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POLITICS AND FINANCE 1782 - 1789

WITH the evacuation of Savannah by the British in July, 1782, the state government controlled all of Georgia for the first time since December, 1778. The state government’s first task was to bring some sort of order out of the chaos resulting from the war and the prolonged British occupation. First, physical destruction must be repaired. Citizens who had left must be induced to return, and the influx of new settlers that the war had slowed down must be encouraged anew, so that Georgia could gain much needed economic and military strength. Adjustments must be made for the loyalists who had left and the slaves that they had taken away. The legal confusion of property ownership, debts, confiscation, and other war disruption must be remedied, so that legal and economic life could flow in usual channels. Finally, Georgia must resume its relations with the United States, which had been virtually ignored since the British invasion.

Priority was given to the generally confused situation of the state, to the providing of food for needy people, and to the disposition of Tories who had not left with the British. The assembly that convened in Savannah in July, 1782, was concerned almost entirely with temporary relief measures and did little of a permanent reform nature.

Throughout the 1780s assemblymen were notoriously slow in convening. Often a week to ten days elapsed between the announced date of meeting and the time a quorum assembled. The initial meeting of each assembly began in early January and lasted about a month or six weeks. The assembly then adjourned until July or August, when it might or might not be able to get a quorum for a second session. Several meetings called in times of Indian alarm or other emergencies were unable to secure a quorum. Twenty assembly sessions were scheduled between the evacuation of the British in 1782 and the adoption of a new state constitution in 1789, but only eleven secured a quorum and proceeded to business.¹

Assembly sessions often began by appointing a committee to consider what business needed to be transacted during the session. The January, 1783, session may be taken as an example. On January 11, a committee reported sixteen items that needed consideration.² When the session adjourned on February 18, ten of these items had not been settled. Means of meeting state expenses and paying the Continental quota were ignored or postponed. No action was taken to renew laws that were expiring. Nothing was done to regulate customhouses, to build and repair roads and ferries, to establish schools and promote religion, to erect courthouses and jails, or to instruct the state delegates to Congress. Matters which received attention were settlement of accounts due the state, the holding of an Indian congress and arranging the disposition of any lands which might be acquired by the state from the Indians, and the appointment of agents to settle the boundary dispute with South Carolina. Before adjournment, the assembly resolved that two representatives from each county assemble ten days before its summer meeting to consider what new or unfinished business should come before this session.³

This assembly appointed a commitee to examine the actions of the government during the war years. The committee reported that from December 29, 1778, until January 7, 1783, since it was impracticable to convene a legislature agreeable to the constitution, various bodies had acted as assemblies and executives and had done what appeared best at the time. Such actions should be reviewed and passed upon by a constitutional government, and those beneficial to the state should be ratified.⁴ The assembly took no action on this excellent suggestion.

When this assembly reconvened in July, Governor Lyman Hall laid before it a message that gave a complete picture of the state and suggested necessary actions—one of the few attempts at real executive leadership in Georgia during this period. After congratulating the assembly upon the conclusion of peace, Hall said he was sure that British subjects in Georgia and their reclamation by the state would receive just consideration and that he had written the governor of East Florida on the subject. Indian affairs were serious and needed attention. At a recent conference with the Creeks the anticipated cession of land had not been obtained. Instead, the Indians had left in bad humor because their horses and cattle had been stolen by whites. Whites continued to violate the Indian lands and to mark out lands for eventual settlement before they were even ceded by the Indians. Hall hoped that the assembly would take the drastic measures necessary to hold the whites in check and to prevent an Indian war—an excellent suggestion, but one that no Georgia assembly would take seriously. A sufficient tax to meet the obligations of the state should be imposed, to be paid in specie or produce out of the proceeds of the current crop. Hall had little hopes of realizing any income from confiscated estates, because of the large number of demands upon the estates to settle public accounts and because of the inability of the executive to secure all confiscated property. To improve the moral tenor and to prevent unlawful acts, schools supported by land grants should be established, and all possible encouragement should be given to organized religion. The land laws needed revision in order to guard against monopoly, to encourage settlement, and to secure the future resources of the state. The amount of interest to be paid on pre-Revolutionary debts needed consideration. Finally, attention needed to be given to the military defenses of the state.⁵ In line with Hall’s recommendations, the assembly revised the land law and imposed the first general tax a state government had enacted since 1778. Others of Hall’s recommendations were enacted into law throughout the next few years, but many of his excellent recommendations were completely ignored.

