You said:
“At home I have numbers of actual Federal revenues in every year, including this time period.
From memory now I’ll say they were in the neighborhood of $80 million per year, and rose a couple of million each year.”
Wrong. Tariff revenue for 1860 was 52.7 million.
Tariff revenue for 1861 was 39 million.
You said: “National debt at the time was near to zero iirc.
You do not recall correctly. Federal debt in 1860 was 64.8 million.
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I see where total Federal receipts fell from $65 million in 1855 to $56 million in 1860, then rose to $113 million on 1863 after all cotton exports stopped.
But there is more to this story, and I'll have to look up those numbers later.
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PeaRidge: "Federal debt in 1860 was 64.8 million."
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Which is equivalent in today's world to about $3 trillion, as compared to our actual current national debt of, what is it now, $20 trillion? So financially, the US was in vastly better shape in 1861 than it is today.
Mull that over in your mind...