Why did the framers of Maryland's Constitution of
1851 establish the office of comptroller?
by Karen Dunaway Hare, Research Archivist, Maryland State
Archives, March 2001.
Members of the constitutional convention of 1850 were called to write a new constitution for the state that would institute reforms that progressive democrats saw as long overdue. A Committee on the Treasury Department was charged with writing the section of the new constitution dealing with the public treasury and its officers. Committee members wanted to write into the new constitution provisions for checks to be placed on the treasurer that would safeguard the state's finances and prevent corruption and fraud. A hotly-debated question was whether Maryland could afford to add more state officers at the top levels of government, resume annual sessions of the legislature, and still remain fiscally responsible to the electorate.
Although it was not an easy task to redefine the structure of the state's fiscal offices, there was a general consensus that it needed to be done. Louis McLane of Cecil County was appointed to chair the Committee on the Treasury Department. McLane, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and former U.S. Secretary of State, asserted that, "it had seemed to be the general opinion of the Convention from the commencement of the session, that some specific organization of the Treasury Department was indespensably necessary." It was generally agreed that there needed to be some sort of check on the treasurer in order to prevent fraud and "malversation" or corruption of that office. The consensus was that there needed to be someone to inspect the treasurer's bank book and account books on an annual or semi-annual basis to make sure that the debits and credits were all legally transacted and that the books were free from errors. Thomas Donaldson of Anne Arundel County argued that, "the man who receives and pays out the money should not be the man to say what should be received and paid out; and that if human experience had not settled that principle, it had settled nothing." Former U.S. Congressman Alexander Randall of Anne Arundel County pointed out that the treasurer of Maryland received and disbursed between one and two million dollars a year "without any legal check or restriction" on him; the treasurer had "absolute control" over the money. Although there had been no evidence of wrongdoing up to that date, it was clear that the potential for it was there.
McLane proposed to solve this problem by creating a comptroller of the treasury with a salary of $3,000 per year (this was later amended to $2,500). He argued that "the [financial] interests of the State were at present exceedingly insecure" and that it "was almost a miracle that Maryland had not suffered the consequences which had resulted elsewhere from a similar system [of having an unchecked treasurer]." He pointed out that twenty-three U.S. states out of thirty-one had added a comptroller or "similar officer" to work together with a treasurer. Thomas Donaldson of Anne Arundel County agreed. He asserted that the experience of most other states had proven that a comptroller or similar officer was necessary to act as a check on the treasurer.
Adding another state officer to the Treasury Department presented a problem for some of the committee members because a comptroller would work at the top levels of government and would command a high salary. Those members stressed the importance of a fiscally conservative state budget. Thomas B. Dorsey of Anne Arundel County, Francis P. Phelps of Dorchester County, and Francis Thomas of Frederick County were all fiscal conservatives who insisted on finding some way to solve the problem of an unchecked treasurer without adding a big expense to the Treasury Department. Phelps claimed that "retrenchment and reform" had been the "watchword everywhere" in the days leading up to the constitutional convention and that it had been the slogan of those arguing for the need for a new constitution. Retrenchment of public spending through a lowering of state salaries and a reduction in the number of state officers had been, according to Mr. Phelps, a prevailing argument in favor of calling a constitutional convention in the first place (the other main argument being the need for increased representation in the legislature for Baltimore City).
The committee members discussed possible alternatives to adding a comptroller to the Treasury Department. The legislature had recently been meeting biennially (every two years), and it was proposed that the legislature could meet in special sessions on "off" years for the sole purpose of checking the treasurer's books. But Thomas argued that public sentiment had leaned toward keeping biennial sessions of the legislature as a money-saving measure and that the public would not approve of a return to annual sessions. The question was also raised whether the governor could not provide the necessary check on the treasurer's books. Dorsey argued that the governor could check the books on a semi-annual basis and that the addition of this task to his list of responsibilities would not place an inappropriate or onerous burden on him. This would eliminate the need for either annual meetings of the legislature or for a comptroller. William H. Tuck of Prince George's County responded that the governor could not check the treasurer's books efficiently because he did not have the immediate access to the books that a comptroller would have. Further, the check "must be constant to be of any value," argued Thomas Donaldson of Anne Arundel County.
Advocates of adding a comptroller to the list of state officers included Louis McLane, Thomas Donaldson and Alexander Randall. Their arguments in favor of a comptroller were recorded in the Debates and Proceedings of the Maryland Reform Convention to Revise the State Constitution (2 vols. Annapolis: William McNeir, 1851). McLane, as chair of the Committee on the Treasury Department, had been the one to initially propose the addition of a comptroller to the Treasury Department. Donaldson addressed the cost issue by asserting that "true economy" did not necessarily mean spending less money but rather spending wisely. He believed that if the state had had a comptroller for the previous ten years, it might have been able to secure ten to twenty thousand dollars more annually than it had been collecting. Randall agreed and believed that a comptroller who was educated in all the details of receiving and disbursing state money would save the state much more than the cost of his salary. Further, the cost of an additional state officer was a small price to pay to insure against fraud and squandering the public's money, according to Donaldson. He argued that if a treasurer and a comptroller each kept a record of income and expenditures, and if both were required to sign and countersign receipts for money coming into the treasury, then the officers would act as a check on each other and the state's money would be much more secure than it was with only a treasurer.
The office of comptroller would not be entirely new to Maryland. Alexander Randall pointed out that from 1778 to 1827 Maryland had had an Auditor General who had been involved in a process by which all orders for expenditures were signed by him, submitted to the governor for his signature, then countersigned by him before the money was disbursed by the treasurer. Randall saw this as a wise system that had provided the security they were currently looking for in a comptroller and he urged a "return to the good old paths of our fathers." He argued that the need for a comptroller was becoming greater as state income grew, as that income was received from a wider pool of sources and as the number of internal improvements increased in which the state had been investing millions of dollars. Moreover, the laws regulating state income and expenditures had become more complex in recent years, requiring someone with a greater knowledge of them to work with the treasurer. According to Randall, Maryland should have a comptroller if for no other reason than that one person alone, "no matter how able and faithful," could not do justice to the job of treasurer.
The result of the committee's work was the establishment of the office of comptroller of the treasury by the Constitution of 1851. Former Governor Philip Francis Thomas was elected by the House of Delegates to serve as the first comptroller of Maryland on November 5, 1851. He qualified for office and began work on February 24, 1852.
Members of the Committee on the Treasury Department
Louis
McLane of Cecil County (Chair)
Thomas Fielder Bowie of Prince George's County
Albert Constable of Cecil County
Thomas Donaldson of Anne Arundel County
Thomas B. Dorsey of Anne Arundel County
Benjamin C. Howard of Baltimore County
John Newcomer of Washington County
Francis P. Phelps of Dorchester County
Alexander Randall of Anne Arundel County
William A. Spencer of Queen Anne's County
Francis Thomas of Frederick County
Source: Debates and Proceedings of the Maryland Reform Convention to Revise the State Constitution. 2 vols. Annapolis: William McNeir, 1851.
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