Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1873-03-26
THE TORBETT TRASH.
The House Special Committees Report OI
the Miserable Job.

The House Special Committees Report OF
the Miserable Job.
Saturday. Nashville Banner says:
The report alluded to in the minutes o
the proceedings of the House of Represen
tatives yesterday, by the special commit
tee appointed to examine into the case o
the State and Samuel Watson VS.. the Pres
ident and Directors of the Bank of Ten
nessee and others, covered some eighteel
pages of fooIscap closely written.
| The committee report that the Chancel
| lor who rendered an opinion in the case
"held as fact established by the agreed
case, as a fact admitted, that the new OF
so-called 'Torbett issue of the Bank o.
Tennessee, was made, issued and placed
upon the market in the usual course OF
trade and business for legitimate and law>
full purposes, and not ia the aid of the re-
bellion.n .---.-- ---.. I
Again, the learned Chancellor assumes,
upon the agreed state of facts, that the de-
mands of the Military Board could have
been met by the Bank Of Tennessee with
out increasing its circulation, and was not
a military necessity.
The committee waive the question as to
the decision, based upon the agreed state
of facts, but submit that if the depositions
of Dempsy Weaver, III. L. Claiborne, F. B.
FOgg and Isham G. Harris had been be-
fore the Court, the Chancellor would have
been compelled to arrive at different con-
clusion, and could not have decided in
favor of the Torbett issue. Mr.. Claiborne's
deposition showed an extraordinary press
ure on thebank, and tended decidedly to
show thatth issues were made for war
purposes. yEftie'-(
Notwithstanding the credits given for
the war bonds, the balance against the
military bank for each month were as fol-
lows: May 1861, $446, ,4O5 81; June SILL
312 81 July, 1881 ,22S 80; August, 81, ,SO4 :
415 10; September, 50, 13S, 1897 81 October,
81, ,219,S75 As; November, ST. ,331 ,571 80
December, $145, ,124-leaving the balance
due the bank January J., 1862, 81, ,626, ,S22.-
45." "But as the war bonds were not
security upon which money could be rails
ed, and were dead in the hands of the
bank.n
According to the dispositions, Governor
Harris and the Military and Financial
Board virtually took possession of the Bank
of Tennessee, which was State institu-
ton, and the fiscal agent of the State. They
checked on the bank for whatever they
wanted, to enable them to organize and
equip "the Provisional force" according
to Mr.. Weaver, before the committee, as he
had occasion to know, when cashier of the
Planters Bank in 1861.
"There is an abundance of testimony that
at the time these transactions were being
consummated, the State auth orities, with
Gov. Harris at their head, would not have
allowed these banks (Union and Planter's)
to have declined accommodation 10 the
Bank of Tennessee, and the least intima-
tion of refusal would have brought ruin
upon that bank which attempted such
policy"
Mr.. Weaver had said that Gov. Harris
policy, was that "they (the banks) should
be managed and used in the exclusive in
terest of the Southern Confederacy.n
Mr.. Frogg had said: 1T seemed to me
that martial law prevailed in Nashville in
the month of April, 1861, and the law of
force was the supreme law"
Governor Harris had said: GAS the ne
cessities for money to organize and equip
the forces presented themselves, I issued
the bonds [the war bonds) but finding no
sale for the bonds, in the market, to pri-
vate parties, resolved that the three prin-
cipal banks in the State, i. e., the Bank of
Tennessee, Union and Planters Banks,
should take the bonds and furnish the
money!" Governor Harris is largely
quoted from.
The committee add "The so-called Tor
bett issue cannot and ought not to be paid
until the people shall have decided to pay
the entire war debt of the State. The facts
shown by the proof herewith presented,
and on which the conclusions of this re-
port are based, do not appear in the agreed
case in the Supreme Court and as the ap-
peal was from an interlocutory decree, the
cause still being in the Chancory Court,
the committee report that, in their opinion,
the interest of the State require that the
appeal should be dismissed, and an effort
made to open the case in the Chancery
Court, that the proof bearing upon the
question and not now in the record, should
be presented for consideration by the
court. < And your COM
mittee suggest the propriety Of immedi-
ate action in this matter.
[Signed] L. G. HoUK, Chm'n.
q. w. MARTIN, eg
HOLMES CUMMINS, 8.
JOHN S. KERR,