TRADE REGULATIONS. 327 Louisiana, as might be occupied by the national forces operating from the north. The second comprised the State of Virginia and so much of the State of West Virginia as lay east of the Alleghany Mountains; and alse to the north and east of the boundaries so described, from which trade was carried on with the States or parts of States declared to be in insurrection. The third agency comprised the State of North Carolina; the fourth the States of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida; and the fifth the State of Texas, and so much of the States of Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi, as there was or might be within the lines of the national forces operating from the south. The regulations laid down for the government of trade under the supervision of these several agencies were most minute and comprehensive, and were thought to cover all the contingencies likely to arise. They provided also for the collection, custody and sale of abandoned and captured property, which was thus described: "Abandoned property is of two kinds: first, that which has been or may be deserted by the owners; and, second, that which has been or may be voluntarily abandoned by the owners to the civil or military authorities of the United States. Captured property is that which has been or may be seized or taken from hostile possession by the national, military, or naval forces." Provision was made, as well by the law as by the regulations of the Treasury, for the recovery by the owners of abandoned property, under certain restrictions touching loyalty, of the proceeds of its sale, deducting the costs and charges; but the authority to collect extended only to personal property-although, by an order of the Secretary of War, the care of abandoned plantations was in the summer of 1863 devolved upon the supervising agents of the Treasury-and included furniture, family pictures, equipage, clothing, and household effects and utensils, and articles even of a perishable nature. A part of the 'property" which came under the supervision of the Treasury agents were slaves found upon abandoned plantations in South Carolina. Some of these were put to work upon lands in the neighborhood of Beaufort; a school was established for their instruction; most of this being done under the immediate direction of personal friends of Mr. Chase. The Secretary took a warm personal interest in this little colony of blacks; and it was this small beginning which resulted afterward in the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau; an establishment which grew to vast proportions for a while beneficent in its operations, but at last degenerating into an abuse. To these various regulations others were added from time to time, until the whole of them formed a code of laws adapted to the inter-State commerce in a period of war. With the suppression of the rebellion and the seizure of large quantities of cotton by the Federal officers, civil and military, belonging to private persons engaged in rebellion, as well as to the Confederate Government, modifications of the old regulations and some entirely new ones were made to meet the altered circumstances of the country. This brief and imperfect sketch of the internal commercial intercourse system of the Treasury Department during the war will give to many readers new views of the magnitude of the operations conducted under the administration of Mr. Chase. The number of officers employed in the supervision of the internal commerce amounted to several hundreds, spread all over the insurgent States; and the "revenue marine," a branch of the Treasury service, of no very great extent before the war, was considerably enlarged to assist in enforcing the regulations. The revenue-cutters, old and new, operated with especial and admitted efficiency along the Potomac River and upon the Atlantic coast. The income of the Government derived from fees collected by the agents in the transaction of the business of their several offices sufficed, according to a statement made by Secretary Fessenden in 1864, to pay the expenses of the establish ment. Some of the agents became corrupt, despite every effort to prevent corruption. No sure calculation could be made upon the integrity of any man. Established uprightness of character never lost its value, of course, but it was no certain guarantee against corrupt practices in the presence of powerful temptations. Some men went into the service of the Treasury, in this special employment, whose past lives had been irreproachable; but they fell. Some, of not so good fame when they entered it, came out untarnished, having borne themselves purely in their offices. In a word, the times were out of joint. CORRUPTION OF AGENTS. 329 Early in 1864 Mr. Chase appointed a gentleman whom he had long personally known to an agency on the Mississippi River. This gentleman was thoroughly well known in his community as a lawyer of excellent capacity, of strict probity, who had served in a judicial office of high grade as an upright judge. None doubted the fitness of the appointment, and none feared for his future. In the course of a few months it was found, however, that he had been honest because he had not been tempted; he was discovered to be a bribe-taker, who had received money almost immediately upon his entrance upon the duties of his place. Within the short period of but sixty or ninety days thereafter he had corruptly and illegally received pay to the amount of about seventeen thousand dollars. "I learn, with great pain and regret," says Secretary Chase, in a letter written on the 24th of May, 1864, suspending this