Confederate Victory: When does the Confederacy become a pariah state?

One politician whose career may thrive in an independent Confederacy may be the 'Pater Respublicae', Gen. Henry W. Allen of Louisiana, who, by all accounts, was the most capable and extraordinary of the C.S. Governors who served during the War in comparison to more obstinate and anti-Administration figures such as Brown and Vance. The 'dean of Southern historians', Douglas Southall Freeman, would later write that Allen was the one great administrator produced by the Confederacy, and may have altered the course of American destiny had he been an officer in Richmond. All in all, he had "established order, restored confidence, developed resources, and had demonstrated concern of the state for the welfare of its people." Despite maintaining the office for less than eighteen months, some of his achievements include:

"After his election in November 1863, Allen proposed appropriations for distributing cotton cards to women, a program of cotton exporting through Houston and Galveston that would bring medicine and food into the State, and the establishment of bureaucracies meant to encourage manufacturing and mining, chemical laboratories, and geological exploration."

"His plans called for the purchase and transportation of cotton by contractual agents who would receive 25 percent of their proceeds, with the remaining going to the State. Agents were appointed in each parish to distribute aid, and Allen himself "made gifts amounting to more than eleven thousand dollars from the governor’s contingent fund to wounded soldiers and destitute women."

"Allen also took steps to manufacture cloth within Louisiana, bringing several iron looms out of storage at the State prison and establishing State-owned cloth manufacturing factories as well as a rope-producing plant near Minden. The State chemical laboratory was also established by mid-1864, and a medicinal dispensary at Shreveport turned a profit for the State, paying $793,925.84 into the State treasury. So did State stores set-up by Allen’s administration that were overseen by the Quartermaster-General; the stores’ goods were liquidated at the very end of the War by selling them to those with State money on hand."

These establishments provided complete stock of "clothes, shoes, household articles, kitchen utensils, and groceries." Citizens who could pay did, while the less fortunate were furnished with staples free-of-charge. The Quartermaster-General assigned to these operations could transfer into the State treasury about $400,000 in 1864; in the first half of 1865 a further $1.5 million.

He also attempted to restore the education system, for disruption incurred to public schools was severe throughout the South. English grammar and spelling textbooks for schoolchildren were composed and published in Shreveport. In 1865 appropriations were secured from the legislature authorizing gubernatorial purchase of schoolbooks, with parents who could pay doing so, while others received them for free. The newspapers, meanwhile, were receiving new shipments of paper from Mexico, and Allen himself planned to oversee the implementation of new paper mills to provide domestically, but the War was effectively terminated before he could do so.

"While exploring the possibility of finding sources of iron (for pots and pans rather than munitions) in Louisiana itself, Allen also 'arranged for the state of Louisiana to buy a quarter interest in some iron works in Davis County, Texas,' which became the Sulphur Fork Iron Works."

In his annual message to the legislature in January 1865, Allen could report that the State was now operating "two turpentine distilleries, one castor oil factory, one establishment for making carbonate of soda, two distilleries for pure medicinal alcohol, and two laboratories for indigenous medicines." By Spring the foundry in Shreveport was in full production. The salt mine on Avery Island, apparently inexhaustible, was also being exploited, and would have been of much benefit for the Gulf region if not for blockade, collapsing transportation, and the loss of access to the Lower Mississippi.

"According to Dorsey, however, these enterprises were all arrested by the end of the War: "The sudden stoppage of all the wheels of the industrial machinery had put in motion, by the failure of the Confederate cause, necessarily left affairs in an unfinished and entangled condition."

More ordeals of his remarkable tenure follow:

"When late in the war Kirby-Smith proposed to burn all the cotton stored on the Ouachita in Louisiana, the most statesman-like of Southern governors, Henry W. Allen, was vehemently opposed. He knew that while east of the Mississippi the State was under Union occupation, west of the river the people were starving. With the energy that had marked his life since, as a boy of seventeen, he had run away from his Missouri college to study law, he set to work. He gathered together cotton and sugar, exported them to Mexico, and there exchanged them for the mixed goods that Louisiana needed: machinery, cotton and wool-cards, textiles, medicines, and salt. He barred luxuries, and established State stores for the sale of commodities at fair prices. It was as absurd to burn cotton, he said, as to destroy breadstuffs, meat, livestock, or furniture, and the policy would simply impoverish the people."

