Under the act of March 12, 1863, "loyal" owners had until two years after the war to file claims, and by February, 1888, $9,864,300.75 had been paid out to satisfy these people. Since 1888, $520,700.18 has been paid out. Under the act of May 18, 1872, providing for return of proceeds of cotton seized illegally after June 30, 1865, 1337 claims were filed, 339 of which were from Alabama. These Alabama claims called for 23,529 bales. Only a very small amount ($195,896.21) was returned to the claimants, because the records showed that most of them had once sold cotton to the Confederate government. Therefore, they now say, all cotton seized after June 30, 1865, was Confederate cotton, and the proceeds will be held. Only about four and a half millions now (1904) remain in the Treasury, as the proceeds of all the cotton seized. This is the amount for which the cotton seized after June 30, 1865, was sold. All other proceeds have either been returned to "loyal" claimants or have been absorbed by expenses. Very few, if any, claimants not able to prove "loyalty" have been able to secure restoration, since "loyalty" was in most cases a prerequisite to consideration.[789] The confiscation policy, it may be concluded, profited the government nothing; the Treasury agents and pretended agents were enriched by their stealings and but few were punished; nearly all private cotton was lost; the people were reduced to more desperate want and exasperated against the government which, it seemed, had acted upon the assumption that the ex-Confederates had no rights whatever. SEC. 2. THE COTTON TAX Another heavy burden imposed on the prostrate South was the tax levied by the United States government on each pound of cotton raised. An act of July, 1862, imposed a tax of one-half cent a pound on cotton, but this tax could be collected only on that part of the crop that was brought through the lines by speculators. January 30, 1864, the tax was increased to two cents a pound, collectible on all cotton coming from the Confederate States. This was raised to two and a half cents a pound on March 3, 1865, and to three cents a pound, or $15 a bale, on July 13, 1866.[790] After the war the tax bore with crushing weight on the impoverished farmers.[791] On March 2, 1867, in anticipation of Reconstruction, the tax was reduced to two and a half cents a pound, or $12.50 a bale, to take effect after September 1, 1867. A year later, partly because of the decided objections of those carpet-baggers, scalawags, and negroes who had small farms and whose remonstrances had more influence than those of the planters, the tax was discontinued on all cotton raised after the crop of 1867. The tax was a lien on the cotton from the time it was baled until the tax was paid, and was often collected in the states to which the cotton was shipped. The collections in the South amounted to the following sums:--