uses of the Confederacy's dissolution the grave
errors of its financial system.

These errors he will find not only in the theory and framework of that
system--founded upon a fallacy, but also in the detailed workings of
its daily management; and in persistent adherence to a line of policy,
each day proved more fatal.

In a previous chapter, allusion has been made to the feeling of
conscious superiority, pervading all classes of government and people
at the inception of the struggle, at Montgomery. This extended to all
classes of the people; and the universal belief in the great dogma of
secession--"Cotton is king!"--was doubtless the foundation of that
cardboard structure of Confederate finance, which the first rude shock
toppled to pieces, and the inexorable breath of demand shriveled into
nothingness.

At Montgomery, the promises of ease in money matters were all that
could have been asked. The people, everywhere, had come forward with
frank, unanimous selflessness. They had faith in the cause--faith in
the Government--faith in themselves; and they proved it by their works,
giving with lavish hand from their substance. It was felt that the
great prosperity of the North had, in a great measure, come from the
South; that the looms of New England were fed with southern cotton;
that the New York custom house was mainly busied over southern exports;
that the soil of the South was, by the alchemy of trade, transmuted
annually into three-fifths of the gold in the Federal treasury.

"Egad, sir!--money is our last trouble, sir!" my old friend, the colonel,
had cried with enthusiasm. "The country teems with riches--actually
teems, sir! with gold. We have only to stretch out our hands to gather
it in--more than we want, egad! _Men_ we need, sir!--but _money_, never!"

And the colonel was right in theory. But that very overweening
confidence in her strength proved the South's greatest weakness; and
where was needed the strong, nervous grasp of a practical and practiced
hand, to seize at once the threads of gold, and weave them into a solid
cord of system--weak and shifting fingers were allowed to tangle and
confuse them, till each in turn was snapped and rendered worse than
worthless. Mr. C. G. Memminger, whom the President elevated to the
Treasury Department, was untried and unknown out of his own State; but
so great was the confidence of the people in their financial power--so
simple did the problem of its development see