The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 14, July 1910 - April, 1911 Page: 91
348 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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State Finances of Texas During Reconstruction.
plies for the asylums and the repairs of public buildings.' Except
in 1869, when a large amount was expended for support, the peni-
tentiary was not an expensive institution. The expediency of
leasing it and the labor of the convicts was suggested in 1868 and
was carried out in 1871. Thereafter the only expense of the state
in connection with it was for the transportation of prisoners.
Perhaps the most obnoxious of the measures of the E. J. Davis
administration was that providing for a system of state police.
Warrants drawn on account of the state police and the state
militia,-almost wholly, however, for the police,-amounted dur-
ing the period 1871-1874 to $688,091, or 15 per cent of the total
of warrants drawn on the general revenue fund. The personnel
of the police body, their abuse of authority, and the fact that they
performed functions which belonged to the local governments, led
to the abolition of the system by the democratic legislature in
1871.2
'Texas narrowly escaped during this period the subsidizing of
railroads with bonds,-a policy that characterized a number of
southern reconstruction governments and which resulted in griev-
ous financial burdens to the states. The constitution of 1866 em-
powered the legislature to guarantee the bonds of railroad com-
panies to any amount not exceeding the sum of $15,000 per mile.
No resort was made to this provision because the constitution of
1866 was short lived, and the provision was believed to be in con-
flict with section 33 of the constitution, which prohibited the legis-
lature from contracting a debt to exceed $100,000, except in case
of war, to repel invasion, or suppress insurrection.8 The constitu-
tion of 1869 shut -out land grants to any but actual settlers, but
permitted bond subsidies to internal improvements. By the act of
August 5, 1870, incorporating the International Railroad Com-
pany, a subsidy in 8 per cent, thirty-year bonds of $10,000 a mile,
was granted, and an ad valorem tax upon all taxable property suf-
ficient to pay the interest and contribute to a 2 per cent sinking
fund was authorized. The state pledged itself in this act that its
1Report of Committee on Asylums, House Journal, 14th Legislature,
p. 14; report of Committee on Public Buildings. Ibid., p. 161.
2Ramsdell, Reconstruction in Texas, 302, 312.
3Report of Committee on Judiciary, House Journal, 11th Legislature,
p. 733.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 14, July 1910 - April, 1911, periodical, 1911; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101054/m1/105/: accessed May 2, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.