove them into the Democratic party, where they still remain.

For a time this loss was made good by negro votes, but not long.

Without reconstruction there would have been no Fifteenth Amendment. But the good will and philanthropy of the people among whom the negro lives, which reconstruction took away, would have brought him more benefit than the Fifteenth Amendment. Without reconstruction there would have been no Fourteenth Amendment. But a long line of decisions of the Supreme Court has determined that the Fourteenth Amendment did not achieve the nationalization of civil rights--an end which might justify reconstruction as a means. In short, reconstruction seems to have produced bad government, political rancor, and social violence and disorder, without compensating good.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

PUBLIC RECORDS AND DOc.u.mENTS.

_Of the United States Government._

Congressional Globe.

Public Doc.u.ments.

Statutes at Large.

Supreme Court Reports.

Military orders in the archives of the Department of War.

Correspondence in the same archives.

Correspondence in the archives of the Department of State.

Unpublished records in the same archives.

_Of the Government of Georgia._

Journal of the const.i.tutional convention of 1865.

Journal of the const.i.tutional convention of 1867-8.

Journals of the legislature.

Reports of the four committees appointed by the legislature in December, 1871 to investigate respectively-- The management of the state railroad.

The lease of the same road.

The official conduct of Governor Bullock.

The transactions of Governor Bullock's administration relating to the issue of state bonds and the indors.e.m.e.nt of railroad bonds.

These reports were published in Atlanta in 1872.

Session Laws.

Supreme Court Reports.

Reports of the State Comptroller.

Executive minutes in the archives of the state in Atlanta.

Minutes of the Fulton County Superior Court in the office of that court in Atlanta.

NEWSPAPERS.

Atlanta _New Era_.

Atlanta _Const.i.tution_.

Milledgeville _Federal Union_ (during the war called the _Confederate Union_).

Savannah _News_.

Savannah _Republican_.