THIRD PERIOD
THE BUILDING OF THE UNIVERSITY History of the University of Virginia, 1819-1919; The Lengthened Shadow of One Man, Volume I | ||
XII. Fight for Appropriations, Continued
There is an amusing side to the almost nervous eagerness with which Cabell started in at once to discourage his persistant co-worker at Monticello from looking upon this second loan as simply a spur to another application to the General Assembly for money. Jefferson's attitude towards appropriations for the University was very much in the spirit of the Frenchman's definition of gratitude: he was never satisfied with what he was able to drag out of the reluctant Legislature, -it was always the favors to come, and not those already received, which he kept in view. No one understood better than he how much expenditure was required to complete the University in the grand manner which he thought indispensable; and his eye, therefore, was never withdrawn from the future appropriation, however much he might be pleased with the past one.
"It is the anxious wish of our best friends," wrote Cabell, who was uneasily conscious of this peculiarity of his correspondent, "and of no one more than myself, that the money now granted may he sufficient to finish the buildings. We must not come here again on that subject. These successive applications for money to finish the buildings give grounds of reproach to our enemies, and draw our friends into difficulties with their constituents." On March 10, he wrote again in the same strain. The Legislature, he now hints, may indirectly force the Board of Visitors to throw open the doors before the University is completed, by requiring the unencumbered part of the annuity to be reserved for the payment of the
Whilst this tortuous and ceaseless struggle for State assistance was going on, Jefferson was threatened with disability in the use of the only weapon which he had at
While Cabell, in this state of perplexity, was turning from one group of opponents to another, in the hope of
But Jefferson and himself did not allow so precarious a hope as this to keep them from pressing for some substantial advantage from the General Assembly. In February (1822), a bill was submitted which provided for the suspension of interest on the loans during five years, and also arranged for the final extinguishment of principal and interest by means of the amount to be collected from the Central Government. There was now a faction
Were the two co-workers disheartened? If so, only for a very short period, for hardly had a new session begun in December (1822) when Cabell decided to obtain the General Assembly's consent to a loan of fifty thousand dollars for the building of the Rotunda, and at the same time to secure the passage of an Act that would place the University's obligations on the footing of the other debts of the Commonwealth, which would bring about their ultimate extinction along with those debts. "Let us have nothing to do with the old balances, or dead horses, or escheated lands," he said to Jefferson, "but ask boldly to he exonerated from our debts by the powerful sinking fund of the State. This is manly and dignified legislation, and if we fail, the blame will not be ours."
William C. Rives, it seems, had already put the interrogatory to Jefferson: "Which would you prefer, the remission of the principal debt or an advance for the erection
This sagacious advice, accompanied by words so convincing and so inspiriting, prevailed. Cabell wrote on the 30th of the same month that the University's friends in the General Assembly had agreed almost unanimously to solicit a loan of sixty thousand dollars, and, for the present, to cease all agitation in favor of the State's assumption of the debt. "We propose," he said with a politician's astuteness, "to move for one object at a time in order not to unite the enemies of both measures against one bill. Should we succeed in getting the loan, we may afterwards try to get rid of the debt." The bill authorizing the loan having passed the House, was
Two days before the final passage of the bill, Cabell had written to Jefferson, "We must never come here again for money to erect buildings . . . . Should the funds fall short, I would rather ask for money hereafter to pay off old debts than to finish the Library." [50] Cocke advised that all these debts should be liquidated first, and that, afterwards, the cost of the Rotunda should be made to conform to such surplus as remained. Already by March 24, -barely a month after the authority was given to borrow sixty thousand dollars for the completion of the buildings, -both Cabell and Cocke were apprehensive lest the "old sachem" should be contemplating another call upon the Legislature for financial aid.
