keeping up of fences. All this class of legisla tion was strictly within the legislative prerogative to enact police regulations for the protection of the public peace and society. It would be quite anomalous to say that an evil may exist to the detriment of the best interests of society, and yet the Legislature had no right to suppress it, or to enact measures for its prevention. The bill does not prohibit the sale of cotton. A bill which proposed absolutely to prohibit the sale of cotton would be unconstitutional, but a bill which simply restricts and limits its sale is no more violative of the Constitution than the bill which restricts the sale of spirituous liquors. It was urged in reply that the sole end of government was to protect the life, liberty, and property of the citizen. Any law that prohibited the sale of property must be in derogation of the right secured to the citizen under the Constitution. It was far more than a police regulation to prohibit the citizen from selling his property in any quantity and manner he pleases. It might possibly be a police regulation to prescribe that the citizen must sell his property at a certain place or within certain specified hours, or that he must pay a license to sell; but to say that he shall not sell at all is in plain derogation of the Constitution. The bill might as well provide that the citizen shall not sell his corn in the ear, his oats in the sheaf, or he must make his timber in certain shapes. The sale of liquor parallel is far-fetched. Spirituous liquors are not necessary for the existence and support of the human family. Cotton is a production upon which the people depend in a measure for their means of support, and to say that they shall not dispose of their means of existence as they see fit, is not only a violation of the Constitution, but it is an assault upon magna charta itself that great fountain from which the whole fabric of free constitutional government is drawn. The bill, however, passed both Houses and became a law.

66

Subsequently the trial of an indictment against two persons for buying seed-cotton took place before the Circuit Court of Lowndes County. The argument for the defense was that the law violated that clause of the Constitution of the State which provides that no ex post facto law, or any law impairing the obligation of contracts or making any irrevocable grants of special privileges or immunities, shall be passed by the General Assembly," and the further clause which provides that "the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property; and when the government assumes other functions, it is usurpation and oppressive." The Judge sustained the unconstitutionality of the law, and the case will likely go up to the Supreme Court. The benefit produced by the law is considered very great on the part of the cottonplanters; while the members of the bar with equal unanimity regard it as unconstitutional.

VOL. XIX.-2 A

A bill was passed to protect planters and farmers against farmers from Texas who come into the State to obtain colored laborers. A large colored emigration from the State to Texas has caused great inconvenience. The bill as passed applies to the counties of Dallas, Perry, Washington, Barbour, Marengo, Pike, Montgomery, Covington, Monroe, Lowndes, Greene, Elmore, Macon, Talladega, Bibb, Bullock, Lee, Tuscaloosa, and Shelby, and requires a license of $100. It also provides that a person failing to pay such license shall be fined three times the amount of such license, and may also be imprisoned in the county jail, or required to do hard labor for the county for not more than one year.

The reduction of taxation was much discussed, and a resolution passed in the House asking the Governor to furnish all statistics and other information in his possession which would or would not justify the Legislature in reducing the rate of taxation. The Governor. in reply stated that the taxable property of the State had diminished in value from $160,000,000 to about $125,000,000, and for the year 1879 the reported assessments indicated a still further diminution amounting to ten millions or more. The amount of interest to be paid on the debt increases as additional bonds are exchanged. This increase will continue until all the bonds covered by the settlement of the debt shall have been exchanged. In 1881 this will be augmented by an increase in the rate of interest from two to three per cent. on one class of bonds, and from two to four upon another, which will amount to an annual increase of one third of the present interest, or about $90,000. The balance in the State Treasury at the close of the session would not exceed $60,000. This would include $40,000 in State obligations and $5,000 in Patton certificates, all of which will be destroyed as provided by law, and thus leave only about $15,000 in cash, which would include all the revenue collected and paid into the Treasury up to that time. If the rate of last year's assessment be maintained for 1879 and 1880, the balance on the 1st of October, 1880, will not exceed $136,000; and as but a small amount of the taxes for the year will go into the Treasury by the 1st of January, 1881, the demands upon the Treasury occasioned by the expense of the session of the General Assembly of 1880, about $40,000, and the January interest in 1881, about $160,000, will exceed the cash in the Treasury $64,000, for the payment of which a loan will have to be negotiated, until a sufficient amount shall be collected from the taxes of that year to pay the same. After a disagreement between the two Houses, the tax rate for 1879 was left unchanged, and for 1880 it was reduced to 65 cents on the $100.

