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Louisiana Levee Company
Clio's Revenge: ←Created page with 'The Louisiana Levee Company was a public-private company chartered by Louisiana's Reconstruction Era government in 1871.<ref>Acts of Louisiana 1871.</ref...'
The Louisiana Levee Company was a public-private company chartered by [[Louisiana]]'s [[Reconstruction Era]] government in 1871.<ref>Acts of Louisiana 1871.</ref> It held a state-wide [[monopoly]] on all contracts dealing with levee construction, maintenance, and repair. Though it initially was granted a 21-year contract, its operations were terminated by the state in 1876. Despite its shortened existence and notorious corruption, the company left a significant legacy in Louisiana and beyond in areas as diverse as [[prison labor]], [[constitutional law]], and a body of corporate litigation [[precedent]].
==History==
At the end of the [[American Civil War]], Louisiana's levee system was in ruins.<ref>Robert W. Shugg, ''Origins of Class Struggle in Louisiana'' (Baton Rouge, LA:Louisiana State University Press, 1939), 194.</ref> Hundreds of miles of levees had been destroyed along the course of the lower [[Mississippi River]] and throughout the [[Atchafalaya Basin]]. These systems of flood-control and mitigation structures were raised during the decades preceeding the war, largely through the use of marginal [[Slavery in the United States|slave labor]] from the the state's [[Plantations in the American South|plantation]] economy.
Severe flooding impacted agriculture and redevelopment throughout South Louisiana in the wake of the war, and despite the issuance of four million dollars in bonds to alleviate these straits, in 1868 the state legislature determined that little, if anything, had actually been done.<ref>Ella Lonn, Reconstruction in Louisiana After 1868 (New York and London: The Knickerbocker Press, 1918), 35. </ref> The 1871 act establishing the Levee Company passed the legislature in part through open bribing of representatives by Governor [[Henry C. Warmoth]]. <ref>Joe Gray Taylor, ''Louisiana Reconstructed 1863-1977'' (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1974), 193.</ref>
==Repeal & Legacy==
The Louisiana Levee Company Act was repealed by the state in 1876<ref>Acts of Louisiana, 1876.</ref> and its duties devolved to individual levee boards.
The Levee Company did succeed in alleviating some flooding through the executions of its contracts.<ref>Taylor, 196.</ref> [[S.L. James]] (see [[Louisiana State Penitentiary|Angola]]), who held another 21-year lease, this one for a monopoly on convict labor at the state level, employed his charges in many of these contracts. The company's activities were challenged in court in cases dealing with [[corporate personhood]] and [[constitutional law]]. Precedent from these cases reached as far away as [[Michigan]]<ref>Eliza T. Fay v. Abel Delos Wood and Seth Lee., 65 Mich. 390, 32 N.W. 614, 1887 Mich. LEXIS 611.</ref> and [[Washington State]]<ref>LYMAN C. SMITH, Appellant, v. CITY OF SEATTLE et al., Respondents, 25 Wash. 300, 65 P. 612, 1901 Wash. LEXIS 393 (Supreme Court of Washington June 21, 1901, Decided). http://bit.ly/2I9jIsB>. The complex challenges of this litigation even impacted sections of the [[Constitution of Louisiana|Louisiana Constitution of 1879]] which were necessary to not only deal with the problems brought on by years of litigation, but also to guarantee obligations incurred by state guarantees of company bonds.<ref>Constitution of the State of Louisiana. Adopted in Convention at the City of New Orleans, the Twenty-Third Day of July, A.D. 1879. New Orleans: Jas. H. Cosgrove, Convention Printer, 1879.</ref>
==References==
==History==
At the end of the [[American Civil War]], Louisiana's levee system was in ruins.<ref>Robert W. Shugg, ''Origins of Class Struggle in Louisiana'' (Baton Rouge, LA:Louisiana State University Press, 1939), 194.</ref> Hundreds of miles of levees had been destroyed along the course of the lower [[Mississippi River]] and throughout the [[Atchafalaya Basin]]. These systems of flood-control and mitigation structures were raised during the decades preceeding the war, largely through the use of marginal [[Slavery in the United States|slave labor]] from the the state's [[Plantations in the American South|plantation]] economy.
Severe flooding impacted agriculture and redevelopment throughout South Louisiana in the wake of the war, and despite the issuance of four million dollars in bonds to alleviate these straits, in 1868 the state legislature determined that little, if anything, had actually been done.<ref>Ella Lonn, Reconstruction in Louisiana After 1868 (New York and London: The Knickerbocker Press, 1918), 35. </ref> The 1871 act establishing the Levee Company passed the legislature in part through open bribing of representatives by Governor [[Henry C. Warmoth]]. <ref>Joe Gray Taylor, ''Louisiana Reconstructed 1863-1977'' (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1974), 193.</ref>
==Repeal & Legacy==
The Louisiana Levee Company Act was repealed by the state in 1876<ref>Acts of Louisiana, 1876.</ref> and its duties devolved to individual levee boards.
The Levee Company did succeed in alleviating some flooding through the executions of its contracts.<ref>Taylor, 196.</ref> [[S.L. James]] (see [[Louisiana State Penitentiary|Angola]]), who held another 21-year lease, this one for a monopoly on convict labor at the state level, employed his charges in many of these contracts. The company's activities were challenged in court in cases dealing with [[corporate personhood]] and [[constitutional law]]. Precedent from these cases reached as far away as [[Michigan]]<ref>Eliza T. Fay v. Abel Delos Wood and Seth Lee., 65 Mich. 390, 32 N.W. 614, 1887 Mich. LEXIS 611.</ref> and [[Washington State]]<ref>LYMAN C. SMITH, Appellant, v. CITY OF SEATTLE et al., Respondents, 25 Wash. 300, 65 P. 612, 1901 Wash. LEXIS 393 (Supreme Court of Washington June 21, 1901, Decided). http://bit.ly/2I9jIsB>. The complex challenges of this litigation even impacted sections of the [[Constitution of Louisiana|Louisiana Constitution of 1879]] which were necessary to not only deal with the problems brought on by years of litigation, but also to guarantee obligations incurred by state guarantees of company bonds.<ref>Constitution of the State of Louisiana. Adopted in Convention at the City of New Orleans, the Twenty-Third Day of July, A.D. 1879. New Orleans: Jas. H. Cosgrove, Convention Printer, 1879.</ref>
==References==
February 12, 2019 at 11:55AM