"As in Louisiana, where rival forces had swept back and forth across great areas, Governor Henry W. Allen was outraged not only by the corruption attending the traffic across the lines, but by the class discriminations involved. Most of the cotton in western Louisiana that the Confederate Government wished to destroy, he wrote, was the property of small farmers who had nothing else left. The big planters had sold their holdings at high prices to the enemy; a good deal of Confederate government cotton had gone with it. Allen thought it wise of the Confederacy to trade it for army supplies. But were not poor farmers justified in selling for a few bales for food?" These same farmers would often send in letters requesting provisions and supplies.

"Again and again has Governor Allen handed to me the most sorrowful notes of this kind, and would say with tears in his eyes, and unaffected concern on his countenance: 'My God! how shall I meet the absolute necessities of this destitute, starving people?' He kept trains running into Texas continually, bringing out corn, meal, flour, and bacon, which he distributed as far as he could. The people had a trust and reliance upon him that was frequently ludicrous."

His policies appear to some historians to have been a veritable precursor to the New Deal and of Huey Long. He also sought to provide for the refugees of Missouri, whereas in the Eastern Confederacy such unfortunate individuals were often scorned. Indeed, Luther Chandler, in his doctoral thesis, remarked that Allen's system would bring 'joy to the heart of any socialist', despite the fact that the enterprises were making the State quite a significant amount of capital. Even the specter of civil conflict and the fact that the most wealthy parishes/New Orleans were under Federal occupation did not deter him and his administration.

The only true biography that was published of Allen's life was by Sarah Dorsey, in her Recollections of Henry Watkins Allen (1866), the same year of his death in exile as an editor in Mexico City. Unfortunately, he has been largely forgotten and smothered in the greater nostalgia for Lee, Jackson, etc. This is a damn shame, for he possessed, IMO, the potential to evolve into the 'great man' of an independent South. After all, "the destiny he sought had made him one of the best possible governors of his adopted state at one of the worst possible times," with the War providing a "disastrous but glorious climax to his career."

Although everything is contingent on whether victory is secured in 1862 or 1864, Allen's term would not expire until 1868, and by all consideration would be in a position to run for re-election or for the Confederate Senate. With his talents and laurels, I think he would be a prime presidential candidate in 1873. If Europe and North America are still afflicted with a 'Great Depression' in the 1870s, his providence may come full-circle.

TL;DR: I explore the notion of a nineteenth-century Huey Long ascending in an independent CSA.
Portrait_of_Confederate_States_of_America_Brigadier_General_Henry_Watkins_Allen.jpeg
 
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And you think the CSA would treat natives better after the war? You know, the land-hungry Confederacy that wanted more land to expand slavery to. Natives might be tolerated if they attack the US, but the Confederacy will be just as hostile long-term as the US was.
Would the Indian Territory provide additional land for plantations? After all, one of the movers for expansion against MExico was planters wanting more plantations.
Many NA tribes in Oklahoma sided with the CSA hoping to get a better deal. Jefferson Davis also had an impeccable record with dealing with Native Americans going back to the Black Hawk War when he personally prevented the mistreatment of captives.
There's also the fact some Indian tribes owned themselves slaves and had plantations.
 
Would the Indian Territory provide additional land for plantations? After all, one of the movers for expansion against MExico was planters wanting more plantations.
There were plantations in Oklahoma. Not like there were in the Deep South, but they existed.


There's also the fact some Indian tribes owned themselves slaves and had plantations.
Because of course that saved the Cherokee in the 1830s.
 