The Committee on Privileges and Elections reported an amendment to the State Code, which directed the form, size, and quality of the paper used as a ballot at elections, and also

sponsible positions under the courts of the United States, but have taken them to Huntsville for preliminary hearing, in a distant part of the State, and that they have in many other cases traveled circuitous routes to avoid nearer commissioners. And that they have arrested, and without preliminary trial confined one John Jackson in jail for fifty days, during Booth, Deputy-Collector Smith, W. H. Hunter, Comthe severe rigor of the late cold weather. Collector missioner, Deputy - Marshals Randolph and G. W. Golson, and others, are charged with these abuses.

zens of the State, as alleged; which resulted in the adoption of the following joint memorial to Congress:

To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled: The joint memorial of the Senate and House of Representatives, composing the General Assembly of Alabama, complaining, respectfully calls the attention of your honorable bodies to the injuries inflicted on the citizens of Alabama by the misuse and abuse, by certain United States officials in this State, of the power intrusted to them. It is apparent to all who sce them, that the juries of the United States Courts are not generally a fair representation of the country, but that they are manipulated for a purpose, and for the conviction of petty offenses which are not prosecuted in the true interest of the United States, but to produce fees for those interested in them. It has also been brought to the attention of your memorialists by the representations and petitions of a large number of worthy and reputable citizens, as well as by the statements of many members of this body and of the Senate, that in the Northern and Middle judicial districts of Alabama the internal revenue officers, marshal's deputies and agents, along with traveling United States Commissioner W. H. Hunter, have practiced the grossest abuses under pretense of enforcing the internal revenue laws of the United States. That under this pretense they have raided over the country with large bodies of armed men and, regardless of law and decency, have abused and insulted the people without cause. That they have unlawfully and without pretext broken open storehouses and private trunks, and have either taken the contents or have allowed others to do so. That they have foraged on the country without pay, or upon a tender of the merest pittances for subsistence they have taken. That they have wantonly broken down fences and turned stock in on the growing crops of the people. That they have in mere mischief shot down the cattle and hogs of private citizens. That they have conducted themselves in a riotous and disorderly manner, and in mere wantonness have fired into the yards and around the dwellings of defenseless females for the brutal gratification of terrifying them. That they have arrested persons and carried them long distances, when they were at once discharged, without cause; and it has been a common occurrence to arrest and handcuff and carry citizens before United States commissioners at long distances from the homes of such persons, for preliminary investigations, where they have no friends to bail them if bound over, and no meaus to defray their expenses back in cases of discharge, when there were commissioners of character and standing near to the places of arrest. That they have repeatedly refused to take persons so arrested in the near neighborhood of General Joseph W. Burke, a commissioner of the United States residing in Calhoun County, lately of the United States Army, and holding re

As the terms of the courts of the Northern judicial district of Alabama approach, these statements show that the roads and the courtyards are thronged with poverty-stricken witnesses in vast numbers, called term after term, and present a picture which is sad to look upon. The historian Gibbon elegantly but feelingly portrays the vengeance visited by Theodosius upon Antioch, and tells us that "the tribunal of Hellebricus and Cæsarius, encompassed with armed soldiers, was erected in the midst of the forum. The noblest and most wealthy of the citizens of Antioch appeared before them in chains; the examination was assisted by the use of torture, and their sentence was announced or suspended according to the judgment of these extraordinary magistrates. The houses of the citizens were exposed to sale, and their wives and children were suddenly reduced from affluence and luxury to the most absolute distress." The abuses of the United States officials in Alabama, thus brought to the knowledge of your memorialists, show that vengeance of officials has lost nothing in the destructive abuses of power since the days of Theodosius, and that the bistory of the miseries of Antioch repeats itself in modern times. Your memorialists pray your honorable bodies to relieve our people from a repetition of these disgraceful scenes, and to let them feel more of the protection which will follow from a gentler though may be a stern administration of the laws of the United States, and so teach them to love, not drive them to hate, its administration.

An act was passed to donate $75 to any resident of the State who, while in the military service of the State or of the Confederate States, lost an arm or a leg.