Throughout the 1780s assemblies became more like legislative bodies and seemed less affected by the psychology of recovery. They deliberated more over ordinary legislative business and less over recovery from the war. Procedure became more businesslike in that more standing committees were appointed, less consideration was given to individual petitions on the floor, and more laws were passed as the decade progressed.

A brief review of legislation in the 1780s will indicate the main items with which assemblies were concerned. In 1784 all provincial laws and all common or statute law of England in force in Georgia on May 14, 1776, and not contrary to the state constitution and statutes, were declared in force until repealed.⁶ The 1785 assembly made a concerted effort to settle the unfinished business from the war years. Back salaries, payments due soldiers and officials, and accounts against the state for supplies used by troops during the war were ordered paid. Much was done to unsnarl land titles which had become confused because of loss of records, incomplete sales, delayed payments, confiscations, conflicting provincial and state action, and general confusion of the war years.⁷

Throughout the decade, petitions of all sorts (especially those praying payment for war services or supplies not adequately documented) took up much legislative time. At first, many received individual attention by the assembly; but later they were referred to standing committees and large numbers were disposed of quickly once these committees had reported. Most assemblies were concerned with the laying out or the improvement of roads, navigation improvement, and regulation of and inspection of imports and exports. Changes in methods of land granting took up considerable time and were closely watched by speculators and those interested in the development of the state. Regulations for sale of confiscated estates were changed often. The application of the acts of confiscation and banishment to individuals was often stayed. Making state income equal to obligations was an annual problem that became less serious throughout the decade.

The assemblies of 1786 and 1787 were especially well organized and run. They worked with dispatch, refused to take up great amounts of time with minor petitions, appointed more standing committees, and showed more trust in the executive than other assemblies. Most assemblies seemed to assume that the executive and former assemblies could not be trusted and that their acts must be scrutinized carefully.

Each assembly adopted a set of rules, usually from nine to fifteen in number, to govern its operation and the conduct of its members. Generally daily sessions began at eight or nine and lasted until two or three in the afternoon, six days a week. The insistence of the rules that members attend promptly or be fined is an indication that attendance was not always good. The rules of 1785 and 1786 may be taken as typical of those adopted throughout the decade. Members were to speak no more than twice in the same debate unless they received the leave of the assembly. All motions and amendments were to be written out by the mover and made a part of the record. Members called to order were to be fined until the third offense, which carried the penalty of expulsion. The fine for the use of indecent language in debate was one dollar for the first time and doubled each time thereafter. There were fines for leaving the floor during a sitting without permission of the chair. Nonmembers were not allowed on the floor during debate.⁸

After the assembly, the next most important part of the state government was the executive, the governor and council acting together. The governor alone could take little action. Ordinarily the council met several times a week, sometimes daily, under the presidency of the governor. The constitution specified that one councilman from each county should always be in attendance upon the governor, but the practice developed of considering a council with representatives from four counties competent to do executive business. The executive considered this matter in 1784 and voted to continue the existing practice, although it did not agree with the constitution.⁹

The biggest item of executive business was the granting of lands and the hearing of caveats about disputed grants. Other duties were the issuing of licenses and passports, qualifying and commissioning civil and militia officers, reviewing petitions when the assembly was not in session, appointing officials in the recess of the assembly or those whose appointment the assembly vested in the executive, offering rewards for the apprehension of criminals, issuing warrants for payment of state debts, and performing other executive duties as instructed by the assembly. Throughout the 1780s the tendency was for the executive to make few decisions that could be referred to the assembly, even though there was a wait of several months.

Besides the governor and council there were other administrative officials elected by the assembly—secretary, treasurer, surveyor general, attorney general, auditor, collectors and other port officials for Savannah and Sunbury, and Indian commissioners. Most state offices were open either from nine until two or from nine until noon and from two until five, as ordered by the executive. Fees ranging from two pence to fourteen shillings were set by the executive or the assembly for most of the services of executive officers.¹⁰ These fees comprised a substantial part of the income of all officials, but no record has been discovered of the total income that any officials derived from fees.

