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22 Board of Public Works
In his annual message to the General Assembly in 1846, Governor Pratt, a Whig,
opined that within thirty years the principal would be repaid from the sinking fund.
He noted that if sources of money other than a tax were available to meet interest
payments the taxes could be rescinded, and he suggested that the alternative source
of funds lay in increasing the profits of the internal improvements into which the state
had invested over $15 million and from which it had derived so little.36
Even with a rosier financial picture the decision to resume interest payments was
not unanimous. According to Smith:
As with taxation, it was the Whigs who provided the leadership in the resumption policy.
Aided by campaign funds from Baring Brothers, the London banking house which had
purchased most of the Maryland bonds, the Whigs gained control of the House of Delegates
in a relatively quiet state election in 1846. This gave the Whigs a majority of twenty-
eight seats and enabled them to elect John Pendleton Kennedy speaker of the house. Ken-
nedy assisted the resumption plans by appointing as chairmen of the committees those
who favored the policy. Yet even with Kennedy's expert management and the influence of
Governor Pratt, the resumption plans encountered stiff resistance in both Houses. Yet the
advocates of resumption won passage of a bill directing the state treasurer to begin paying
interest on all state bonds.37
In that same 1846 message to the General Assembly, Governor Pratt also noted
that aggregate profits from the various investments in internal improvements could
not be increased as long as the component public works acted competitively rather
than cooperatively. He therefore suggested the appointment of state agents or a board
of agents that would not only vote the state's interests but control the improvements
based on management criteria set by the General Assembly.38
A bill introduced during the 1846 session for appointment of a board of public
works to supervise the state's interests in internal improvements received an unfa-
vorable report from the Committee on Internal Improvements. Instead the House
adopted an order relating to a board that read, in part:
Ordered, That the Governor of this State be requested to furnish this house with any
information he may possess, as also with his opinions; Whether the present laws are not
inadequate for the purpose of securing the largest amount of revenue from the works of
Internal Improvements, and whether or not the public interest demands, that some su-
pervision, other than that now provided by law, should be exercised over our public works?
Whether a board of public works, clothed with all proper and necessary powers would not
be the means of bringing into the Treasury a very considerable additional revenue, and
what would be the supposed probable amount of such additional revenue?39
The committee subsequently offered a bill that provided for "the election of a board
of public works." It also failed. Two further unsuccessful efforts were made to create
a statutory board of public works in 1848 and 1860.40
During the interim Gov. Philip F. Thomas, a Democrat elected in 1847 to succeed
Governor Pratt the following year, lent his support to the creation of such a board. In
accord with the views of Governor Pratt, Thomas felt that the taxes should not be
rescinded without a comparable increase from other sources. The governor expressed
his fiscal policy to the General Assembly as follows: "Allow the system to continue
untouched, for, at most fifteen years longer, and Maryland will present the anomalous
36. Thomas G. Pratt, "Annual Message of the Executive to the General Assembly of Maryland," Maryland
Public Documents (Annapolis, 1846), doc. A, pp. 6-14.
37. Smith, "Politics and Democracy," p. 292.
38. Pratt, "Annual Message," p. 15.
39. H. Jour. (1846), pp. 218-19,241. With respect to these legislative actions, note that the version of Governor
Pratt's annual message cited above does not indicate the date of its delivery, except December Session 1846.
The committee report was delivered on 6 February 1847. The House adopted this order on 11 February
1847.
40. Ibid., p. 401; (1847), pp. 334, 345, 484; (1849), p. 281.
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