incomes over $800 was provided for; the first being made to take
effect practically eight, and the second ten months after date of
enactment. Such laws of course took effect, and became immediately
operative in the loyal States only, and produced but comparatively
little revenue; and although the range of taxation was soon
extended, the whole receipts from all sources by the Government for
the second year of the war, from excise, income, stamp, and all
other internal taxes, were less than $42,000,000; and that, too, at
a time when the expenditures were in excess $60,000,000 per month,
or at the rate of over $700,000,000 per annum. And as showing how
novel was this whole subject of direct and internal taxation to the
people, and how completely the Government officials were lacking in
all experience in respect to it, the following incident may be
noted. The Secretary of the Treasury, in his report for 1863, stated
that, with a view of determining his resources, he employed a very
competent person, with the aid of practical men, to estimate the
probable amount of revenue to be derived from each department of
internal taxation for the previous year. The estimate arrived at was
$85,000,000, but the actual receipts were only $37,000,000."

Now, no doubt, this might have happened under a Parliamentary
government. But, then, many members of Parliament, the entire
Opposition in Parliament, would have been active to unravel the
matter. All the principles of finance would have been worked and
propounded. The light would have come from above, not from below--it
would have come from Parliament to the nation instead of from the
nation to Parliament But exactly the reverse happened in America.
Mr. Wells goes on to say:--

"The people of the loyal States were, however, more determined and