Election campaigns, as that term is now understood, did not take place in post-Revolutionary Georgia. Ordinarily anyone desiring a public office left his name with the clerk of the assembly or a committee for transmission to assemblymen at the time of elections. Frequently assemblymen refused to serve after election, and some councilmen and local officials also refused to serve after election by the assembly. In 1788, James Jackson, a thirty-year-old hero of the Revolution, refused to serve as governor after his election by an assembly because he said that he was too young and inexperienced. William O’Bryan, elected as president of the executive council, also refused to serve and was replaced by George Handley. Handley then took over as acting governor until the assembly elected him governor.¹¹

The third department of government, the courts, consisted of a superior court in each county and courts of conscience (justice courts) for local matters. The superior courts were composed of the state chief justice, elected annually by the assembly, and assistant justices designated for each county when its superior court was created.¹² Two sessions of the superior courts, held annually in March and April and in October and November, usually lasted not over a week in each county. The chief justice went from county to county and sat as presiding justice with the local assistant justices. Because of the lack of sufficient jails to hold criminals until the superior court sessions, the chief justice or assistant justices were authorized, upon the approval of the executive, to hold special criminal courts between superior court sessions, with the same jurisdiction as the superior courts. At these criminal sessions, people accused of a felony that was not bailable could be tried.¹³

High points in court week often were the charge of the chief justice to the grand jury and the presentments of the grand jury. Some chief justices, especially George Walton and Henry Osborne, brought up matters of state-wide and national interest in their charges and usually got a response in the grand jury presentments. If a majority of the grand juries presented the same grievance, the assembly would probably consider the matter at its next meeting. Charges and presentments were laid before the executive and assembly and printed in the newspapers. They are often good indications of popular feeling throughout the state.

George Walton was elected chief justice in 1783. Walton was a leader in upcountry political circles and of the opponents to General McIntosh who were responsible for the “forged” letter against McIntosh sent to Congress in 1779. The day after Walton’s election as chief justice, the assembly investigated the “forged” letter and ordered the attorney general to bring charges against all those involved in the matter. At the March, 1783, session of the Chatham County Superior Court, the grand jury objected that Walton, the center of the McIntosh troubles and a man who should be prosecuted by the assembly’s order, was chief justice. Walton refused to receive the presentments of the grand jury and adjourned the court instead. The grand jury requested Governor Hall to suspend Chief Justice Walton, and Hall did so for the rest of the session. This suspension was reported to the assembly in July, but the body took no action. Walton held the fall circuit of court and was generally thanked for his excellent charges, even in Chatham County.¹⁴ The action of Walton, Hall, and the Chatham grand jury was another incident in the coastal-upcountry struggle for political power.

The absence of any supreme court or appeals machinery in Georgia made for a lack of judicial uniformity and might have created legal confusion. The chief justice could be a unifying force if he were strong enough. Usually he was a trained lawyer; but he could always be outvoted by the assistant justices, many of whom had no legal training. There were some complaints about this lack of judicial uniformity but little demand that a supreme court be created.¹⁵

Sentences of the courts always reflect the society of the day, and typical sentences of Georgia courts give a good economic and social picture of the times. Sentences varied widely because of the lack of legislative specification or judicial uniformity and also according to the mood of the court or past record of the criminal. Horse stealing might be punished with penalties varying from thirty-nine lashes to hanging. Negro stealing usually brought only whipping. The punishment for murder varied from branding in the hand to hanging, while counterfeiting South Carolina paper currency almost inevitably drew a death penalty.¹⁶

Admission to practice law in Georgia courts was secured by individual application to the assembly. A 1784 statute required the chief justice to investigate all applicants and to recommend to the speaker those he thought qualified by training and experience. Applicants coming from other states must be recommended by their governor or chief justice and reside in Georgia for six months before they applied to practice in her courts.¹⁷

Despite the statement of the constitution that the three departments of government were separate and distinct, the assembly and executive exercised considerable control over the courts. The executive suspended two chief justices and the assistant justices of Chatham County at different times. When John Houstoun was suspended as chief justice in 1786, he pointed out that he had refused to assume the duties of chief justice and hence could not be suspended. Had he assumed the office, he said, he would have ignored the suspension which was clearly illegal under the constitution. The executive appointed William Stith, a defeated candidate for the office when Houstoun was elected, as chief justice along with three assistant justices for Chatham County. The assembly considered this suspension and resolved that the executive could not suspend a member of the superior court. However, because Houstoun had declined to accept his appointment, Stith should exercise the office of chief justice until the next election. The suspended assistant justices for Chatham County ignored their suspension, met, and conducted judicial business on April 25, 1786, at which time the attorney general pleaded before them.¹⁸

The assembly, rather than the courts, was the final authority in constitutional interpretation. It passed at least three acts or resolutions in the 1780s to explain a portion of the constitution.¹⁹ At one time the chief justice requested a constitutional construction from the executive on a recently-passed law. The fact that the matter involved the pardoning of criminals, an executive concern, may be the reason the chief justice requested the opinion of the executive.²⁰ Several people expressed the belief that in case of a conflict between the constitution and a law, the constitution must prevail;²¹ but there is no record of a court declaring an act of the assembly unconstitutional.

