The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 41, July 1937 - April, 1938 Page: 229
383 p. : maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Analysis of Work of General Council, 1885-1886
December 13, in favor of Juan Jervitt, in payment for horses
purchased from him by Dimitt; this time, however, the treasurer
was authorized to draw the draft on the commissioners. On
Christmas day William L. Armstrong was granted $10 for his
services in the volunteer army, and the following day N. Roderigues
was allowed $25 for taking care of horses. Royall, January 7,
introduced a resolution allowing $100 to G. Logan, who had been
wounded at Bexar.'3 These, of course, are simply a few repre-
sentative petitions, but serve to show the amount of time the
Council would have had to devote to claims had it attempted to
handle all of them.
Despite the fact that the Council devoted much time to the
regulation of disbursements, a far more serious problem, and one
which was not successfully solved, was the creation of a revenue.
Gouge somewhat uncharitably states:
They turned their attention to the ways and means which
other governments have resorted to in times of exigency. They
found that they might all be resolved into taxing, borrowing,
begging, selling, and (if it be permitted to use such rough
words), robbing and cheating, and they appear to have deter-
mined to try all six.14
There is a degree of exaggeration in applying the terms begging,
robbing, and cheating to the attempts to raise revenue; and in
reality there was little taxing and selling, while the borrowing
was authorized by the Consultation and approved by the Con-
vention.
Almost immediately following its organization the Council
turned some attention to the creation of a revenue, but it was
not until November 27, that the committee on finance made an
interesting, though verbose, report on the ways and means avail-
able to the Provisional Government. In this lengthy report it
was stated that revenue could be raised by the sale of public lands,
a tax of one dollar per capita on all slaves over fourteen and
under fifty years of age, a tax on foreign tonnage, an export tax
of one-fourth cent per pound on cotton, and duties on imports.
Of these means import duties could most speedily be made prac-
ticable. The picture here presented of the potential resources of
13Ibid., I, 615, 620, 643, 659, 694, 702, 715, 747.
14William M. Gouge, The Fiscal History of Texas (Philadelphia, 1852), 24.229
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 41, July 1937 - April, 1938, periodical, 1938; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101103/m1/251/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.