American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1864-11-23
The Southern Confederacy as Por-
traved bV Itself.

ence between the view taken of a bellig-
erent's resources by himself and by an
adversary respectively.
The Confederate Congress has recently
come together; so has the Legislature of
Georgia; so, we presume, has that of
North Carolina; so, perhaps, have sever
al other such. Each of these is met by
the Executive with a budget, which,
however made up, is unlike in that it has
not told fattering tale We defy any
Rebel-sympathizer to extract the smallest
morsel Of comfort from any recent official
expose of the resorts and resources of
Confederate finance.
Mr.. Trenholm, the new Secretary of
Treasury at Richmond, was leading
merchant at Charleston, and is said to
have made handsome fortune in the pal
mier dcys of Confederate blockade-run-
ming, He is most intense Rebel, and
has doubtless put the best possible face
on the affairs intrusted to his charge
Let us see what that face is:
Mr.. Trenholm makes two bites of his
cherry, and exhibits but half of it, evi-
IDENTIFY fearing that the whole of it would
be too much for the Rebels to bear. He
tells us what have been his expenditures
for the half year, ending with last Sep
tember, but shrinks from facing the ma
jestic aggregate of years outlay. For
the six months embraced between April
lst and October 1st, 1864, he has paid
out 1912 ,378 ,505, apart from Sl0,772,-
SS3 paid for interest on Public uebt.-
Duliug this period, his receipts have been
S42, ,294, ,314 from war taxes. 81 ,23S, ,722
from sequestrations," (that is, confsca-
tions,) $4,000 from duties on Imports,
and 81 ,320 from duties on Exports, with
S90S, ,622 from Soldiers Tax" which
we don't pretend to understand. Alto
gether, the receipts of his Department
otherwise than from Loans, have been
less than Forty five Millions, against an
admitted expenditure Of six times that
amount. And. when it is considered that
the Rebel armies have not been paid for
many months some of them not for over
year-that their Government owes vast
unliquidated balances right and left to
Railroads, and to every body and compa-
ny whence food or any other material Of
war can be extracted by impressment or
otherwise, it must be evident that the ac-
tual Indebtedness of the Confederacy was
increased during the half-year aforesaid
at rate above rather than below G00,-
100000 per annum.
The Confederacy achieved, six Or eight
months ago, one of those clever financial
operations which, viewing them under
different lights, the authors designate as
mastery and the victims denounce as ras-
cally. Finding itself in debt over One
Thousand Millions of Dollars most of it
in the form of Treasury Notes, which had
come as numerous, omnipresent, and loath
some as the frogs of Egypt, the Govern
ment called them all in, subject to tq1
of 333 per cent, replacing them by new
issue of two-thirds their amount The
calculation was that the Debt would thus
be reduced more than Three Hundred
Millions, while the Notes would thereby
be appreciated to similar extent-in 9TH
er words, that the Rebel Government
would owe Three Hundred and odd Mil
lions less, while its creditors would be as
well off as before. But, though it thus
reduced its Debt by no less sum than
1924, 9,SlS, the Secretary reports its
present aggregate at s1,l47 ,97O,2OS,
while his expenditures for the current
81, @ nths-estimated at s437 ,O39,3l5
va. carry this aggregate considerably
above Fifteen Hundred Millions of Dol
lars on the 1st day of April next.
The one cheerful feature of the Secre-
tary's expose is his statement that the
debt, was only increased S97 $50, 780 dur
ing the last half year; but when it is con-
sidered that the Debt has been kept down
by the process of scaling" the Treasu-
ry Notes as aforesaid, there is little room
ior congratulation on this head.
This experiment of " sealing has the
one old result. When the Regent Of
France, by an arbitrary edict, reduced
| by one-half the nominal value of the
shares in John Laws Mississippi scheme
he did not reduce their current value
merely to that extent-he destroyed it al
together. Holders saw at once that a
property which might be reduced in val
ue indefinitely at another's caprice was in
fact no property at all. And SO secreta-
ry Trenholm is obliged to confess that
the constrained reduction Of the volume