The loans had been placed, the money borrowed, under the excitement of war,--sometimes under the pressure of defeat, sometimes in the exaltation of victory.

Without this pressure, without this exaltation, could money be secured at a rate adequate to build up a National credit worthy to be compared with that of the older and richer nations beyond the Atlantic?
The intrepidity with which Congress met its task will always compel the admiration of the student of American history.

While the war lasted, the contributions by taxes and by loans had been on a munificent scale.
The measures adopted at the close of the Thirty-eighth Congress, after four years of desperate struggle and on the very eve on National victory, showed as great readiness to make sacrifices, as little disposition to count the cost of saving the Union, as had marked previous legislation.

Less than six weeks before the surrender of Lee the internal taxes were increased, the duties on imports were adjusted to that increase, and a new Loan Bill was enacted.

The bill provided for borrowing, in addition to the authority given by previous Acts, any sum not exceeding $600,000,000 in bonds, or treasury notes convertible into bonds, at six per cent interest in coin or seven and three-tenths per cent interest in currency.