Our friend X asks this question:
“If there’d been a Panic of 1861 wouldn't the news have gotten out by now?”
Actually the news of financial problems was out there, both in newspapers and on the floor of Congress.
The Civil War fiscal crisis began before April 12, 1861. The U.S. Treasury tottered in a state of utmost confusion months before the firing on Fort Sumter.
Traditionally the “dynamic center” of government, the Treasury now faced “being placed before the world in the aspect of a mendicant.” The department's secretary, John A. Dix, notified Congress on February 11, 1861 that “little more” than $500,000 remained in the central depository in Washington.
Demands for $2 million “unanswered” requisitions had accumulated in the department, with $6 million more due to public creditors in early March. Dix predicted a $21.6 million shortfall by the end of the fiscal year.
Staff in most executive departments could not draw their salaries that January. Members of Congress had gone unpaid since the start of the session the previous December. Worse yet, according to Dix, “The War and Navy departments have calls for large requisitions [that] have been delayed on account of the exhausted condition of the Treasury.”
A week earlier on February 6, 1861, U.S. Representative Phelps, speaking to the House on this day said:
“At this moment, the outstanding debt of the United States is $69,373,000; comprising the loans authorized by the acts of 1842, 1846, 1847, 1848, 1858, and 1860, the Texas indemnity loan of 1850, together with the outstanding Treasury notes authorized by several acts. ...
“... the existing debt of the United States is nearly seventy million dollars.
“The $10,000,000 Treasury notes recently issued were negotiated, a portion at twelve per cent., and a portion at between ten and eleven. Your ten per cent treasury notes are sold in the market of New York below par; and if you authorize new loans that are not absolutely necessary, you cannot negotiate them except at ruinous rates.
“I have made a computation of the actual debt created and proposed to be created by this Congress.
” The balance of the loan authorized under act of 22nd June, 1860, is $13,978,000. If the amendment of the Senate be concurred in, that loan cannot be negotiated. I am in favor of that amendment.
“The tariff bill, which will probably become a law, authorizes the loan of $21,000,000. The Pacific railroad bill as it passed the House authorized an indebtedness of $96,000,000, and the Senate put on an additional $25,000,000.
“ In other words, the proposed indebtedness of the country is $167,000,000; making with the public debt and the loan already authorized, an aggregate of $250,351,649, With such indebtedness, how can you expect to raise a loan on favorable terms?
“I hope this amendment of the Senate will be concurred in. The Government will then be enabled to raise the loan of $25,000,000 authorized in this bill [a bill authorizing $25,000,000 in loans], and $21,000,000 authorized in the tariff act.
“The Secretary of the Treasury has told you he will need $25,000,000 between the date of his communication and the 1st of July next, in addition to the current revenues of the country.”
2/7/1861 Exports certainly entered into the balance of payments between countries and the value of a currency. Senator Wigfall of Texas had a good take on the situation on the floor of the Senate on Feb 7,
“How will it be with New England? Where will their revenue come from? From your custom-houses? What do you export? You have been telling us here for the last quarter of a century, that you cannot manufacture even for the home market under the tariffs which we have given you. When this tariff ceases to operate in your favor, and you have to pay for coming into our market, what will you expect to export?”
Your information is very useful to the debate, but is suited more to the "green eye shade" types to which Limbaugh used to refer.
All of that composite data needs to be presented in a manner that makes it's significance quick and easy to understand.
One of the things I most like about this image is that it instantly shows a massive disparity between tariff's collected in New York and elsewhere.
It shows clearly that New York is intercepting the vast bulk of all European import trade. It is instantly grasped by anyone who looks at it.
I've been thinking that a similar graph needed to be created illustrating the dollar value of exports from the various ports so the contrast between money going out and the money coming in can be made obvious.
I'm also thinking that some sort of animated movie would do a better job of illustrating what happened and when, and be more capable of moving the minds of rational people, but that is a project for another time.
I think we need to be making graphics that explain the financial crises better.