There was a fear that if, by a political convulsion, the Confederates of the South should unite with the Democratic opponents of the war in the North and thus obtain control of the Government, they might, at least by some indirect process if not directly, impair the public obligations of the United States incurred in suppressing the Rebellion.

They feared that the large bounties already paid to Union soldiers, and the generous pensions already provided or which might afterwards be provided, for those who had been maimed or for the orphan and the widow of those who had fallen, might, in the advent of the same adverse political power in the Government, be objected to, unless at the same time a similar concession should be granted to the misled and deceived masses of the South, who had with reckless daring been forced into the service of the ill-starred Confederacy.

It was therefore expected that Congress would, so far as organic law could attain that end, guard the sacredness of the public debt and the equal sacredness of the National pensions, and that to do this effectively it should be provided that no recognition should ever be made, either by the National Government or by any State Governments, of debts incurred in aid of the Rebellion.
Still another subject was considered to be of grave consequence.
Preventive measures of the most stringent character were demanded against a threatened danger to the National credit.

With the single exception of land, which is the basis of all property, the South had lost the largest aggregate investment held in one form in the entire country.

The money value of Southern slaves, reckoned at current prices, was larger when the war broke out than the money value of railroads or of manufacturing establishments in the United States.