public debt, and apprehensive of an impending crushing burden of taxation, its publication and circulation was instrumental in restoring public confidence and maintaining the credit of the Government.
The attention of President Lincoln having been attracted to this publication, be invited the author in early February, 1865, to come to Washington and confer with him and Mr. Fessenden, then Secretary of the Treasury, on the best methods of dealing, after the termination of the war (then evidently near at hand), with the enormous debt and burden of taxation that the war had entailed upon the nation.[1] The result of this conference was, that an amendment was added, at the last hours of the Thirty-eighth Congress, to a bill "To provide Internal Revenue," and passed March 3, 1865, authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury "to appoint a commission of three persons to inquire and report at the earliest practical moment on the subject of raising by taxation such revenue as may be necessary to supply the wants of the Government, having regard to and including the sources from which such revenue should be drawn, and the best and most effectual mode of raising the same." The commission was further empowered "to inquire into the present and best methods of collecting the revenue," and to take testimony. Of this commission the writer was, unexpectedly to himself, appointed chairman by the then Secretary of the Treasury—Hon. Hugh McCulloch—after the assassination of the President, but in accordance with his previously indicated wishes,[2] It was also deemed expedient that, of the other members, one should be a representative of the agricultural interests of the West, and the third a citizen of Pennsylvania, the chairman being at the time a citizen of New York; and in accordance with this view Mr. S. S. Hayes, who had distinguished himself as Comptroller of Chicago, and Mr. Stephen Colwell, of Philadelphia, a gentleman of advanced age, and a successful manufacturer of iron, who had written some years before the
- ↑ Mr. Lincoln opened the conference by remarking that, although the war was evidently drawing to a close, he feared that great difficulties were yet to be encountered through the possible unwillingness or inability of the nation to pay the war debt, or the great increase in taxation which the war had made necessary; and followed this remark by asking if the writer had anything to suggest on the subject. The offhand answer returned was, that the best thing to be done was to have an examination made by competent persons of the resources of the country and the best methods of making them available for meeting the expenses of the Government through taxation. Turning to the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Lincoln remarked: "That's a pretty good idea, Fessenden, isn't it? We'll think about it"; and as the hour (evening) was becoming late, the conference substantially soon ended.
- ↑ I The appointment was unsolicited and unexpected, and Mr. Fessenden some years afterward stated that when the composition of the commission was under consideration Mr. Lincoln remarked that "he thought we had better let the young man who had suggested the idea of it be at the head of it."
