m 1865 to 1868 and
of all relief measures for the South, both public and private. After
May 1865, the 25 percent tax was imposed only upon the produce of slave
labor. None of the war taxes, except that on cotton, was levied upon the
crops of 1866, but while these taxes lasted, they seriously impeded the
resumption of trade.

Even these restrictions, however, might have been borne if only they
had been honestly applied. Unfortunately, some of the most spectacular
frauds ever perpetrated were carried through in connection with the
attempt of the United States Treasury Department to collect and sell the
confiscable property in the South. The property to be sold consisted
of what had been captured and seized by the army and the navy, of
"abandoned" property, as such was called whose owner was absent in
the Confederate service, and of property subject to seizure under the
confiscation acts of Congress. No captures were made after the general
surrender, and no further seizures of "abandoned" property were made
after Johnson's amnesty proclamation of May 29, 1865. This left only the
"confiscable" property to be collected and sold.

For collection purposes the states of the South were divided into
districts, each under the supervision of an agent of the Treasury
Department, who received a commission of about 25 percent. Cotton,
regarded as the root of the slavery evil, was singled out as the
principal object of confiscation. It was known that the Confederate
Government had owned in 1865 about 150,000 bales, but the records were
defective and much of it, with no clear indication of ownership, still
remained with the producers. Secretary Chase, foreseeing the difficulty
of effecting a just settlement, counseled against seizure, but his
judgment was overruled. Secretary McCulloch said of his agents: "I am
sure I sent some honest cotton agents South; but it sometimes seems
doubtful whether any of them remained honest very long." Some of
the natives, even, became cotton thieves. In a report made in 1866,
McCulloch describes their methods: "Contractors, anxious for gain,
were sometimes guilty of bad faith and peculation, and frequently took
possession of cotton and delivered it under contracts as captured or
abandoned, when in fact it was not such, and they had no right to touch
it.... Residents and others in the districts where these peculations
were going on took advantage of the unsettled condition of the country,
and representi