Georgia’s laws had never been digested, codified, or even collected. Most laws passed after 1763 were printed at the end of each assembly session, except that during the British occupation, 1779-1782, apparently no state laws were printed. There were frequent complaints that copies of the laws were not available to justices to aid them in law enforcement. To rectify this matter, the 1786 assembly appointed Nathaniel Pendleton, one of the leading lawyers of the state, to collect, digest, and arrange all laws and ordinances then in force.²² Apparently the digest was never made; certainly it was never published.

Georgians had participated in their provincial assembly and courts ever since the creation of royal government in 1754; but there had been only one government in the colony, that at Savannah. The need for local governmental units was not felt until the physical expansion of the 1770s, and the first such units, counties, were created by the state constitution of 1777. Counties had little chance to function properly until the state was cleared of the British in 1782; hence it may be said that local self-government did not really begin until the postwar decade. The constitution did not attempt to divide governmental functions between the state and the counties, but left this to the assembly which gradually gave the counties more powers and duties.

For road construction and maintenance the colonial practice of appointing special commissioners for each road was continued after the war ended, but in 1785 commissioners were appointed by the assembly for each county. Yet the next year when a new road was ordered built between Sunbury and Augusta, the assembly returned to the old program of specially appointed commissioners. In the summer of 1786, the assembly ended its concern with roads by vesting regulation of ferries and roads in the superior courts of each county.²³ In 1789, the executive did order a road constructed by fatigue parties of state troops from the Big Shoals of the Ogeechee to Rock Landing on the Oconee. This road was entirely within Washington County, but it was in a new portion of the state and was ordered built for use in the anticipated Creek war.²⁴ Before the passage of the 1786 act, the assembly itself sometimes acted to establish ferries and sometimes referred the matter to local authorities.²⁵ After 1786, improvement of navigable streams continued under the old system of special commissioners.²⁶ Labor for both road and stream improvement was furnished by requiring a certain number of days of work from all males living along the route traversed.

The establishment of counties, the location of county seats and places for holding elections, the erection of courthouses and jails with the initial appropriation therefor, and the creation of superior courts were all matters determined by the assembly. Tax collectors, registers of probate, county surveyors, and justices were state officials and were elected by the assembly. County officers elected in every county were the sheriff, the clerk of the court, and the coroner. Generally assemblymen and county officials tended to remain in office for several years, especially in the older counties. Only one incident of “campaigning” for county office, that of clerk of the court of Chatham County, has been discovered.²⁷

The first machinery of local government was that used in the older colonies, the county court or the justices acting collectively. First superior courts were given control over roads and ferries. Funds derived from the tolling of strays (cattle) were to be used by the courts in the building and upkeep of bridges.²⁸ Superior courts had power to lay out districts for courts of conscience.²⁹ In Wilkes County the court was given the power to levy a tax to supplement the legislative appropriation to build the courthouse and jail.³⁰ County justices meeting together had authority to oversee the poor and to levy a small tax for this purpose.³¹ These were the more important powers acquired by counties in the 1780s.

Town self-government also developed in the 1780s. In 1783 the assembly considered the incorporation of Savannah but took no action. In 1785 all laws relating to the city were collected into one act. Town commissioners were appointed and given control of public property in the city, were directed to oversee sanitary and police regulations, and were empowered to assess and to collect taxes for the necessary expenses of the city government. The commissioners organized at once and levied a tax of three shillings and six pence on every fire hearth, shop or store without a chimney, and unimproved lot.³² The next year the incorporation of Savannah was again considered, but instead the commissioners were given additional powers.³³ Incorporation came in 1787 when the town was divided into wards, and proprietors of lots or houses within each ward were directed to elect a warden annually. The wardens were to elect a president from their membership, appoint a clerk and other needed officials, levy necessary taxes for the city government, control public property in the city, regulate the public docks, and make all laws and regulations necessary for the city. All other laws regulating Savannah were repealed, and the city had control of its local affairs for the first time since its founding.³⁴

The act of 1785 also appointed commissioners for Sunbury and gave them the same powers as the Savannah commissioners.³⁵ The next year the trustees of Richmond Academy were given the same powers for the government of Augusta.³⁶ In 1788, the assembly appointed commissioners for Brunswick, in Glynn County.³⁷ Washington, in Wilkes County, was given no single government but continued to be governed by several sets of commissioners each responsible to the assembly for specific duties—the old pattern of town government in Georgia. The origin of any town-governing body, except in Savannah, was in the need to lay out the town or enlarge it, sell the lots, and use the income thus secured to erect public buildings, especially a building to serve as a church and public school. This combination of duties undoubtedly resulted from the fact that all these things needed to be done and that the income from the sale of lots was essential to the erection of public buildings.

