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rustbucket: "This was back when the US government had a severe shortage of money with which to pay its bills (a shortage that you have dismissed as non existent in the past).
Even Congressmen were not getting regularly paid back then."

As I remember, any alleged "shortage of money" was instantly solved the same way all such "shortages" have from time-immemorial been solved -- when Congress authorized the treasury to borrow more money.

When did that happen?
Well, for certain on the last day of the 36th Congress, March 3, 1861, but also many times before that.

Consider: Northern Doughfaced Democrat President, New Hampshire's Franklin Pierce, personal friend of Jefferson Davis, was able to reduce the national debt from $66 million in 1852 to $29 million by the end of his term in 1857.
Pierce was a somewhat tragic figure and Democrat in the financial mold of Andrew Jackson.

He was followed in the Presidency by another Northern Doughfaced Democrat, Pennsylvania's James "Lightfoot" Buchanan, who increased the national debt back to $65 million by the end of 1860.
Considering these debt increases typically came a few million dollars at a time, we are looking at something like ten different Congressional actions over Buchanan's four years.

Where did all that money go?
Well... some went for a splendid naval adventure in Paraguay and some to suppressing the Mormon rebellion in Utah, and some kept a Colonel named RE Lee busy chasing "Indian savages" and Mexican "banditti" in Texas -- all those campaigns commanded by Southerners, by the way.

The rest was referred to by Republicans in their 1860 platform:

"That the people justly view with alarm the reckless extravagance which pervades every department of the Federal Government; that a return to rigid economy and accountability is indispensable to arrest the systematic plunder of the public treasury by favored partisans; while the recent startling developments of frauds and corruptions at the Federal metropolis, show that an entire change of administration is imperatively demanded."

Yeh, they don't teach that at Lost Causers' school -- that through 1860 it was Democrats who corruptly squandered & pilfered the treasury for their own "favored partisans".

Just like today...

Yeh, they don't teach that at Lost Causers' school -- that through 1860 it was Democrats who corruptly squandered & pilfered the treasury for their own "favored partisans".

There is a lot of truth in what you say. [Source].

When Congress met in December 1860, ‘the treasury was empty – bankrupt. There was no money to pay the public creditors, who were then pressing for payment. There was not money enough even to pay members of Congress.'” 26 Flaherty noted that the outgoing Buchanan Administration, especially southern sympathizers, effectively cleaned out the government’s coffers before departing office in the winter of 1860-1861. 27 “The management of Secretary [Howell] Cobb had thoroughly depleted the Treasury: he had spared no efforts to accomplish this result. On the 4th of March, 1861, there was not money enough left in its vaults to pay for the daily consumption of stationery; no city dealer would furnish it on credit,” remembered Treasury official Lucius Chittenden.

However, the Democrats weren't the only problem. Republicans had effective control of the House in the 1860-1861 session. That session of Congress basically proposed increasing the government debt from almost 70 million to 250 million. See [my old post 107],

A Republican-controlled coalition controlled the House in the 36th Congress (1860-1861); Democrats controlled the Senate until Feb. 4, 1861. The Tariff Bill mentioned in my post 107 was being pushed by Republicans and was finally passed and signed into law on March 2, 1861, after many Southern Democrats had left the Senate.