Message from Mississippi Governor James L. Alcorn to Mississippi Legislature; July 16, 1870

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Message from Mississippi Governor James L. Alcorn to Mississippi Legislature; July 16, 1870

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People

Alcorn, J. L. (James Lusk), 1816-1894

Events

Census--United States. 1860 Finances Finances--Bankruptcy Finances--Debt relief Legislation. Mississippi Legislation. Mississippi. Chapter I (1865)Taxation Taxation--Exemption

Organizations

Courts and Judicial Systems Mississippi--Executive Department Mississippi--Legislature Mississippi--Legislature. House of Representatives Mississippi--Legislature. Senate Political Parties Political Parties--Republican Party (U.S. : 1854- )

Occupations

Farmers Harness makers Laborers Legal Profession--Lawyers Mechanics Medical Profession Medical Profession--Physicians Merchants Saddlery Tax Profession--Assessors

Social Identifiers

Impoverished people Political Identities--Abolitionists

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[note] 1870 [/note]

[note] July 16, 1870 [/note]

To The Senate and House of Representative,

The pauper presents a discord in the harmonies of republicism. That Sympathy with humanity which underlies our institutions Seeks to eliminate physical want from our people by quaranteeing the chil-dren of the unfortunate in the provision of a homestead, is turned to abuse when it is car-ried beyond the purpose of protecting our Sys-tem from the production of that endigence which serves to develop what is known in European ~~monarchies~~ Monarchies as the dangerous classes.

The exemption laws of this state took form as they now stand under circumstanced highly exceptional. As they are embodied in the Act of 1865 they were evidently concerned with the purpose of shielding the debtor from the creditor. As a stay law that measure may have been an expidency of the moment; but now that the debtor has had ample time to convert his assets without ruin ^and^ while the bankrupt law has entirely wiped out the old account, the temporary justification of the Exemp-tion law of 1865 passed away. Be this, however as it may the spirit of free labor has brought that law to Judgement, and while that Spirit embodies all the tendency which enters into corruption of the immunity of the homestead, it embodies also all the Justice which enters into the Corruption of fair dealing and honest payment. And inasmuch as we have taken

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steps, by moreusing the effiency of the Courts, to be followed I trust by a prompt System of pleading with an abolition of what is known as the 'importance time', we must follow those steps out to their practical Sequen=ce by giving that process an ample basis of recovery.

The floating Capitol of our people is insuffient for the transaction of their business. Our fixed Capitol is therefore of essential importance to our prosperty as a basis of credit. The forms of this State represent ~~nedrly~~ nearly all its wealth, and that fact may serve to show the extent of the Crippling of the business energies of the people that follows necessarily from a condi-tion of things under which the great majority of them are beyond the reach of all the rem-edies of the law for the recovery of debts!

Of five million of acres of improved lands in the State, according to the Census of 1860, I estimate that the number exempted from the reach of the creditor, -- laborer, mechanic, Doctor, lawyer, merchant transacting business amongst us is but little less than four million! Of an agricultural wealth valued in the Census of 1860 at one hundred and ninety million of dollars, I estimate the amount withdrawn by the exemption law of 1865 from the avail-able credit basis of the business of the state, at the sum of one hundred and fifty million of dollars.

The value and the acre of Lands exem

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exempted by the law of 1865 serve to show the Crippling effect of that law but generally, A Specific illustration of the injurious Con-sequences of the act on the activity of busi-ness amongst our people may be given by citing the fact that out of $7,000 of our owners of agricultural property the number from whom even a Single Dollar can be secured as law is reduced by the exemp-tions of this act of 1865 to about 7.000! While four fifths of the great heads of our wealth is withdrawn absolutely from all the uses of credit the exemption laws withdraw also from all transacting based on credit ~~from so large as~~ ^the large proportion of^ four fifth of our ^agricultural^ property owned.

The political economy of our exemp-tion laws must ^not^ however, be pushed out to the invasion of their principle. While the homestead must be maintained inviolable as a refuge from want for the family of honest misfortune we must accomplish that essential result with the least possible violation of the laws of put-lic arithmetic. A forty-acre exemption would exclude, of the five million of acres of improved land in the state, about one million and a quarter acres, or one fourth of all while it would embrace of a farm valuation of one hundred and ninety-million of dollars, a valuation of about thirty-eight million of dollars—one fifth of all. An eighty acre limit on the homestead reserve from execution, while exempting of the

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five millions of acres of our improved land about two million and a half, could exempt of our total farms—valuation of one hundred and ninety millions of dollars about eighty millions of dollars—about three-sevenths of all. While the cotton is a very great proportion of our wealth to be withdrawn from the uses of credits and the rights of Creditors the expediency of the case appears to me to demand that, while the leg-itimate objects of the exemption would perhaps, be met by a forty- acre limit, we stop for the present in our advance towards the better of the principle by reducing the ex-emptions to a limit of eighty acres.

The exemption laws will embrace about 40,000 owners of agricultural property. The exemptions of horses, hogs, cattle, sheep, made by the law of 1865 would, if each farmer of there around, were stocked to the standard of those exemptions, represent two percent more cotton, ~~than we have in the state,~~ thirty percent more hogs, and one hundred and twenty percent more sheep, than we have in the State! In order that some of the forty two millions of dollars represented by our live stock shall be made available for credits and creditors, I propose that we reduce these exemptions for each homestead to two horses or mules, three milch cows five sheep and fifteen hogs.

The law of 1865 exempts the arms and accoutrements of every white

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person. I propose to amend this by in-cluding in the exemptions ~~every~~all persons to the extent of a rifle or shot gun—~~and to that extent~~ with the accoutments, and to that extent only. It exempts Saddles & bridles ~~for the use of the family~~ for 'the use of the family'. I recommend that that exemption be cut down to our Saddle & bridle. And I recommend finally that all exemptions made, even to the extent of the acreage of the home stead, with its improvements, shall be Subject to the limitation that they shall not, whether in town or country, exceed an aggregate val-ue of two thousand dollars in currency—the taxable property included in the exemption—the taxable property included in the exemption being set down at its valuation in the assess-ment for taxes next proceeding the rendering of Judgment against the owner, and when from the nation of the property no valuation is ofon record then by such other fair valuation as the Legislature shall provide, Executive office

July 16 1870

J. L. Alcorn
Gov.^r

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Message
On Exemption Law
delivered, a copy to each House July ¹⁶/₇₀