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His policies appear to some historians to have been a veritable precursor to the New Deal and of Huey Long. He also sought to provide for the refugees of Missouri, whereas in the Eastern Confederacy such unfortunate individuals were often scorned. Indeed, Luther Chandler, in his doctoral thesis, remarked that Allen's system would bring 'joy to the heart of any socialist', despite the fact that the enterprises were making the State quite a significant amount of capital. Even the specter of civil conflict and the fact that the most wealthy parishes/New Orleans were under Federal occupation did not deter him and his administration.
If he cares about Black people all the better!
 
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If he cares about Black people all the better!
Well, we have sources on his thoughts and considerations regarding Blacks, and seems as practical as any contemporary Southern statesman. Levine’s Confederate Emancipation, 108, also notes that Allen imagined slavery being replaced by "bondage under some other name." Certainly the 'nationalist' generals -- including Lee and Cleburne -- regarded the conscription of slaves and enlistment of freemen into the Confederate armies as preferable to certain military demise. The South's economy is so revolutionized by 1864, in both industrial and agricultural sectors, as to render such legislation practicable.

"In his 1865 address to the legislature, Allen also reported on his efforts to stop 'evil-doers' from kidnapping slaves from plantations under federal control and bringing them behind Confederate lines for sale or hire. Describing these practices as a 'fraud on the rights of the owners,' Allen claimed to have successfully recaptured 500 enslaved people and had appointed F. H. Farrar as a commissioner to 'take charge of these recovered slaves, to hire them for the benefit of their owners,' and to confer with Pendleton Murrah about how 'to devise some means by which all persons taking slaves into Texas shall be required to exhibit their titles.'

"The 1865 address also indicates that Allen, at this juncture, supported Confederate proposals to arm slaves at some later date if it became necessary, offering 'freedom to every slave who fights the battles of his country.' But the most immediate implication of his view was that enslaved laborers should be attached to trans-Mississippi armies to do manual labor, thus freeing white soldiers for combat and preparing for the possible eventual step of arming slaves. 'If necessary,' said Allen, 'if the worst should come, perish slavery—perish the institution for ever—but give us independence.'
 
The South's economy is so revolutionized by 1864, in both industrial and agricultural sectors, as to render such legislation practicable.
Which is kind of irrelevant, since by that point the Confederacy has lost the war. It just hasn’t stopped kicking yet.
 
Certainly the 'nationalist' generals -- including Lee and Cleburne -- regarded the conscription of slaves and enlistment of freemen into the Confederate armies as preferable to certain military demise. The South's economy is so revolutionized by 1864, in both industrial and agricultural sectors, as to render such legislation practicable.
That's a good thing imo. Having black people fighting for the Confederacy would make Southern white liberals take more sympathetic views towards blacks
if the worst should come, perish slavery—perish the institution for ever—but give us independence.'
Pretty interesting stuff, it seems he really cared more about the Confederate nation than he did about slavery, an opinion that many in the planter elite didn't really share
 
The paradox here is that in a shorter war, the Confederate central government would have been much weaker and the States' Rights crowd would have been stronger.

On the other hand, in a longer war, the more developed border states would have been occupied and/or destroyed. The CSA would have come out of the war with significantly fewer territories than in 1860. I mean, the negiotiation power of the Union would be as strong as the Germans in B-L in 1918. So, the CSA would have certainly lost Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, West Virginia, modern Oklahoma, and much of modern Virginia. Worse, they could have lost Louisiana and the entire Mississipi river. The CSA would have been absolutely f**k in this scenario.
 
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The paradox here is that in a shorter war, the Confederate central government would have been much weaker and the States' Rights crowd would have been stronger.

On the other hand, in a longer war, the more developed border states would have been occupied and/or destroyed. The CSA would have come out of the war with significantly fewer territories than in 1860. I mean, the negiotiation power of the Union would be as strong as the Germans in B-L in 1918. So, the CSA would have certainly lost Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, West Virginia, modern Oklahoma, and much of modern Virginia. Worse, they could have lost Louisiana and the entire Mississipi river. The CSA would have been absolutely f**k in this scenario.