officer while the charges against him were being investigated, "from the letters of Assistant Special Agent Heaton, who was directed by me to inquire into the truth of reports relating to the course of yourself and other agents of the Department on the Mississippi River, between Memphis and Natchez, and including those places, that you have been wrongfully connected with cotton transactions in your district, by the receipt of money for the performance of official duties and otherwise. You were selected for your position because of my personal confidence in your integrity and ability, and were made fully aware that, under no circumstances, would any officer of the department be allowed to derive the least emolument from any transaction over which he had any official control or influence. The pain I suffer from the delinquency of any officer appointed by me is augmented in your case by the disappointment of my personal confidence. I shall be glad, indeed, if the allegations affecting you, which now seem sufficiently sustained, can be disproved. In the mean time, I perform a simple public duty in suspending you from office and pay until further notice." I have been informed that shocked and overwhelmed by his disgraceful dismissal, died of shame and grief within three months afterward. CHAPTER XXXIV. RECOMMENDATIONS OF MR. CHASE IN RESPECT OF ECONOMY AND TAXATION — INCOME FROM TAXES DURING MR. BUCHANAN'S ADMINISTRATION — INTERNAL REVENUE AND TARIFF ACTS— N his public reports, in official communications to the Finance Committees of both House and Senate, in private letters, and in personal intercourse with members, Mr. Chase constantly and earnestly urged upon Congress two paramount duties— economy and taxation. But the immediate imposition of enormous and indiscriminate burdens upon a people whose internal trade and foreign commerce were alike paralyzed by the presence among them of civil war, did not commend itself to him as a wise and just policy. The destruction of property throughout the free States, consequent upon the election of Mr. Lincoln and the breaking out of hostilities, had been immense.' Thou 1 Many persons of large wealth, in apprehension of war, had, even before the breaking out of hostilities, transferred their property to foreign countries. The object is obvious enough: it was to escape not only the pressure of the war taxes, but also to preserve their opulence, should the result of the war prove unfavorable to the national cause. The taxable property transferred to Europe aggregated millions. One of the patriots who thus moved his estate out of harm's way, afterward addressed Mr. Chase a long letter, advising him to a terrific scheme of taxation, and, generally, how to manage the finances! This letter was lately printed in a New York evening newspaper, by way of criticism upon Mr. Chase's methods of adminis tration. The grim loyalty of Artemus Ward vented itself in a proposition to send all his wife's relations to the war; and there were plenty of people whose loyaltyof a like kind—engaged itself in schemes for taxing the property of their neighbors. If all those who talked and wrote about taxation had been as prompt and honest to pay, the revenues of the Government would have been many millions larger than they were. PUBLIC CREDIT AND TAXATION. 331 sands of Northern merchants, prosperous and opulent before, found themselves in the midst of ruined commerce and fortunes. Southern journals exultingly proclaimed that grass would grow in the streets of Northern cities; and it was indeed certain that a hundred thousand workmen were suddenly thrown out of productive employments; prices were depressed; the currency of the country was so disordered and unequal as to have no uniform value or credit. The coin circulation was limited; wholly insufficient for the public wants. The first duty of a Secretary of the Treasury, who was both a statesman and a financier, was therefore to reform the currency and give to the country a sound and uniform instrument of exchange; and, secondly, to give time and all practicable assistance to the recovery and reinvigoration of prostrated industries and commerce, not further to oppress them by ill-timed assessments. Mr. Chase, however, never lost sight of the fundamental truth that in "every sound system of finance adequate provision by taxation for the prompt discharge of all ordinary demands, for the punctual payment of the interest on loans, and for the creation of a gradually-increasing fund for the redemption of the principal of the public debt, is indispensable. Public credit can only be supported by public faith, and public faith can only be maintained by an economical, energetic, and prudent administration of public affairs, and by the prompt and punctual fulfillment of every public obligation.' But in the same report from which these words are taken, Mr. Chase said that he foresaw the difficulties of the task before him-difficulties always considerable, even in time of peace, "but now augmented and multiplied beyond measure, by an insurrection which deranged commerce, accumulated expenditures, necessitated taxes, embarrassed industry, depreciated property, crippled enterprise, and frustrated progress." Nor must it be forgotten that at the beginning of the rebellion, scarcely any one looked forward to a long war; he who, believing that it would be either protracted or desperate, dared to express his belief, was suspected of sympathy with treason or of unsoundness of mind! Mr. Chase, like most of the public men of the period, had no approximate conception of the magnitude or duration of the conflict upon which the country had entered. Pre |