MAINE. 



605 



JO 



'. 



about 2,000. Various towns having voted in 

 public meeting sums sufficient to pay the com- 

 mutations of such of their citizens as might be 

 drafted, Gov. Ooburn, in view of the complica- 

 tions and embarrassments which might result 

 from these proceedings, asked the opinion of 

 the justices of the Supreme Court upon the le- 

 gal questions involved in the following inter- 

 atories : 



1. Has a city or town any legal right to pledge its 

 edit to raise money for the purpose of paying the 



commutations of such of its citizens as may be drafted 

 into the service of the United States under the law 

 aforesaid ? 



2. Has a city or town any legal right to raise money 

 by taxation to provide commutations for such of its 



izens as may be thus drafted ? 



The Court held that Congress had full pow- 

 er, under the Constitution, " to command all the 

 resources of the nation, the lives of its citizens, 

 to prevent, by any and all proper means, that 

 fearful anarchy which would be so imminent 

 if its dissolution should become an accomplish- 

 ed fact ; " that the liability to serve, procure a 

 substitute, or pay the commutation fee, as 

 created by the Enrolment Act of March 3d, 

 was of a purely personal nature ; and that the 

 question really amounted to this : " Whether a 

 town can legally raise money gratuitously to 

 discharge the pecuniary obligations of its citi- 

 zens, or to procure their exemption from mili- 

 tary or other service." Such a power, they 

 decided, was not conferred upon the municipal 

 corporations of the State. They concluded 

 their opinion as follows : 



Were a town to raise money to be distributed to fa- 

 vored individuals, the tax assessed for such a purpose 

 could not for a moment be upheld. Still less can it be 

 when the obvious and inevitable tendency of it would 

 be to defeat the object for which the act of Congress 

 before referred to was passed. That was an act to 

 raise soldiers, not to raise money. Its preliminary 

 and special purpose was to suppress insurrection by 

 means of an armed force, to be raised in pursuance 

 of its provisions. If one town may assess taxes to 

 pay the commutation money of those who may be 

 drafted, so may all, and the Government would be left 

 without a soldier for its protection, and the nation 

 surrendered into the power of those who are warring 

 for its overthrow. By such a course the wealth 

 and taxable property of the community would be di- 

 verted from the defence of the Government, and the 

 resources of the State would be turned to its destruc- 

 tion, by depriving it of the means necessary for its 

 preservation. 



We therefore answer each of the interrogatories in 

 the negative. 



At the outbreak of the rebellion, the bonded 

 State debt amounted to $699,000. On January 

 1st, 1863, this had been increased by expenses 

 incidental to the war to $1,472,000, and during 

 18R3 there was added a further war debt of 

 $950,000, making the total debt of the State, 

 on January 1st, 1864, $2,422,000. This in- 

 crease was caused by the payment of bounties 

 to soldiers and the aid advanced, in 1862, to 

 their families. To provide for the payment 

 of the interest on the public debt, and, in 

 some part, for the other extraordinary charges 

 of the Government, the Legislature of 1863 



increased the State tax 01 that year by 

 the addition of a mill on the dollar of valu- 

 ation, to the tax of the previous year. In 

 addition to the money expended on account of 

 volunteers, directly by the State, which consti- 

 tutes a claim against the General Government, 

 there had been expended, at the commence- 

 ment of the present year, by cities, towns, and 

 plantations in the State, upward of $4,000,000, 

 chiefly for bounties, to which sum large addi- 

 tions have since been made. 



The following table represents the condition 

 of the sixty-nine banks of Maine on December 

 1st, 1863. 



LIABILITIES. 



Capital Stock ......................... f8,008,000.00 



Circulation ........................... 6,019,156.00 



Deposits .............................. 6,421,005.30 



Due to Banks ......................... 118,020.42 



Profits ................................ 759,859.02 



Total .......................... $21,326,040.74 



EESOUECES. 



Notes and Bills Discounted ) T ____ $11,408,348.60 



United States Securities, f^ * 11 .... 3,575,261.16 



Real Estate ......................... 245,846.00 



Due from Banks .................... 4,370,562.06 



Bills of other Banks and Checks ..... 1,047,979.44 



Specie .............................. 678,043,48 



Total ............................ $21,326,040.74 



In 1862 the Legislature passed' an act ex- 

 empting the State banks, for the space of one 

 year, from the severe penalties imposed by their 

 charters in the event of their suspending specie 

 payments. In 1863 this act was renewed, and 

 in consequence of the imposition by Congress 

 of a tax upon the circulation and deposits of 

 the local banks, the Legislature remitted one 

 half of the State tax imposed upon the banks 

 by their charters. 



By a resolution adopted, March 25th, the 

 Legislature accepted, in behalf of Maine, the 

 grant of land guaranteed by act of Congress, 

 July, 1862, to each State, for the purpose of 

 establishing an Agricultural College. A board 

 of thirteen regents was also created, with au- 

 thority to receive scrip for the land, to locate 

 the same, to examine localities for the proposed 

 college, and to examine and report upon similar 

 institutions in other States. 



The comparatively defenceless condition of 

 the Maine seaboard was, from the outset of the 

 war, a subject of much solicitude to her citi- 

 zens, and, in conformity with resolutions adopt- 

 ed by the State Legislature, and the urgent so- 

 licitations of Governor Coburn, the General 

 Government expended, during the year, large 

 sums upon the permanent fortifications in the 

 harbor of Portland, at the mouth of the Ken- 

 nebec river, and in the narrows of the Penob- 

 scot, beside constructing earthworks at Rock- 

 land, Belfast, and Eastport, at each of which 

 places two batteries of five guns each were 

 mounted, and single batteries of five guns each 

 at Castine and Machiasport. The northeast- 

 ern frontier of the State is entirely unprotect- 

 ed, and the only means of defence yet suggest- 





