1904.] OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES 885

posing many new and vital measures of revenue, some
of which still remain upon the statute books of the
State yielding substantial aids to our Treasury, and
incidentally recording the courage and ability of the
chieftian who led the light for honesty and for the
payment of the State's obligation, and, who more than
any other man, contributed to the success of the great
and almost hopeless undertaking of paying the enor-
mous and ever-increasing debt that burdened the
people of Maryland in his momentous day.

Amongst the revenue measures of Governor Pratt's
administration, were the marriage license tax, the tax
upon collateral inheritance, the tax upon clerks and
registers for their commissions, the improvements of
corporation revenue laws, a tax on the commissions of
Executors, Administrators and Trustees, and a stamp
tax.

The last act was compared by the opponents of the
administration with, and called, a British Stamp Act.
The Governor settled this objection by replying that
Maryland's Stamp Act differed in this important par-
ticular with the British Stamp Act—that the latter
was put on Americans by Britons, but that the Mary-
land Stamp Act was enacted by Marylanders for Mary-
landers.

The effect upon the finances of the State by the
measures of the new administration was wonderful.
The very next Legislature, 1845, was informed by the
Governor that the annual revenues, for the first time,
for many years had been more than the annual dis-
bursements, and that the interest on the public debt,
then amounting yearly to six hundred and fifty thous-
and dollars, had been paid, and a very large sum of
the interest in arrears, then nearly a million and a-half
dollars had been settled.

The good work so happily begun continued through-
out his administration, and the auspicious financial
career of this grand commonwealth continues to this
day for the iron that he put into its soul still yet
strengthens the courage, faith and integrity of all
Marylanders.
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