Government Finance on the Eve of the Civil War

In: The journal of economic history, Band 12, Heft 1, S. 35-44

Abstract

Financially, the Federal Government was more poorly prepared for war in the early months of 1861 than it had been since its establishment. The financial policies of the government in the period preceding the war weakened its credit; and this, along with the urgency of the conflict, was to make short-term borrowing and the printing of paper money attractive but costly wartime expedients. Although the failure to finance the war on a sound basis cannot be ascribed merely to prewar financial conditions and policies, the stage was set by them. The regression to earlier methods of war finance began even before the war.