This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[546]
of their indebtedness “into the treasury of the Confederate States, in specie or treasury notes,” and receive for the same the treasurer's certificate, which should show the amount paid in, and on what account, and the rate of interest to be allowed.
These were to be “redeemable at the close of the war and the restoration of peace, in specie or its equivalent.”
1 It was estimated that the aggregate of the indebtedness of the business men within the lines of the so-called Confederate States to those of the Free-labor States, at that time, was about two hundred millions of dollars.
All honorable debtors gave no countenance to the proposed scheme of villainy, and not only refrained from reporting their indebtedness and paying the amount into the treasury of the conspirators, but took every favorable opportunity to liquidate the claims of Northern creditors.
There was a large class who favored secession because by its means they hoped to avoid paying their debts.
These, too, kept away from the Secretary of the Treasury; and this notable scheme gave the craving coffers of the conspirators very little relief.
Still another scheme for insuring the sale of the bonds was planned.
To recommend them to the confidence of the people, it was necessary for them to have some tangible basis for practical purposes, in the absence of specie.
The conspirators could not calculate upon a revenue from commerce, for the blockading ships of the Government were rapidly closing the seaports of States in which rebellion existed to regular trade.
It was therefore proposed to make the great staple of the Confederacy — cotton — the main basis for the credit of the bonds, with other agricultural products in a less degree.
The blockade was, of necessity, diminishing the commercial value of the surplus of these products, for, without an outlet to the markets of the world, they were useless.
The experiment was tried; and while the conspirators realized very little money, almost every thing required for the consumption of their armies, for a while, was supplied.
The plan was, that the planters should subscribe for the use of the government a certain sum of money out of the proceeds of a certain number of bales of cotton, when sold, the planter being allowed to retain the custody of his cotton, and the right to choose his time for its sale.
When sold, he received the amount of his subscription in the bonds of the Confederacy.
The people had little confidence in these bonds, but were willing to invest in them the surplus of their productions, which they could not sell; and it was announced by the so-called Secretary of the Treasury of the Confederates, when the “Congress” reassembled at Richmond, late in July, that subscriptions to the Cotton Loan amounted to over fifty millions of dollars.2 Bonds, with cotton
1 Acts, &c., of the Confederate Congress: Second Session, page 88.
2 Alexander H. Stephens assumed the office of expounder of the principles, intentions, and effects of this Cotton Loan. The object of the scheme was, he said, to avoid taxing the people, if possible. But he told the inhabitants of Georgia, plainly, that if it should be necessary to tax the people, the taxes would be levied, and they would be compelled to pay them. “I tell you the government does not intend to be subjugated,” he said, “and if we do not raise the money by loans, if the people do not contribute, I tell you we intend to have the money, and taxation will be resorted to, if nothing else will raise it. Every life and dollar in the country will be demanded rather than you and every one of us shall be overrun by the enemy. On that you may count.” He then proceeded to speak of the great value of the bonds, which bore eight per cent. interest, payable semiannually, and declared that if the Confederacy was not defeated, they would be the best government bonds in the world, and would doubtless command a premium of fifteen or twenty per cent. At the same time he frankly told them (what came to pass) that if the schemes of the conspirators did not succeed, “these bonds will not be worth a dime.” --Speech of Alexander H. Stephens to a Convention of Cotton-growers at Augusta, July 11, 1861. These planters well understood the tenor of his demands. They well knew that an omission to subscribe to the loan would be constructive treason to the “Confederate States Government,” which would soon feel the force of a penalty, and so they subscribed, with a feeling akin to that of Englishmen in the case of the levying of ship-money by Charles the First; a proceeding that cost him his head, and his heir a kingdom.
Scanned printed text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.