Besides problems of governmental machinery and its operation, there were several political questions of importance that Georgia was concerned with during these times. One of these was the location of the state capital. After the British evacuation Savannah again became the capital. But coastal Georgia had lost its political pre-eminence and much of its economic importance during the war years, and the state had become attuned to the desires of the frontiersmen. Since 1779, Augusta, the center of the rapidly growing upcountry, had been the capital when it was free of the British. In the summer of 1783, the executive began residing in Augusta a part of the time to facilitate land granting, and between 1783 and 1785 moved ten times between Savannah and Augusta. During the same years the assembly held sessions in first one city and then the other. Some of the executive offices moved with the executive; but the permanent offices, except the surveyor general, tended to remain in Savannah.

In January, 1786, the assembly directed that a new town to be called Louisville and located within twenty miles of Galphin’s Old Town be laid out as the capital and seat of the university. Until the new town was ready to receive the government, the assembly agreed to meet in Augusta, and directed the executive and executive offices to reside there. Despite this law, in 1789 the attorney general and auditor had not yet moved to Augusta.³⁸ Louisville did not become the capital until 1795.

Savannah did not like this loss of political importance but was powerless to prevent the moving of the capital. However, she did make her feelings obvious when the secretary’s office prepared to move to Augusta. In the colonial period, the secretary’s office was the sole office of record in the colony; but the constitution of 1777 directed counties to keep their own records. Before the records in the secretary’s office were moved to Augusta, the newly elected chief justice, John Houstoun, and the Chatham County justices went through the records, extracted what they considered Chatham County records, and deposited them in the office of the clerk of the superior court in Savannah. The executive immediately suspended the chief justice and the county justices involved. A newspaper controversy ensued in which the justices set forth their viewpoint at great length. They maintained that they were upholding the constitution and that the moving of county records ordered by the executive was unconstitutional. The assembly considered the matter and decided that the executive had exceeded its powers in this suspension. In November, the disrupted records were reported to be in the secretary’s office.³⁹ For two years Georgia had been reclaiming her public records, which had been scattered from Charleston to Maryland during the war years, and she did not intend to lose them to one of her own counties despite the constitutional opinion of the county justices.⁴⁰

Because of Georgia’s need for new settlers and her desire to exclude ex-Tories, another matter of concern was citizenship legislation. The first act on this subject was passed just after the British evacuation and provided that people from other states who desired to become citizens must produce certificates of their attachment to United States independence and of their personal honesty and industry, from a magistrate in the area of their last residence. Natives of Scotland, unless they had fought for United States independence, were forbidden entry into Georgia.⁴¹

The same act declared that all who neither cultivated sufficient land to support their families nor followed a trade should be termed vagrants and either be sent out of the state or required to serve two years in the Continental Army. Later, a vagrant was defined as anyone who did not cultivate three acres of land or follow a trade. People convicted as vagrants were to give bond for good behavior and for engaging in employment, or they might be bound out for a year’s service. Vagrants who could not be bound out because no one would take them for the year’s service might either be given thirty-nine lashes and released or enlist as state soldiers. Transported felons from other states or countries were not allowed to settle in Georgia.⁴²

To carry out the 1782 law, all transients who came into the state were required to register with the attorney general or a justice of the peace.⁴³ A number of aliens who did not come under the provisions of the act made application to the assembly for citizenship, which was usually granted.⁴⁴ A general naturalization bill passed in 1785 provided that aliens who desired to become citizens must, after twelve months’ residence in the state, obtain certificates of their honesty and friendship for Georgia from a grand jury. Citizenship was then conferred by their taking an oath of loyalty to Georgia, but voting and office-holding were not allowed for seven years. No one who had fought against the United States or who was named in any act of confiscation or banishment could be naturalized. Aliens who were citizens of friendly powers could own or rent land and could sue in state courts for debts that arose after July 20, 1782.⁴⁵ After this act, the assembly continued to admit some individuals to citizenship by special act without the prescribed waiting period. Frenchmen who were properly introduced were allowed to become full citizens after three years’ residence, or after one year if they married a United States or a Georgia citizen.⁴⁶

In many respects one of the most persistent problems before the state government in the 1780s was finances. During the occupation of the state by the British, no tax bill had been passed, and state government had lived as best it could by borrowing and by informal financial arrangements. At the British evacuation the only source of state income was from the sale of confiscated estates or payments by people named in the act of amercement. It was hoped that confiscated estates would meet the state’s immediate financial needs; but, in the summer of 1783, Governor Hall reported that little more could be expected from that service and that a general tax was necessary. The 1783 assembly passed a tax bill, directed the collection of taxes and duties in arrears, and imposed a tax on items sold at public vendue.⁴⁷ The first postwar import duties were imposed early in 1784.⁴⁸ The state’s income henceforth came from taxes, import duties, license fees, land sales, and a small amount from the sale of confiscated estates. Throughout the 1780s continuous attempts were made to force people who had received public funds during the war to settle their accounts.

