The following table shows the increase of the funded debt since 1814.
The funded debt was then gradually reduced until the last installment was paid in 1903.
At the close of the year 1906 the total debt was $8,835,049, and the funded debt was $8,106,500.
To meet the interest, such heavy taxes were levied that anti-tax associations were formed to resist the collection, and in 1842 the state failed to pay what was due; but the accumulated interest had been funded by 1848 and was paid soon afterwards, the expenses of the government were curtailed by the constitution of 1851, and after the Civil War the amount of indebtedness steadily decreased until in 1902 the funded debt was $6,909,326 and the net debt only $2,797,269.13, while on the 1st of October 1908 the net debt was $366,643.91.
The funded debt of the state amounted to four and one-half millions of dollars in 1850, when the new constitution limited the power of the legislature to contract further obligations or to decrease or misapply the sinking funds.
