The convict lease system never existed during the years Brown was governor. It was first authorized during the period of Reconstruction, under military governor and Union general Thomas H. Ruger, who issued the first convict lease in April 1868. It was expanded during the post-Reconstruction era, when the Democratic-dominated state legislature passed new laws criminalizing a range of behavior. State prisoners who were unable to pay fines, levied as part of their conviction, faced the possibility of being leased out by the state, as convict labor.