In Georgia, as in other states, large amounts of bills of credit and other paper money were issued during the war to meet current expenses. Purchase or impressment of military and civilian supplies was made by numerous officials on the credit of the state. When the war ended, the state did not know how much it owed, because no accounts had been kept. People with accounts for or against the state were directed to have them audited. After the auditor had checked and approved accounts against the state, he issued certificates for the indebtedness, known as audits or audited certificates, which could be used in payment of half the purchase price of confiscated estates.⁴⁹

The same law provided that certificates or audited accounts of state indebtedness not exchanged for confiscated property might be exchanged for new certificates–commonly known as funded certificates–bearing interest at seven per cent per annum in specie and redeemable in seven years. People entitled to funded certificates rushed to secure them; consequently, the state’s interest payments increased greatly. Because many bonds given in payment for confiscated estates were defaulted, and because there was never enough specie in the treasury, funded certificates were issued and received at the treasury in lieu of specie. Taxes were poorly collected, and collectors were often several years behind in their accounts with the treasury. Import duties were evaded because of insufficient collection personnel. Confusion reigned supreme in the treasury, and the only sure thing was that the state owed more than it could pay and never had enough specie.

Early in 1783, a table of depreciation for paper money issued during the war was established by law, to be used in settling both public and private accounts. In January, 1777, paper money and specie were declared equal in value. By January, 1778, the ratio was specie 100, paper 287½; January, 1779, specie 100, paper 798 1/10; January, 1780, specie 100, paper 3,378 3/10; and June, 1780 (when the table ended), specie 100, paper 8,114 7/10. Continental currency was made to depreciate even faster, so that by June, 1780, its value was specie 100, paper 16,229 1/10.⁵⁰ Two years later, a law required that all Revolutionary bills of credit be exchanged with the auditor for specie certificates at the rate of £1 specie for £1,000 bills of credit if still in the hands of the original holders, or at the depreciated rate if in the hands of others.⁵¹ By these two acts, most of the war indebtedness of the state was repudiated or greatly reduced in value.

It is impossible to make any exact accounting of the state’s financial condition throughout the 1780s. Until 1786, no official was able to present a complete picture. Records had been fragmentary before 1782, and after 1782 they were often poorly kept and not promptly turned over to new officials. Every assembly appointed a finance committee, but the reports from year to year show little continuity. Most committees seemed concerned only with the affairs of the current year, and showed little concern for the total financial picture. It was often recommended that a complete accounting be made, but nothing was done until 1785-1786.

Treasurer Seth J. Cuthbert made a complete report of the state finances to the assembly that convened in January, 1786. He pointed out how the funding law of 1783 had increased the amount of interest payable until it consumed practically the entire specie income and that little interest was paid on the bonds due to the state. Because there was no specie in the treasury, the executive had authorized the acceptance of interest certificates on funded certificates for specie payment due to the state, and much of the taxes and import duties paid since the summer of 1785 had been paid thus. Cuthbert was afraid that specie payments would cease entirely because of the increase in the amount of funded certificates. He suggested that both interest and principal of funded certificates be accepted in payment for personal bonds, when they fell due, to take up funded certificates and stop payment of interest by the state for which no specie was available. This plan would cancel state debts upon which interest was due in specie with indebtedness to the state upon which no interest could be collected. Cuthbert also recommended that a system of allocating certain income for specific expenses be devised so that the state’s rapidly deteriorating credit could be improved.⁵²

The assembly took no action on these recommendations but did object to the executive allowing the treasurer to accept interest certificates in lieu of specie and also objected to a subordinate officer applying to the executive on a matter about which the law was very specific. The assembly was sure that sufficient funds had been appropriated in 1785 to support the government had specie been paid into the treasury as directed by law. No funds were available, yet nothing was done to pay pressing demands and past due salaries.

