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Another sharp increase in the debt occurred as a result of the Civil War. The debt was just $65 million in 1860, but passed $1 billion in 1863 and reached $2.7 billion by the end of the war. During the following 47 years, there were 36 surpluses and 11 deficits. During this period 55% of the national debt was paid off.
The economic history of the American Civil War concerns the financing of the Union and Confederate war efforts from 1861 to 1865, and the economic impact of the war. The Union economy grew and prospered during the war while fielding a very large Union Army and Union Navy . [ 1 ]
He implemented a 44-percent tariff during the Civil War—in part to pay for railroad subsidies and for the war effort, and to protect favored industries. [48] Tariffs remained at this level even after the war, so that the North's victory in the Civil War allowed the U.S. to remain one of the largest users of tariff protection for industry.
Over a century later, the public debt topped $1 trillion for the first time in 1982 under Ronald Reagan and more than doubled during his presidency — and it's been climbing steadily since then.
Before the Civil War, the United States used gold and silver coins as its official currency. Paper currency in the form of banknotes was issued by privately owned banks, the notes being redeemable for specie at the bank's office. Such notes had value only if the bank could be counted on to redeem them; if a bank failed, its notes became worthless.
At the beginning of the war, the Confederate dollar cost 90 cents in gold dollars. By the war's end, its price had dropped to 1.7 cents. [2] Overall, prices in the South increased by more than 9000% during the war, averaging about 26% a month. [3]
It was hard enough sustaining a debt that stood at 106% of GDP during WWII, when the country’s savings rate was 24%, but sustaining a much higher level of indebtedness with today’s 3% savings ...
During the early 1870s, Treasury Secretaries George S. Boutwell and William Adams Richardson maintained that, though Congress had mandated $356,000,000 as the minimum Greenback circulation, the old Civil War statutes still authorized a maximum of $400,000,000 [nb 1] —and thus they had at their discretion a "reserve" of $44,000,000.