When America needed funding for the Revolutionary War in 1776, it appointed a committee, which would later become the Treasury, to borrow capital from other countries. After the Revolutionary War in 1783, the United States had already accumulated roughly $43 million in debt. After the civil war, the government instituted the Legal Tender Act of 1862 and the National Bank Act of 1863 - both helped lower the debt to $2.1 billion.