The assembly was not able to determine the status of suits by the state against defaulted bonds in the treasury, but it did not think that much income could be realized in this way. It had no hopes of collecting any specie as long as funded certificates and current expense warrants were outstanding. £21,780.13. 4 was appropriated for the current year; and the executive was ordered to anticipate the entire expected income from taxes by the issuance of £8,000 in treasury drafts to be received for all taxes and other specie payments due the state, except duties on tonnage and shipping.⁵³ Despite assembly objections to the executive’s handling of finances and accepting certificates in lieu of specie, it had no better ideas itself and ordered the issuance of new certificates whose acceptance as specie would preclude any specie coming into the treasury. After much labor, not even a molehill was brought forth.

Governor Edward Telfair gave a complete report of state finances to the summer session of the 1786 assembly. A total of £220,633.10. 3¼ was due to the state, most of it in personal bonds received in payment for confiscated estates. The public debt was listed at £204,424. 0. 1½ — £119,368. 9.½ in audited accounts, £72,523.15. 5 in funded certificates, and small amounts of other types of obligations. Telfair recommended that a system be devised to liquidate the state debt with the sums owed to the state, so that the state could operate on a specie basis. Especially, he recommended that the old debt be drawn into one debt to relieve the complicated bookkeeping in the treasury. If this were done, Telfair was sure that all funded demands upon the treasury would be reduced and the state’s credit improved.⁵⁴

Instead of action on the governor’s request for a general overhaul of the state’s finances, the assembly refused even to act upon the finance committee’s recommendation that the next assembly study the matter. It did provide for the issuance of £50,000 in bills of credit to meet the pressing needs of the treasury and cancelled the £8,000 treasury drafts authorized in February.⁵⁵

A report of January 1, 1787, showed a reduction in the state debt to £185,649. 6. 2½ — £155,382. 2. 2¾ in audited or funded certificates and the rest in current indebtedness. During 1786, £29,930.18. 3¼ in audited and funded certificates had been received in the treasury along with £24,729. 9.10¼ in other types of income. This was an indication that the state’s financial condition was improving, a fact which Governor George Mathews confirmed early in 1787. However, Mathews lamented that the paper medium was in “low credit.” Collection of personal bonds and interest due the state had not improved.⁵⁶

In 1787, £45,410. 7. 3 in state emissions was taken into the treasury. Since many tax collectors had not reported their collections when this report was made, the state’s income and reduction in indebtedness was really greater. In 1787, £47,358.11.10 was reported paid out of the treasury—£26,131. 9. 8½ for current expenses and the rest for audited and funded certificates and the bills of credit issued in 1786. In 1788 the assembly approved the treasurer’s receiving any type current obligations of the state for sums due to the state.⁵⁷

State income and expenses are hard to determine because often the only figures available are estimates at the beginning of the year; and all figures of actual income and expenditures are incomplete because of the slowness of many county officials in reporting. The largest regular items of expense were salaries and per diem for councilors, assemblymen, and members of Congress. Executive salaries amounted to between £2,000 and £3,000 a year. The governor received from £300 to £500, usually £400; the chief justice and auditor usually £300 each; and other officials from £20 to £200.⁵⁸ Total estimates of state governmental expenses ranged from £15,000 to £20,000 a year exclusive of Continental requisitions, Indian treaties, and military expenses. For 1789 regular state expenses were as follows:⁵⁹

Because the treasury was usually empty of specie or negotiable instruments, the state often had difficulty in securing funds for ordinary expenses. As long as any resources were left from confiscated estates, they were used; but this source was about exhausted by the end of 1783. The state frequently resorted to barter. To get £1,500 in goods needed for a 1783 Indian treaty, rice was exported to East Florida to pay for goods secured from British Indian traders. Disabled veterans were paid their pensions with drafts on the treasury which would be received in payment of custom duties from any merchant who let the original recipients have the goods he desired. The little specie was usually paid out to Continental delegates, who could not be paid in state paper. When Joseph Clay tried to collect 7,253 livres due for military stores purchased during the war from merchants in Cape Francais, the treasurer was directed to deliver to Clay bonds due to the state that would produce this sum when sold or collected. When Benjamin Franklin requested payment for his services as colonial agent, the assembly said that it could not order a specie draft but ordered 3,000 acres of land granted to Franklin, survey expenses to be paid by the state.⁶⁰ The regular method of paying salaries and state expenses was to issue warrants signed by the governor or speaker, directing that the funds be paid by the treasury. The recipients of these drafts used them to pay taxes and amounts owed to the state or sold them to someone who did have state obligations to pay. Favored creditors got drafts “for the first specie that comes into the Treasury,” but usually there was no specie.