Some impression seems to have been made on Jefferson by these half unreserved, half hinted remonstrances, for his next step was to apply for the remission of the interest on the loans. In the report for October 6, 1823, he informed the General Assembly that the University could be opened at the end of 1824, should the annuity, in the meanwhile, be released from the burden of its incumbrances. He intimated that, should this be refused, no just reason for complaint would exist if the doors were to continue tightly closed indefinitely. The charge for interest on $180,000, the amount of the loans, would be $10,800, and two or three thousand dollars more would be required to keep the finished buildings in repair. As this would leave a surplus of only about two thousand dollars for the redemption of $180,000, it would be necessary for an interval of twenty-five years to go by before the principal could be expected even to approximate liquidation. "This," Jefferson remarked, with dry sarcasm, "is a time two distant for the education of any person
In December (1823), Cabell was able to say with confidence that there was a rising sentiment in the State favorable to the remission, not simply of the interest, but of the entire debt. This new feeling was to be attributed either to impatience with Jefferson's patent determination to keep the University shut up until it was fully completed, or to admiration for his stubborn and disinterested zeal in its behalf. Prematurely it would appear, Cabell wrote, on the 29th, that the National Government had finally passed affirmatively on the State's claim to interest on the advances made during the war of 1812-15. Had this been really so, there would have been added at once to the principal of the Literary Fund an amount so large as to produce a surplus in interest sufficient to supply the University's needs in the way of books for the library and apparatus for the laboratories. There was, during the session of 1823-24, no prospect of obtaining a further sum for building; but as the purchase of books, and apparatus would indicate an intention to throw open the lecture-rooms at an early date, the General Assembly, Cabell thought, might be willing to make an appropriation for that purpose out of the surplus of the Literary Fund. "Am I right in supposing," he inquired of Jefferson in February, 1824, "that fifty thousand dollars, payable in ten annual instalments, for the purchase of books and apparatus, with a power to the Visitors to anticipate the money for those purposes only, would be a good measure next to he adopted? I am thinking of it." "Perhaps," he writes three days later, "forty thousand dollars would be more apt to succeed." Jefferson was confident that not a cent less than the latter sum
Cabell now sprang a stratagem on the Assembly, which kindled an angry flame both without and within the walls of the capitol. The Farmers' Bank, at this time, was petitioning the General Assembly for the renewal of its charter. Here was an opportunity to be pounced upon; and this he promptly did with a glee which he was unable to repress in his report to Jefferson. "I kept my secret even from the Visitors, and my brother, and most intimate friends," he said. The House of Delegates passed the bill without requiring any proviso, but when it came up in the Senate, he moved that the charter should only be renewed on condition that the bank should pay the University a bonus of fifty thousand dollars. Seventeen of the Senators went over to his side; the rest bitterly opposed him. Elsewhere also, as he expressed it, he stirred up "a hornet's nest." The whole number of the stockholders, debtors, directors, and officers combined, "in the midst of a prodigious ferment," to combat and defeat the proposition; and the majority in the Senate, under this pressure from the outside, quickly fell away. In spite of this fact, Cabell kept up the fight, but without success. He found a dubious compensation for his failure in the action of the General Assembly, on March 6, 1824, in empowering the Board of Visitors to receive, for the
Before this sum could be collected it would be necessary for him to concentrate on Congress the full force of his extraordinary powers of persuasion. A bill, introduced in the House of Representatives by James Barbour, authorizing the payment of the interest as legally due, had failed. Cabell endeavored in vain to prevail on Jefferson to draft a memorial to that body to show how this interest, should it he recovered, was to be spent. The claim offered the only prospect of obtaining the funds needed, for Cabell admitted that the General Assembly's liberality was exhausted. He visited Washington in April to press it, and on his arrival there, found that it was in a state of suspension. A meeting of the Virginia delegation was held, and Barbour was instructed to bring the claim before the War Department, which quickly recommended that Congress should settle it. Monroe was now President, and Cabell wrote to him on the subject, with full knowledge of his interest in the University, and his willingness to assist it by every influence that he could legitimately employ. Monroe was now told that, so soon as Congress should recognize the claim as just, the General Assembly would order an equal amount to he advanced out of the Literary Fund, in anticipation of its reimbursement by the Government.
THIRD PERIOD
THE BUILDING OF THE UNIVERSITY History of the University of Virginia, 1819-1919; The Lengthened Shadow of One Man, Volume I | ||