e made, would reach $150,977,697, much more than twice the total
expenditure of the preceding year, skill and energy would have
undergone the crucial test. But the surprise of legislators would
have been equally great if they could then have unrolled the future
records of the Treasury, and have seen that in the year in which
the Rebellion would be suppressed, the receipts from customs would
attain the vast sum of $179,046,651, while from internal revenue,
a source not yet drawn upon, the enormous aggregate of $309,226,813
would be contributed to maintain the public credit.

We are so familiar with the vast sums which the war against the
Rebellion caused the National Government to disburse, that it is
difficult to appreciate the spirit with which the legislators of
1861 approached the impending burdens. They knew that their task
was great. They were in imminent peril, not only from open hostility,
but from doubt and fear. The resources of the Republic had not
been measured, the uprising of popular patriotism had not yet
astonished foreign foes and even the most sanguine of domestic
participants. With the information which was then before the world,
it may be questioned whether a complete scheme for providing the
money necessary for the struggle could have been passed through
Congress, or rendered effective with capitalists. The needs of
each crisis were supplied as each arose. Congress did not try to
look far into the future. It exerted itself to give daily bread
to the armies of the Union, to provide munitions of war, to build
and equip the navy.

NATIONAL FINANCES IN 1861.

The first receipts into the Treasury in 1861, other than from the
ordinary revenues under preceding statutes, came from the loan of
February 5, which authorized the issue of bonds bearing six per
cent. interest, payable within not less than ten, or more than
twenty years. The amount authorized was $25,000,000, and the
secretary was able to negotiate $18,415,000 at the average rate of
eighty-nine and three one-hundredths (89.03) per cent.

The Congress which closed its session of the 4th of March, 1861,
among its final acts provided for a loan of $10,000,000 in bonds,
or the issue of a like sum in Treasury notes; and the President
was also empowered to issue Treasury notes for any part of loans
previously authorized. Under this statute, notes were issued to
the amount of $12,896,350, pay