[Colonel Kangaroo]

When the southern states seceded the only federal effect on their lives was only the Constitutionally-mandated tasks that were all Lincoln ever intended to do- collect the duties at the ports and deliver the mail. It would be nice if that’s all we had to endure from the federal government today.

[muawiyah]

The Union postmasters stayed on the job and continued to deliver the mail all through the Civil War. Afterwards their pay was recomputed and they were made whole for their loss of Union income during the war.

Collecting taxes was the justification for just about everything the federales did (outside of national defense) right up through the early 1930s. In fact, until quite recently, marijuana laws were based on taxation.