Upon the recommendation of Governor Lyman Hall, the assembly passed in the summer of 1783 the first general tax bill since 1778. Because of the distressed condition of the state, the tax was confined to a quarter of a dollar on every 100 acres of land, every slave, and every town lot; one dollar on every free Negro or Mulatto; and two dollars on every male twenty-one or older who did not follow a profession or trade or cultivate at least five acres of land. The executive remonstrated that the tax was too small to fulfill the needs of the state and that one-half of a dollar was the absolute minimum required, but the assembly was deaf to these entreaties.⁶¹

The summer session of the 1784 assembly never secured a quorum; so no tax bill was passed that year. The 1785 tax rates are quoted as typical of the postwar years.

Double tax was levied on all vacant lands owned by adult males who did not live in the state and on vacant lands over 2,000 acres regardless of ownership. Half of the tax might be paid in audited or funded certificates.⁶² Tax rates varied from year to year and were considerably higher in 1787 and 1788 than in 1785.⁶³

Despite the need for revenues and stiff penalties for non-payment, tax collection was very poor. In every tax law, tax receivers and collectors were appointed for the counties and were paid on a commission basis for the amounts collected. Many of these refused to act or delayed making returns or payments to the treasury. Of the thirty-three tax returns due from collectors for 1785-1787, fourteen had not been made by March, 1788.⁶⁴ Repeated instructions from the executive to take action against delinquent tax collectors did not improve the matter. At the end of 1786 only £1,322. 0. 7½ tax money had been paid into the treasury, and most of it came from Chatham County. Later four counties made complete returns, and £8,377. 3. 4 for 1786 taxes had been paid into the treasury by 1788.⁶⁵

In addition to the regular taxes, there was for 1788 a specific tax of six shillings and three pence on every £100 worth of property, levied to support state troops raised to fight the Creeks. This tax could be paid in foodstuffs, and at the end of the year £4,925.12. 8½ had been received while £3,515.15. 6 was yet due from county collectors. Because of the Indian troubles in Liberty, Glynn, Camden, Washington, Greene, and Franklin counties, the assembly allowed the collection of arrears in these counties to be suspended, and apparently no more was collected.⁶⁶

Import and export duties on foreign trade had been standard in colonial Georgia. The only duty that was in effect when the British evacuated Savannah in 1782 was a duty on raw hides exported to any area except Great Britain, and this duty was probably not collected. A transient duty may have been in effect, but this is uncertain.⁶⁷ Certainly a transient duty was imposed on July 30, 1783, but it was soon reported as being studiously evaded by importers.⁶⁸ The first general duty levied after the war was 2½ per cent of the prime cost of all goods imported, imposed by an assembly resolution of February 11, 1784. The same assembly passed an act for regulating trade, laying duties on imports, and impost on tonnage and shipping; but no copy of this act has been located and nothing is known of its contents. The next year the assembly agreed that transient duties should not apply to citizens of other states because they did not apply to Georgians.⁶⁹

The three tariff acts for the 1780s that have been located⁷⁰ are similar as to items taxed, amount of duty, and general provisions. Specific duties were laid on most items imported regardless of value. A few items and all imports not given specific duties were taxed according to value. Rates were set to discourage or prohibit the importation of slaves from other states or the West Indies, unless the importer intended to settle in Georgia, in which case there was no import duty. Imports from British possessions were taxed one-third to three times higher than the same items from non-British territory. Any import not the product of the United States was taxed even if it came from another state, but products of the other states entered duty free. Goods ordinarily entered through the ports of Savannah and Sunbury (Brunswick and St. Marys were added by the end of the 1780s) and overland from Charleston, mainly at Augusta.⁷¹ Although a collector for Augusta was appointed after 1787, collection was difficult for overland imports. Imports in United States-owned vessels were entitled to a twenty-five per cent reduction in duties; if the vessel were built in the United States there was an additional ten per cent reduction. There were port fees and tonnage duties that were applied to the expense of port operation and the upkeep of the seamen’s hospital in Savannah. The 1787 and 1789 duty acts specified that they were to remain in force only so long as they did not conflict with acts of the United States Congress.

A report of income from customs duties has been found only for the period February 1-December 31, 1788, and shows a total of £4,637. 5. 9½. £4,082. 1.11 was paid into the treasury and the rest used for harbor and office expenses. Treasurer Seth J. Cuthbert in his 1786 report to the assembly estimated that £500 had been evaded by importers in the past several months, and there were other reports of customs duty evasions at Augusta and the state ports.⁷²