dure the various economic and social evils incident to their situation rather than devote time to their consideration and meet the grave political issues consequent upon any change or reformation. What would have happened? what would have been the economic and social condition of the United States, had not the people of its southern section appealed to the arbitrament of the sword in the matter of slavery and consented to its peaceful abolition,[1] constitutes a most curious and interesting theme for speculation. Certainly it would have been something without precedent in the world's former experience.
It was with such antecedents and under such conditions, that the nation found itself in the early months of 1861 suddenly and unexpectedly involved in a gigantic civil war, in which its very existence was threatened by the uprising of at least a third of its population against the legitimate and regularly constituted Government. The most urgent and important requirement of the Federal Government at the outset was revenue. Men in excess of any immediate necessity volunteered for service in the army, but to equip and supply even such as were needed precipitated an avalanche of expenditure upon the Treasury. To meet these financial requirements there was on the part of the Government neither money, credit, nor any adequate system of raising revenue by taxation; the previous reliable supply of revenue from the customs having at the most critical period, through the diminution of imports consequent upon the political disturbances, become subject to a serious and ominous impairment; while the money returns from all sources, other than loans, for the year 1862 were only $2,867,057. For this latter year the total ordinary receipts of revenue of the Government were but $51,919,000, and its expenditures $456,379,000.
At the outset it was assumed that the war would be short, and that the expenditures of the Government could be met by the agency of loans and an issue of paper money, the detailed history of which, although not yet familiar to the American public, is not directly pertinent to the subject under consideration, and would require a separate essay for its presentation in any degree of fullness. All direct or internal taxation was accordingly for a time avoided; there having been apparently an apprehension on the part of Congress that inasmuch as the people had never been accustomed to it, and as all machinery for assessment and collection was wholly wanting, its adoption would create popular discontent, and thereby interfere with a vigorous prosecution of hostilities. Congress accordingly confined itself at first to the
- ↑ Subsequent events have made it clear that with the continuance of slavery the development of the nation must have been greatly retarded.
