FISCAL HISTORY

OF

SOUTH CAROLINA,

From 1670-1808.

CHAP. IV.

taxes were uni

For the first 12

FROM ROM the settlement of Carolina, formly the free gifts of the people. years none were imposed. The earliest on record, This appears in the form of

is in the year 1682.

an act of the legislature," for raising a tax of £400 for defraying the public charges of the province." But the mode of raising that sum has not descended to posterity. The largest sum imposed in any one year of the first $2, was £800; and the whole which appears to have been raised by taxes during that time did not exceed £2320: but in that period a new principle of revenue was introduced. In 1691 a duty was imposed on skins and furs. These were then the principal exports from the country. The amount of this duty is unknown, but it must have been considerable, perhaps adequate to the public exigencies: for no tax act appears on record for the 10 years next after that duty was imposed.

With the new century there were new calls for money and new modes of raising it. Taxes on the former plan were also continued and enlarged. In 1702 an act was passed "for raising £2000," to provide for an offensive expedition against St. Augustine. Though the expedition, failed, this sum was not sufficient. To supply its deficiencies, acts were passed in each of the two following years for raising £2000; and about the same time a tax of ten per cent. was laid on furs, skins, liquors, and other goods and merchandize imported into and exported out of the province.

In 1708 an act was passed for raising the sum of £5000, and in 1710 for raising £3000, and in 1713 for raising £4000. In 1714 a specific duty was laid on all negro slaves imported, but the amount charged on each is not mentioned. An act for raising £30,000 from the estates real and personal of the inhabitants, was passed in 1715, and in the year 1716, there was an act for raising 35,000 in that year, and 30,000 for each of the two ensuing years. Of these taxes, £1600 were apportioned among the merchants and other inhabitants living within the limits of the plat of Charlestown. This is the first instance of a tax laid expressly on merchants and the inhabitants of Charlestown. In the year 1719 an act was passed for raising the sum of £70,000 on lands and negroes. The augmentation of taxes from £2320 for the 18 last years of the 17th cen, tury to £215,000 in the first 18 years of the 18th century needs explanation. It was not the consequences of increasing wealth or accidental sudden

The first link in Moore's expedition To lessen the bur

prosperity, but proceeded from causes directly the reverse. The commencement of the 18th century was uncommonly disastrous to Carolina. The abortive expedition against Augustine-the invasion of the province by Feboure-the expedition under col. Barnwell against the tuscarora indians of NorthCarolina-the yamassee war and the suppression of the pirates, all took place between 1701 and 1719, and drew after them debt, taxes, paper-money and depreciation. Such are the consequences of war, whether offensive or defensive, successful or abortive, injurious to all establishments, but doubly so to such as are in their infancy. this chain of evils, was gov. against St. Augustine in 1702. dens resulting from it, £8000 in bills of eredit were issued by the assembly which were to be sunk in three years by a duty laid on liquors, skins and furs. The credit of this first paper-money was for some considerable time undiminished; and it would have continued so to the end if it had stood alone, for it was well received by all and ample funds were provided for its redemption. But a new plausible project, contrary to the expectation of its friends, diminished the value of the bills. Interest was then 10 per cent. and lands were increasing in value from the successful culture of rice. These circumstances suggested the idea of a land bank as an easy and practicable mode of obtaining money, and of supporting the credit of paper. In the year 1712, the enormous sum of £52,000 was issued in bills of credit to be loaned out on interest to such of the inhabitants as could give the requisite secu

rity and agreed to pay interest annually in addition to the twelfth part of the principal. These land bank-bills came into circulation under circumstances similar to those which introduced the late paper medium sanctioned by the legislature in 1785; but their fate was different. On their emission, the rate of exchange and the price of produce quickly increased. In the first year it advanced to 150, and in the second to 200 per cent. In ten years after, 1722, it was fixed by law at four for one. In addition to the injury done by the land bank-bills, a further depreciation resulted from a further emission of £15,000 by the legislature in 1716, to assist in defraying the expenses of the yamassee war. The people lost confidence in bills of credit, the multiplication and extension of which was so easy and tempting.

In Carolina, as a british province, sterling was the legal money of the country; but unfortunately there was very little of it in the province or in any of the british colonies. The greatest part of their current gold and silver was foreign coin. The local assemblies settled the value thereof by laws peculiar to each province. To remedy the inconveniences arising from the different rates of foreign coin in the several colonies, an act of parliament was passed and a proclamation founded thereon by queen Anne in 1708, for ascertaining the current rate of foreign coin in all the colonies. This fixed their current nominal value in british America, at one fourth above the nominal value in sterling money. But the demand for more circulating medi um in a new country than could be furnished in

coin was so urgent, that this regulation was not regarded, and the confusion arising from the different values of british sterling and provincial current pa per money became general throughout the colonies. In some a dollar passed for six shillings, in others for seven and sixpence in North-Carolina and New-York, for eight shillings: in South Carolina, for one pound twelve shillings and sixpence. In the latter, the comparative value of sterling coin and paper-money diverged so far from each other, that after passing through all intermediate grades of depreciation, it was finally fixed at seven pounds of the paper bills for one pound sterling.

It after+ wards assumed the character of currency as distinct from sterling, and formed as it were another denomination and species of money. Persons who had

entered into contracts before the paper bills had attained that fixed point suffered great injury; but in contracts made afterwards the parties made their engagements in conformity to the existing state of things. In the mean time, the confusion which results from the fluctuating value of money pervaded every department of business. The merchants in Carolina complained of the injustice of making these bills of credit a legal tender in the discharge of sterling debts, and interested the merchants of London in their behalf. By the persuasion of the latter the proprietors were induced to direct governor Robert Johnson to insist on their redemption. Laws were passed for that purpose, but were not earried into full effect. The change of government soon followed.