TAXATION AND DEBT. 617 



Northwest obtained control of the Legislature, and the State issued six 

 per cent, bonds, to the amount of $1,310,000, in aid of the Blue Ridge 

 railroad. The great increase in State expenditures which prevailed, 

 adding largely to the burden of taxation, as for example, in the State of 

 New York, increasing its amount three hundred per cent, found a par- 

 allel in South Carolina, in the sums expended in erecting a new State 

 House of Cyclopean blocks of granite. For this enterprise, if it may be 

 termed so, the State issued at this time six per cent, bonds to the amount 

 of $1,822,210. 



Nevertheless, the assets of the State were ample to meet all liabilities. 

 The report of the joint committee of the General Assembly, in December, 

 1859, showed that the bank was in a prosperous condition ; that it had 

 paid debts of the State in excess of the interest and principal of the funds 

 with which it had been intrusted by the State (excepting a portion of the 

 fire loan) ; that, deducting all the liabilities of the bank for issues, de- 

 posits, balances due to- other banks, &c., from the $7,779,337 representing 

 its assets, there remained $3,085,397 of net assets, the fruit of its man- 

 agement. This sum, with $2,652,300 held by the State in railroad 

 shares — in all, $5,737,597 — represented the fiscal resources of the State 

 available to meet its public debt, which' (subtracting the fire loan stocks 

 and bonds already deducted from the assets of the bank) amounted to 

 $2,478,796, as stated by the Comptroller-General in his report for that 

 year. 



Such was materially the condition of the finances of South Carolina at 

 the commencement of the war between the States. 



In 1867, the Comptroller General stated the funded public debt of the 

 State, interest and principal, as $8,378,255, and the assets of the State, con- 

 sisting chiefly of assets held by the Bank of the State and shares in rail- 

 road companies, as $8,709,189. 



Of this increased indebtedness, $2,241,840 was for principal of bonds 

 issued during the war for the military defence of the State ; $729,200 re- 

 duced interest on bonds and stocks ; $436,600 State capitol bonds, &c., 

 issued during and after the war ; thus leaving $4,978,615 to represent the 

 ante-bellum debt increased in the interval b}^ interest. 



Doubtless a considerable portion of the asset? of the bank, with which 

 these liabilities were to be met, would eventually have proved valueless, 

 as did the results of many of the financial transactions during the war. 

 Time, however, to test this matter was not allowed 



In 1868, the Federal military authorities summoned a convention to 

 " Reconstruct " the State of South Carolina. From this convention the 

 former citizens of South Carolina were virtually excluded, and it was 

 placed by the military authorities, as the State government, for eight 



