The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 27, July 1923 - April, 1924 Page: 258
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
Texas legislature in 1851. An endorsement by Clark would prob-
ably raise difficulty with the United States Treasury.
On December 2, 1861, Judah P. Benjamin, the Confederate
acting secretary of war, wrote Governor Lubbock that an agent
of the ordnance bureau, G. H. Giddings, had made arrangements
in Matamoras to purchase arms and pay with the United States
Indemnity Bonds held by Texas, if the state would consent to
receive Confederate 8 per cent bonds in place of them. It was
urged that the United States bonds were falling in value-they
were then quoted at about 80-while the Confederate bonds were
safe and drew higher interest, which would be paid punctually.
The plan was endorsed by the Texas delegation in the Confederate
Congress. Lubbock laid the matter before the legislature on Jan-
uary 9, 1862, with the recommendation that the proposition be
accepted, as the United States would be utterly bankrupt by the
war and could never redeem its bonds.10 The legislature consid-
ered the subject in secret session and two days later passed two
acts which were at once signed by the governor.
Each act provided for a Military Board which should be com-
posed of the governor, comptroller and treasurer. One act set
aside $500,000 of the state bonds authorized in April, 1861, which
the board could sell or exchange directly for supplies or anything
else; and also empowered the Board to establish a foundry for
ordnance and factories for small arms. The other act empowered
the board to dispose of any bonds in the treasury on any account,
and to replace them with equal amounts of Confederate bonds.
This, clearly, was to authorize acceptance of Benjamin's "advan-
tageous" proposition. A third act, so phrased as to conceal its
purpose, repealed the law of December 16, 1851, which had re-
quired the endorsement of the governor for the sale of the in-
demnity bonds.'1
The military board thus provided for was constituted at once,
and consisted of Governor F. R. Lubbock, Comptroller C. R. Johns,
and Treasurer C. H. Randolph. It continued in existence, with
"Lubbock's message is in Letter Book No. 81, p. 93, Executive Records,
Texas Department of State. A brief account of the creation of the board
and of its early activities is in F. R. Lubbock, Sim Decades in Teas,
360-369.
"2H. P. N. Gammel, Laws of Texas, V, 484, 489, 499.258
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 27, July 1923 - April, 1924, periodical, 1924; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101086/m1/264/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.