Finance legislation during the war was more patriotic than wise, due partly to necessary haste, largely to ignorance. The internal taxes bore very unequally upon different classes. The tariff was ill-adjusted to the internal taxes, letting in at low rates some classes of goods whose home production was heavily taxed, thus discriminating in favor of the foreigner. Millions of debt and half the other economic evil of the war might have been saved by doing more to keep the paper dollar on a par with gold. Thus the banks should not have been compelled to pay in gold the loan of 1861. It forced them to suspend specie payment altogether, December 31st of that year--those of New York City first, followed by others everywhere, and by the United States itself. Gold had been at a nominal premium all through 1861, but the first recorded sale at an advance was on January 13, 1862. It would have been better, also, to resort earlier to heavy loans, even at high rates, instead of flooding the country with greenbacks. The national banks, which were created on purpose to help the sale of government bonds, should have been forced to purchase new bonds instead of supplying themselves with bonds already issued, their purchase of which did the Government no good whatever. Neglect in these regards caused the paper dollar to fall in value. In July, 1864, it was worth only thirty-five cents in gold. The finances of the Confederacy went steadily from bad to worse. The blockade cut off its revenue from import duties. Its poor credit forbade large loans. The government had to rely mainly upon paper money. This soon became almost worthless. In December, 1861, it took $120 in paper money to buy $100 in gold; in 1863 it took $1,900; in 1864, $5,000. Nearly $1,000,000,000 in paper money was issued in all. The Confederate debt at the close of the war was $2,000,000,000. Under the combined influence of depreciated currency and scarcity of goods, prices became ludicrously high. As early as 1862 flour was $40 a barrel and salt $1 a pound. Before the war was over, a pound of sugar brought $75, a spool of thread $20. Toward the end of the war a Confederate soldier, just paid off, went into a store to buy a pair of boots. The price was $200. He handed the store-keeper a $500 bill. "I can't change this," "Oh, never mind," replied the paper millionaire. "I never let a little matter like $300 interfere with a trade." Of course when the Confederacy collapsed all this paper money became absolutely worthless. [Illustration: Portrait.] Salmon Portland Chase, Secretary of the Treasury during the Civil War.