An 1864 victory of exhaustion would require the North to concede that secession had legal basis and it would be their political leaders conceding this point.

That means rather than a keep what you hold scenario, the CSA would be restored the eleven original Confederate States, minus West Virginia, plus possibly parts of Oklahoma (No clue how Indian Sovereignty plays out) and probably nothing else and have to concede things like navigation of the Mississippi.

That said, long term this probably leads to the most viable long term Confederacy as any illusions are shattered.
 
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They always were a pariah state. Britain and France did not bother with recognition/intervention despite the fact that it would check the growing power of the United States.
 
They always were a pariah state. Britain and France did not bother with recognition/intervention despite the fact that it would check the growing power of the United States.
If they win the war, those nations would have recognized the CSA. That "pariah" status was that of a nation that had not fully established its independence rather than on any moral objections (though that probably helped the US in 'corner' cases).
 
An 1864 victory of exhaustion would require the North to concede that secession had legal basis and it would be their political leaders conceding this point.
The problem is that without massive changes earlier you can’t get an 1864 victory from exhaustion. Even if Lincoln loses in November, which despite his own worries was actually exceedingly unlikely, he’s still in office until March. By which point the war is almost over.

And Lincoln just has no reason to give up unless that’s not true and he’s worried a successor will make a worse peace.
 
An 1864 victory of exhaustion would require the North to concede that secession had legal basis and it would be their political leaders conceding this point.
I am not sure it matters if there is a legal basis or not.
Conflicts like this one are decided by military action, not in court cases.
 
The problem is that without massive changes earlier you can’t get an 1864 victory from exhaustion. Even if Lincoln loses in November, which despite his own worries was actually exceedingly unlikely, he’s still in office until March. By which point the war is almost over.

And Lincoln just has no reason to give up unless that’s not true and he’s worried a successor will make a worse peace.
Reasonably, in Nov 1864 with Lincoln losing we have to assume there have been battlefield changes. The barest one would be Atlanta is still in Confederate hands.

But now there is a clock, even if Lincoln continues to fight, and both sides know this.

That means fewer Confederate deserters (no March to the Sea helps here too). It means people are willing to hold on rather than deserting a lost cause. Conversely, Union soldiers are less willing to take risks because bravery will be in vain. Cumulatively, in March, the CSA is in a better position in March.
I am not sure it matters if there is a legal basis or not.
Conflicts like this one are decided by military action, not in court cases.

We are talking about the peace talks, after the military fight is over. There legal claims do matter.
 
We are talking about the peace talks, after the military fight is over. There legal claims do matter.
if they are negotiating with the enemy the Union has already lost the will to fight.
Legal or not any peace treaty that allows the CSA to remain independent is due to the military action during the conflict.
Now if the union changed the constitution after to war to make it illegal for states to leave the Union that would be an acknowledgement that the southern states leaving had a legal basis.
 
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The following summaries are perhaps the finest regarding the deficient and increasingly-decentralized Confederate finance I have found:

"Confederate Secretary of the Treasury Christopher G. Memminger assumed his duties in February 1861 by floating government loans and creating an instant national debt. In 1861 the Confederacy sold bonds worth $150 million in the so-called Bankers Loan, which secured much-needed specie. The government also tapped agricultural staples through the Produce Loan, in which planters pledged their produce in exchange for government paper. Against the receipts of these loans, Memminger issued Treasury notes, circulating paper money with which the government paid its bills. In August, 1861 the Confederate Congress passed a War Tax on various kinds of property to increase government resources. Unfortunately Memminger's department was inefficient in collecting the produce subscribed to the Produce Loan, and he allowed taxes to be paid in inflated state currency. Consequently government paper money fed inflation, which served as an inverse tax on Confederate citizens.
By 1863 Memminger realized that inflation was threatening the government's ability to support itself and the war. Accordingly he proposed and Congress passed a graduated Income Tax and a 10% Tax In Kind on agricultural products. In March, 1863 the Confederacy accepted a $15 million loan from the French banking house of Emile Erlanger that yielded much less than its face value (about $8.5 million), but given the tenuous nature of Southern nationhood, the Confederates made the best deal possible. Still, Memminger's printing presses moved faster than the government could collect revenue, and inflation accelerated. In desperation, in 1864 Memminger imposed a Compulsory Funding Measure, which devalued those Treasury notes not exchanged for non-circulating government bonds. This failed too, as Confederates continued to exchange government paper for goods and services.
In July 1864 Jefferson Davis replaced Memminger with another South Carolinian, George A. Trenholm, but there was little Trenholm could do. The Confederacy never had more than $27 million of specie. The national debt ran over $700 million and the overall inflation was about 6,000%. That the Confederacy persisted as long as it did amid this financial chaos was a wonder."