On the bill to repeal the section of the Code which requires ballots to be numbered at elections, it was urged in its favor as follows:

This is intended to preserve the purity of the ballotbox, whose purity and sanctity are synonymous. Unless the law shuts out every approach to destroy the sanctity of the ballot-box, how shall the weak vote against the strong, the poor against the rich, or the low against the high? The Supreme Courts of eight Northern States have declared by decisions that the violation of the sanctity of the ballot-box in any way is unconstitutional; and the State of Indiana has not only declared this principle by its highest court, but has also cited the numbering of a ballot as a violation of this sanctity, and declared a statute of the State void because it required the ballots to be numbered. It may be asked, Has this decision been acted upon? I can answer, It has. The State of Ohio, one of the greatest Northern States, makes it a violation of law for any one to number, mark, or so designate a vote that it may be known, thereby stamping the numbering of a vote as an infringement and violation of the secrecy of the ballot-box, which is its only safe

The following resolution relative to changing the manner of choosing Presidential Electors was adopted in the Senate:

Whereas, Interference by officers of the United States in popular elections is justly regarded by the people of this State as an evil of great magnitude; and Whereas, The manifest purpose of such interference, in part at least, is to influence and control the action of the State in selecting Electors for President and Vice-President of the United States; therefore

Resolved, That the Committee on Foreign Relations be instructed to inquire into the expediency of providing by law for the selection of President and VicePresident by the General Assembly until the acts of Congress authorizing interference by Federal authority are rescinded.

The division of the State into judicial districts was accomplished by making the Congressional districts constitute the circuits, except as to the following counties: Randolph, instead of being in the seventh, is put into the fifth; Olay, instead of being in the fifth, is put into the seventh; Marion and Winston, instead of being in the sixth, are put into the eighth. The act to organize and regulate the system of public instruction sets apart for the support of the schools and appropriates the following sums, which thus compose the school revenue: The annual interest at 6 per cent. upon all sums of money which have heretofore been received or which may hereafter be received by the State as the proceeds of sales of lands granted or intrusted by the United States to the State, or to the several townships thereof, for school purposes; the annual interest at 4 per cent. on that part of the surplus revenue of the United States deposited with the State under the act of Congress approved June 23, 1836; all the annual rents, incomes, profits, or in terests arising from the proceeds of sales of all such lands as may hereafter be given by the United States, or by the State, or by individuals, for the support of the public schools; all such sums as may accrue to the State as escheats, which are to be applied to the support of the public schools during the scholastic year next succeeding their receipt in the State Treasury; also all rents, incomes, and profits received into the State Treasury during the scholastic year, from all lands remaining unsold, which have heretofore been donated by the Congress of the United States for the support of the public schools; all licenses which are by law required to be paid into the school fund of any county, the same to be expended for the benefit of the public schools in such county, and all such license-tax shall be promptly paid by the probate judge, or such person collecting such tax, to the County Superintendent of Education; also the

further sum of $130,000 from any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated. The poll-tax of each county shall be retained in the county for the schools thereof. Such poll-tax is fixed at $1.50 on each male inhabitant over twenty-one and less than forty-five years of age. In 1877-'78 it amounted to $109,762.

The public school officers are a State Superintendent of Education, a county and one township superintendent.

The following three sections of this act relate to the schools and the children:

SEC. 48. Be it further enacted, That every township and fraction of a township which is divided by a State or county line, or any other insuperable barrier, such as rivers, creeks, or mountains, and every incorporated city or town having three thousand inhabitants, shall constitute separate school districts, and each shall be under the township superintendent of public schools, as to all matters connected with public schools. Each township or other school district, in its corporate capacity as created by law, may hold real and personal property; and the business of such corporations, in relation to public schools and school fands, shall be managed by the township or district superintendents.

SEC. 49. Be it further enacted, That every child be entitled to admission into, and instructed in any between the ages of seven and twenty-one years shall public school of its own race or color in the township in which he or she resides, or to any public school of its own race or color, in the State of Alabama, as herein provided.

year shall begin on the first day of October of each SEC. 50. Be it further enacted, That the scholastic year, and end on the thirtieth day of September of the following year. Twenty days shall constitute a school month. A school day shall comprise not less than

six hours.

According to the report of the Superintendent of Education, the number of school districts in the State in the year 1877-'78 was 1,700; number of schools taught, white 2,696, colored 1,404; number of teachers employed, white 2,722, colored 1,423; grades of schools taught, primary 1,590, intermediate 1,370, grammar 973, high 167; school population, white 214,279, colored 155,168; number enrolled in schools, white 86,485, colored 54,745; average attendance in schools, white 61,584, colored 40,092.

There is a normal school at Florence, upon

the most approved plan, for the education of white teachers, male and female. Another, at Marion, is for the education of colored teachers; and a university, connected therewith, for the education of colored students in the higher departments of learning. Another is located at Huntsville in the northern part of the State for the professional education of colored teachers, controlled by a board of three commissioners. Pupils are admitted free of charge, but must bind themselves to teach two years in the public schools of the State. This institution is in successful operation.

