A large part of the best property was mortgaged, and foreclosure sales were frequent.

Poorer property could be neither mortgaged nor sold.

There was an exodus of whites from the worst governed districts in the West and the North.

Many towns, among them Mobile and Memphis, surrendered their charters and were ruled directly by the governor; and there were numerous "strangulated" counties which on account of debt had lost self-government and were ruled by appointees of the governor.
A part of the money raised by taxes and by bond sales was used for legitimate expenses and the rest went to pay forged warrants, excess warrants, and swollen mileage accounts, and to fill the pockets of embezzlers and thieves from one end of the South to the other.

In Arkansas, for example, the auditor's clerk hire, which was $4000 in 1866, cost twenty-three times as much in 1873.