"Then and later many were willing to say that the greatest single cause of demoralization lay in inflation -- in the flood of paper currency choking the Confederacy. Treasury Secretary Memminger and his associates had really possessed no choice. They had been compelled to finance the war on credit. It was impossible to obtain a sufficient revenue from tariffs, the blockade shutting off all imports and exports more and more completely; from taxation, no considerable collections being possible; or from the sale of lands, there being no cash customers. The monetary resources of the South had been slender. No stocks of gold and silver existed, and no Confederate coins could be minted (for want of die-cutters). After secession about twenty million dollars in United States coins, it was estimated, remained in the possession of the people, who in considerable part jealously hoarded the money. The only basis for borrowing lay in the staple crops, which could not be exported in any appreciable quantity, and lay increasingly at the mercy of invading armies.

The history of Confederate finance is a record of prolonged failure, but failure attributable far more to hard circumstances than human short-sightedness or error. Tariffs, taxes, produce loans (that is, contributions in cotton, tobacco, sugar and the like in exchange for bonds), tax-in-kind or tithe, loans floated about -- all were tried and all proved false lights; will-o'-the-wisps glimmering over the depths of a fiscal quagmire. The story of the tariffs can be briefly dismissed. At the very outset (February 9, 1861) the Confederate Congress voted temporary adoption of the tariff of 1857; the next month it erected the first distinctly Confederate tariff; and within two months more it voted the second -- a low tariff devoid of protective duties, which were in fact prohibited by both the temporary and permanent Constitutions. But the tariffs on imports amounted to very little. All told, the customs receipts of the Confederacy came to less than $3,481,000 for the whole war period. As for export duties, which were permissible under the Confederate Constitution, they yielded practically nothing. The total amount collected on shipments of cotton, tobacco, and naval stores came to just over $39,000!

Taxes also provided frail support. Secretary Memminger realized perfectly well that theoretically they were much better means of gathering resources for the government use than the floating of loans (the census of 1860 had estimated the gross value of property in the Confederacy at $5,202,176,000, so that a low tax of fifty cents upon each hundred dollars' worth of property would 'theoretically' raise $26,000,000); but practically, he faced mounting and almost insuperable difficulties. The first $15,000,000 loan, authorized nearly a fortnight before the firing on Fort Sumter, and bearing eight per cent interest payable in specie, was a success. This was because the banks gave it full support, throwing their resources into the effort so loyally that they lost control of a great part of the specie held in the South; much of it went abroad for the purchase of munitions and satisfaction of other needs. Almost at once in the spring of 1861 Congress had to authorize the Secretary to issue another $50,000,000 bond issue, payment this time coming not from banks in specie, but from the agricultural population in salable produce. Then issue followed issue, Memminger perforce turning to sales of bonds as the main source of revenue.

Although the exchange of government paper for produce was the logical expedient of an agricultural society for paying its way, vexatious problems of storage and marketing arose, and acrimonious controversy followed. As the blockade tightened, many subscribers to loans complained that the stipulation that crops be turned over on a fixed day carried the seeds of their ruin. The government could compel a sale on that date even though the prices had fallen abysmally low. When Congress refused to guarantee the growers any relief, various States followed Mississippi in issuing notes and bonds for cotton; and the States thus drifted into speculations in cotton in competition with the Richmond government. These activities, carried on abroad as well as at home, led to embarrassing conflicts between State and Confederate authorities.

