The Constitutional Convention of 1865 and the State legislatures of 1865, 1866 and 1867 acted in a sensible and heroic way in dealing with the situation. A direct tax of $1 per bale was levied on all cotton brought to market and sold; an inheritance tax of 1 per cent. of the gross amount of all collateral inheritances; a tax of 3-10 per cent. upon the amount of the annual rents and tenements. Privilege licenses were exacted from the larger corporations best able to bear them, a notable instance of this being the license of $2000 per annum imposed upon express companies.[77] This selection of taxable objects proved most fortunate, the cotton tax alone yielding sufficient revenue to support the whole state administration. The commonwealth's indebtedness was scaled, and Mississippi was rising Phoenix-like from the ashes of financial despondency. But in 1867 there was fastened upon the State the reign of "Reconstruction and Radicalism," which meant untold retrogression in fiscal policy. This reign of mongrelism, ignorance and depravity was formally ushered in by a motley assemblage known as "the black and tan convention," so called from the negroes and carpet-baggers composing it. The special taxes levied to cover the profligacy and extravagance of this convention, whose expenses for a period of less than five months aggregated nearly a quarter of a million of dollars, were prophetic of the future. Cotton, cotton gins, grist and saw mills, ferry and wharf boats, grocery, drug and provision stores, banks, hotels, photograph galleries, railroad and steamboat companies--all were impaled on reconstruction's fork. Even the freedom of the press was not respected, sums ranging from $20 to $50 being levied on each daily, tri-weekly and weekly newspaper published in the State. The plunderers modestly concluded their infamous schedule with the provision "that a special tax of 50 per cent. on the State tax be levied in addition to the State tax now assessed upon real and personal property."[78] The Constitution framed by the "black and tan convention" was rejected and the Conservative administrations of Governors Alcorn and Powers, both property owners and taxpayers in the State, had the effect of tempering fiscal excesses. However, this temperance was only temporary and, as compared with the former period, might be called rank intoxication. In 1869 the State levy was only 1 mill on the dollar; in 1870, 5 mills; in 1871, 4 mills; in 1872, 8-1/2 mills; and in 1873, 12-1/2 mills. This was only the State tax. In many counties a county tax of 100 per cent. on the State tax was added, besides a Special tax in some counties to pay the interest on their bonded debt, and a Special tax in the incorporated towns of from 5 to 10 mills on the dollar for town purposes. In this way it happened that the total tax paid by citizens was 2 8-10 per cent. outside the cities, and from 3-1/2 per cent. to 4 per cent. in cities and towns.[79]