The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1871-05-09
Mliooltburp 8egiste.
TUESDAY. May o, 1871.
Cost of our late Civil War.

Hon. David A. Wells, Special Com
missioner of the revenue 10 his annual re-
port to the Secretary Of the Treasury,
gives an estimate Of the actual cost Of
our late civil war, from the statistics in
his possession. so far as an estimate can
be made in dollars and cents, and that is
all that is attempted in this calculation,
this appears to be quite as accurate as we
shall ever be likely to obtain. The length
of time is sufficient to ensure the utmost
f,'rne ,s, and a completeness of observation,
and in putting this estimate upon record,
Mr.. Wells has done the country a real
service.
The amount of outstanding indebted
ness March I, 1861, was S76,455,299.2S %.
Total receipts during the four years of
war S575,799, 1871 81 From April |,
1865 to June 80, 1869 the total receipts
amounted to 81 ,90S, 567 ,625.09. Amount
of Indebtedness, less cash and sinking
fund June 80, 1869 s2,4S9, O02, 1905
Total expenditure in eight and one quarter
years of war and its effects s4,996,914,-
1888. Deducting average expenditure
in time of peace, one hundred millions
per year and we shall have S4,l7l ,9l4,-
1883, which represents the cost of the
war, to the United States government
down to June 80, 1869. To this sum
add the value ofthe pensions now paid
by government. This at eight years pur.
chase would amount to W hundred mil
lions. Add to these expenses increase
of state debts on war account, $4,000.
900. County city and town Indebtedness
5000, 000,0 900. Expenditures of states,
towns &c 100000 00. Estimated loss
to loyal states, from diversion and suspen-
sion of industries, 81 1000, 900, 900. Ex-
p~enditures and losses of property by Con-
iederate states $1,000, 000, 900. All
these items amount to nearly nine thou
sand millions Of dollars, a sum nominally
in excess of the entire increase of wealth,
as returned by the census, for the whole
country from 1850 to 1860.
This, then, was the cost of the destruc-
ton of slavery the cost of compromise
the cost of the unfaithfulness, of those
who founded this nation, to the idea by
which the nation lives. What does it
measure? 1t is substantially a thousand
millions n year for nine years or, at
the wages of five hundred dollars a year,
the labor of two millions of men excrted
continuously during the whole of that
period. 1t is three times as much as the
slave property of the country was ever
worth. 1t is a sum which at interest
would yield to the end of time twice as
much as the annual slave product Of the
Souht in its best estate.
The places of those who sleep in their
graves have been filled by new laborers
the incubus Of slavery, which was slowly
but surely making the fertile South a
desert scorched as by a consuming fire,
has been removed thousands of miles Of
new railroads inventions never before
excelled in their labor-saving character
millions of acres of the richest lands
opened to settlement. now render labor
easy and product large. 1t must be re.
membered that this material estimate is
all that is possible. For who shall calcu.
late upon the value of life, and limb, and
groans, and tears, and broken hearts 7
Who shall put into dollars and cents the
untold sufferings of the victims Of Ander'
sonville, the anguish of hearts berett Of
loved ones, or the misery resulting from
any one of the hundreds of battles fought
during that fierce struggle Of flour years
Let imagination supply the recital tt
those whose experience does not furnish
it from the treasures of memory. W
cannot speak of them without too mucl
emotion.