Efforts to raise money abroad were of little avail. Obtaining title to large quantities of cotton, the Treasury issued 1,500 Cotton Certificates valued $1,000 each, which Secretary Memminger regarded as the most hopeful implement for obtaining funds from abroad. The results were very far below those he anticipated. The certificates sold so slowly on a reluctant market that the field soon had to be cleared to give sole possession to the Erlanger Loan. As we have seen previously, the house of Emile Erlanger & Co. agreed, under a contract with the Confederacy signed October 28, 1862, and perfected on January 8, 1863, to market $15,000,000 worth of cotton-secured bonds. James Spence of Liverpool, who had been authorized to sell as many of the Cotton Certificates as he could, had to stand aside. By the time the Confederacy began to collapse, the Erlanger loan had slumped lower and lower. Henry Hotze wrote Judah P. Benjamin (the Secretary-of-State) on August 17, 1863, that 'the slightest causes affect it sensibly without adequate reasons" -- as if Vicksburg and Gettysburg were trivial matters! When the Confederate financial authorities submitted a final report (February 11, 1865), it showed total receipts of about seven-and-one-half millions, a little more than half the face value of the loan. Actually, the true net figure is not known.

The failure of the tariffs, taxes, and foreign borrowings, with the emission of greater and greater quantities of paper money, meant a rapid drop into the abyss of inflation. By midsummer of 1863 a gold dollar would buy $10 in Confederate notes; by August it would buy $12; and by November it would purchase $15, so swift was the descent into the financial Avernus! Peering ahead, people could wonder whether even $25 in Confederate notes would obtain a gold dollar a year later. As a matter of fact, in the month of Lincoln's re-election, about $35 in rebel money was asked for one dollar in gold, or $150 for a (English) sovereign. As Pollard bitterly wrote, a soldier's monthly pay (if he received it) would hardly buy him a pair of socks as Christmas of 1864 approached. When hostilities began, the amount of Federal currency circulating in the Confederacy had been estimated at $85,500,000. By the beginning of 1863, however, about $290,000,000 in Confederate Treasury notes not bearing interest were circulating; $121,500,000 in interest-bearing notes; and at least $20,000,000 in States notes and banknotes. The consequences were inevitable."
 
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Reasonably, in Nov 1864 with Lincoln losing we have to assume there have been battlefield changes. The barest one would be Atlanta is still in Confederate hands.

But now there is a clock, even if Lincoln continues to fight, and both sides know this.

That means fewer Confederate deserters (no March to the Sea helps here too). It means people are willing to hold on rather than deserting a lost cause. Conversely, Union soldiers are less willing to take risks because bravery will be in vain. Cumulatively, in March, the CSA is in a better position in March.
The CSA holding Atlanta isn’t nearly enough to cause the sheer massive vote shift required for Lincoln to lose the election, because it was a crushing defeat for his opponents. To such an extent that if the entire CSA had been allowed to vote it would not have mattered in the slightest. Lincoln crushed McClellan, and this was after McClellan had repudiated his own party’s platform note.

The fact is that yhere is absolutely no indication the North would reach a “peace from exhaustion”, and every indication of the opposite. There was a deep-seated favor to continue the war until gictory was achieved.

Now you can argue that changes can go back further, but…okay, if you’re going to change the entire landscape of the war going back to mid-1862, then everything had to change.
 
CONT.