The

In the University of Alabama for the year 1878 there were 38 degrees conferred. number of students was 178. At the Agricul tural and Mechanical College for the same year there were 238 students. The number of stu

dents enrolled at the beginning of 1879 was 217, which exceeds the number at the same date the year previous by 46. The advanced classes are larger this year than ever before. Of the 238 students last year, there were in the first class 8, in the second 16, in the third 53, in the fourth 66, in the fifth 95. Of the 217 students in the present year there are in the first class 13, in the second 30, in the third 47, in the fourth 60, in the fifth 65. In college classes proper there were last year, out of 238 students, 143; this year, out of 217 students, there are 150. During the past year improvements were made upon the college building, which give ample accommodations for 300 students. The income of the college is derived mainly from the endowment fund, which consists of $253,500, invested, by act of the General Assembly of the State, in Alabama bonds. These bonds are deposited with the Treasurer of the State. The annual income from this endowment is $20,280.

Two acts were passed by the Legislature which related to the financial affairs of the city of Mobile. The first act repealed the charter of the city, and made provision for the application of the assets of the old corporation in discharge of its debts. Three commissioners were to be appointed by the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to collect and disburse these assets. Their manner of discharging the duty is to be directed and controlled by the Chancery Court for Mobile. The commissioners are authorized to compromise, compound, and adjust all debts, claims, and demands, including past-due taxes, of every kind which at the date of the passage of the act existed in favor of the city, on such terms and in such manner as, having in view the speedy collection of such outstanding claims and the largest possible reduction of the debt heretofore due from or now asserted against the city, may seem to them best; and for the purpose of so realizing the assets and paying the debt, the commissioners and receivers, with the leave of the Court of Chancery, are authorized and empowered to sell, on the best terms they can obtain, all the real and personal property which may come to their hands as commissioners under the act, and not by existing laws exempt from sale, and so much and such parts or portions of the claims and demands with the collection of which they are charged, as they may be authorized by the order of the Court of Chancery to sell. The commissioners are charged with the duty of opening communication with the holders of the funded debt of the city in relation to the same, with a view to the adjustment thereof, and its settlement; and for that purpose are to conduct negotiations with the creditors to the end that proper legislation may be enacted to secure at the same time and consistently with each other the protection of the life, property, security, and peace of the citizens of the territory of late governed by the municipal organ

ization of the city of Mobile, and the payment to the utmost extent practicable of the just debt of the city. They are to make report to the Governor of the State, to be laid before the General Assembly at its next term, of the result of their negotiations, together with the draft of such act for their consideration, as in the judgment of said commissioners may be required to carry into effect any scheme of adjustment they may recommend, and secure the objects of the act; and upon the passage of such act they shall apply to the Court of Chancery for such proper orders and decrees as may be necessary to secure the application of the assets under its jurisdiction and control to the uses and purposes which may be agreed upon, and be declared by the act to carry such agreement into operation and effect.

The second act contemplated and provided for the creation of a simple and economical as well as efficient form of local government, to exist provisionally until the next session of the General Assembly, January, 1881. This government, being only for a limited period, is to be intrusted simply with police powers-that is, with power to preserve the public peace, protect the public health, to provide against fires, take care of the streets, and perform such other municipal duties as are necessary for the well-being of the city. This provisional government, however, is to have nothing to do with the settlement of the debt. Eight commissioners are to be elected by the people, one from each ward, to manage the port. There are to be a president of the board, a clerk, and a tax-collector, and such police officers as may be necessary. To defray the expenses of police management, the board is authorized and empowered to lay and collect for each year of its existence, upon all real and personal property and all subjects of State taxation within said port of Mobile, a tax not exceeding six tenths of one per centum of the value of such property or subject of taxation assessed for State taxation during the year preceding that for which said police board may assess and lay the tax above provided for; provided, that where the personal property of any person does not exceed $150, and his real estate does not exceed $200, such property shall be exempt from taxation. The two acts thus passed were first brought forward and approved by the city authorities. The Board of Aldermen considered the bill to repeal the charter first, and recommended it for legislative action by a vote of thirteen to seven. After some debate they adopted the second bill creating a new corporation by a viva voce vote, which represented the same majority obtained in favor of the first. The Common Council was unanimous in favor of both bills. These measures were the result of two years of agitation. The objects were to secure an effective adjustment of the debt, to get rid of an expensive system of city government, and to place the property of the citizens beyond the