146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



public debt, and apprehensive of an impending crushing burden 

 of taxation, its publication and circulation was instrumental in 

 restoring public confidence and maintaining the credit of the Gov- 

 ernment. 



The attention of President Lincoln having been attracted to 

 this publication, he invited the author in early February, 1865, to 

 come to Washington and confer with him and Mr. Fessenden, 

 then Secretary of the Treasury, on the best methods of dealing, 

 after the termination of the war (then evidently near at hand), 

 with the enormous debt and burden of taxation that the war had 

 entailed upon the nation.* The result of this conference was, that 

 an amendment was added, at the last hours of the Thirty-eighth 

 Congress, to a bill " To provide Internal Revenue," and passed 

 March 3, 1865, authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury " to ap- 

 point a commission of three persons to inquire and report at the 

 earliest practical moment on the subject of raising by taxation 

 such revenue as may be necessary to supply the wants of the 

 Government, having regard to and including the sources from 

 which such revenue should be drawn, and the best and most 

 effectual mode of raising the same." The commission was further 

 empowered " to inquire into the present and best methods of col- 

 lecting the revenue," and to take testimony. Of this commission 

 the writer was, unexpectedly to himself, appointed chairman by 

 the then Secretary of the Treasury Hon. Hugh McCulloch 

 after the assassination of the President, but in accordance with his 

 previously indicated wishes, f It was also deemed expedient that, 

 of the other members, one should be a representative of the agri- 

 cultural interests of the West, and the third a citizen of Pennsyl- 

 vania, the chairman being at the time a citizen of New York; 

 and in accordance with this view Mr. S. S. Hayes, who had distin- 

 guished himself as Comptroller of Chicago, and Mr. Stephen Col- 

 well, of Philadelphia, a gentleman of advanced age, and a success- 

 ful manufacturer of iron, who had written some years before the 



* Mr. Lincoln opened the conference by remarking that, although the war was evidently 

 drawing to a close, he feared that great difficulties were yet to be encountered through the 

 possible unwillingness or inability of the nation to pay the war debt, or the great increase 

 in taxation which the war had made necessary ; and followed this remark by asking if the 

 writer had anything to suggest on the subject. The offhand answer returned was, that the 

 best thing to be done was to have an examination made by competent persons of the re- 

 sources of the country and the best methods of making them available for meeting the ex- 

 penses of the Government through taxation. Turning to the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. 

 Lincoln remarked : " That's a pretty good idea, Fessenden, isn't it ? We'll think about it " ; 

 and as the hour (evening) was becoming late, the conference substantially soon ended. 



\ The appointment was unsolicited and unexpected, and Mr. Fessenden some years 

 afterward stated that when the composition of the commission was under consideration Mr. 

 Lincoln remarked that " he thought we had better let the young man who had suggested 

 the idea of it be at the head of it." 