"As in the North, the premium on gold in exchange for paper money bore no close relationship to the amount of paper in circulation. It was governed rather by popular hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments, over the probable outcome of the war. The amount of Union greenbacks in circulation did not rise greatly after midsummer in 1863, and not all after midsummer in 1864, yet the gold valuation assigned to greenbacks fluctuated sharply in value even while increasing in volume. It is significant that Union credit rose and Confederate credit fell decidedly in the summer of Vicksburg and Gettysburg; that quotations on Northern greenbacks fell in the militarily anxious weeks preceding and following Chancellorsville, but rose that fall and winter while Treasury notes of the Confederacy slumped; and that from May through August, 1864, as Grant's army suffered heavy losses, greenbacks were again low. But, beginning in October, Confederate credit sank, and in January, February and March 1865 it dropped tragically lower. By February, indeed, it took $58 in Confederate Treasury notes to buy a dollar in gold.

It would be tiresome and pointless to recapitulate the list of Confederate funding acts and their amendments; to repeat the oft-told story of the growing Southern demand for Union greenbacks; or to rehearse the tale of Southern speculation in gold, and of the chorus of opprobrious epithets rained upon the speculators. Gambling in specie ran parallel with gambling in cotton. The search for scapegoats, as usual in such situations, was hotly pursued. They were found in certain Army officers -- and indeed, Lee aimed some general orders against soldiers who bought supplies for a speedy resale; in certain Jews whom the diarist Jones accused of profiteering on shoes, and of buying real estate because they had no faith in Confederate money; in turncoat Yankees; and in blockade runners. Trade with the enemy across the lines, nominally illegal but winked at even by the Secretary of War, profited the Confederacy by bringing in supplies; it profited the speculators by bringing in foreign money. Such speculation had a demoralizing effect which invited the condemnation of Lee and other leaders, and of the press. But the opinion of some of the ablest generals was a bit more moderate; they said that it was essentially outrageous, but that it could not be stopped.

The excessive paper money issues, the appalling rise in the cost of living as measured by paper, and the destruction of all confidence in the future value of paper money, government securities, bank deposits, and industrial shares, meant much more than a decay of normal financial standards. That would have been bad enough in the feeling of helplessness, and sometimes even despair, which it often created. But far worse was an accompanying degeneration in the moral tone of the Southern people. When money changed its value overnight, men used it in reckless speculation. As in France during the Revolution, and much later in inflation-riddled Germany after the First World War, rising markets led led people to turn money into goods with frenzied haste. And as in various countries at numerous times, many observers blamed gamblers for the speculation, when actually speculation bred the gamblers. Extravagance was a natural consequence of inflation. Holding fortunes real or fictitious, the nouveaux riches used them in fast living; they seized all available luxuries -- gay dress, handsome houses, fine carriages, and glittering fetes. Gambling halls, which rose overnight in Richmond, Charleston, and other cities, were crowded with men. Soldiers gambled because they did not know whether they would live another month, government contractors gambled because they could not be sure of next week's orders, and bankers, lawyers, and merchants because their money was fairy gold. "Speculation is running wild in this city," wrote the Rebel War Clerk in April of 1863. From gambling to extravagant spending sprang crime. Cupidity became general, so that one observer remarked: "Every man in the community is swindling everybody else."

Currency inflation, in fact, was a contributory agency in the breakdown of social discipline and self-control which became so marked as the war continued, and which we had a glimpse previously in 1863 (the bread riots). It helped bathe much of the South in an atmosphere of laxity, self-indulgence, and blind resignation. The section had always displayed an excessive fondness for whiskey and rum, toddies, and juleps; now drunkenness became frequent inside and outside the Army -- until after 1863 the scarcity of intoxicants cut it down. The South had always been too much addicted to dueling, street affrays, and rural feuds of the kind described in Huckleberry Finn; now violence, sanctioned in battle, grew familiar behind the lines. "With the imposing and grand displays of war," writes Pollard in describing Richmond life, "came flocks of villains, adventurers, gamblers, harlots, thieves in uniform, thugs, tigers, and nondescripts. The city was soon overrun with rowdyism." Statements of the same kind can be found in all newspapers. It was with good reason that, a quarter-century after the war, the principal historian of Confederate finance included in his book a section headed, "The Moral Decadence of the South."
 
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