Year: 1865

WHAT the WAR COST THE SGBTR.


The Richmond Republic says


According to the census Of 1860 the en-
tire property Of the fifteen slave States of
the Union was valued at seven thousand
millions of dollars 1t is interesting to see
what portion of this wealth the South has
lost by the war. The slaves. who have
been freed and their value lost by the war,
were valued at two thousond four hun
dred million dollars. The entire damage
to Southern PROPERTY, by the direct raw
ages of war, may be estimated at nine
hundred millions of dollars. In Georgia,
one hundred million dollars; South Caro-
lima, one hundred millions; North Caro-
lima, seventy-f five millions; Virginia, dur
ing the four years the war ragged within
its limits, two hundred and fifty millions;
Missouri and Tennessee, seventy five mil
lions each; Mississippi and Louisiana, if
ty millions each; Kentucky, Arkansas
and Alabama, thirty millions each.


linen there IS the indirect loss of four
crops of the great Southern staples-coL->
ton, tobacco, rice and sugar For thelast
year before the war, the cotton crop was
worth two hundred and fifty million dol
lars. -Four such crops, at similar prices,
would have yielded thousand millions.
The tobacco crop for 1860 was worth for
ty millions, and four such crops would
have brought one hundred and sixty mil
lions. The rice and sugar cane crops for
1860 were worth each about twenty mill
lions; four such crops would have brought
one hundred and sixty millions. Here
would have been an aggregate loss of over
thirteen hundred millions, suppesing that
there had been an absolute nonproductiOn
of the staples for the last four years. The
cotton, tobacco, rice, and sugar crops that
have actually been made during the Pc
rlOd, would not reduce this figure below
nine hundred millions. 1T is true that
wheat and corn have been, to consider
able extent, substituted for these crops;
but their yield was all consumed by the
Confederate armies and the slaves, and
contributed nothing to the permanent
wealth.


The debt of the Confederaey at the
time Of its collapse was at least four
thousand millions, existing in the shape
of bonds, treasury notes. certificates, etc.
This was due to the southern people al
most exclusively, and they will have to
bear the loss of the capital and the 9TH
er original values which it represents. Of
course due allowance must be made for
the constantly increasing initiation of the
Confederate currency as the war advanced.
1t was not four thousand millions In gold,
or anything like it, that the southern peo-
pie gave to the Richmond government for
OnOoG JULIUS nOA. MGlu NY bnGLls lJAOf puy
that it was one-eighth of that sum, which
is a reasonable calculation, we have an
absolute southern loss through this
source of five hundred million. The an
initiation of that debt is the annihilation
of all the original values to pay for
which it was contracted.


Moreover, the proportion of the Ma
tional war debt which the Southern peo
pie will have. to pay will be a dead loss to
T > 10
proportion will be, for it is impossible to
say what proportion Of the property in
the Union they will have during the time
when the debt Is IN process of liquidat-
ion. In 1860, they had about, one-third
of the property in the Union. Had they
the same proportion now, their contribu-
tiOn to meet the national debt would be
one thousand millions ofdellars. At the
present time they have not the one-sixth,
probably not one-eighth, so much property
of the n orth; and the taxation upon them,
iflevied now, to pay the debt, would be COR
respondingly limited. But not for many
years to come will this debt be paid. Be
fore that time the South, we trust, will
be renovated SO that its taxable property
VIII again reach to to something like the
old proportions. In the meantime the
taxes levied upon the South to meet its
proportion of the current interest of the
debt will, in the aggregate we may safely
assume, make up the difference; so that,
in the long run, the debt will cost the
South one thousand millions at least, lit
tie or no part Of which viii go to its own
people. We have enumerated Southern
losses in consequence of the war, to the
amount of five thousand eight hundred
millions of dollars, namely: twenty
FIVE hundred millions by loss of what
was called slave property, nine hundred
millions by loss of staple crops, five hum
dred millions of property sunk in Con
federate debt, and one thousand millions
| by what must hereafter be paid by the
South to liquidate principal and interest
Of the national debt. This of course is
a very rough estimate We might have
included many other items involving
indirect, though not less certain
losses. Rough as the estimate is, it falls
| short of the actual truth.