150 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



dure the various economic and social evils incident to their situa- 

 tion rather than devote time to their consideration and meet the 

 grave political issues consequent upon any change or reforma- 

 tion. 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,* 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 Gov- 

 ernment. 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 finan- 

 cial 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 cus- 

 toms 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 ex- 

 penditures $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 full- 

 ness. 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 collec- 

 tion was wholly wanting, its adoption would create popular dis- 

 content, 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 devel- 

 opment of the nation must have been greatly retarded. 



