income,
stamp, and all other internal taxes, were less than $42,000,000; and
that, too, at a time when the expenditures were in excess $60,000,000
per month, or at the rate of over $700,000,000 per annum. And as
showing how novel was this whole subject of direct and internal
taxation to the people, and how completely the Government officials
were lacking in all experience in respect to it, the following incident
may be noted. The Secretary of the Treasury, in his report for 1863,
stated that, with a view of determining his resources, he employed a
very competent person, with the aid of practical men, to estimate the
probable amount of revenue to be derived from each department of
internal taxation for the previous year. The estimate arrived at was
$85,000,000, but the actual receipts were only $37,000,000."

Now, no doubt, this might have happened under a Parliamentary
government. But, then, many members of Parliament, the entire
Opposition in Parliament, would have been active to unravel the matter.
All the principles of finance would have been worked and propounded.
The light would have come from above, not from below--it would have
come from Parliament to the nation instead of from the nation to
Parliament But exactly the reverse happened in America. Mr. Wells goes
on to say:--

"The people of the loyal States were, however, more determined and in
earnest in respect to this matter of taxation than were their rulers;
and before long the popular discontent at the existing state of things
was openly manifest. Every where the opinion was expressed that
taxation in all possible forms should immediately, and to the largest
extent, be made effective and imperative; and Congress spurred up, and
right fully relying on public sentiment to sustain their action, at
last took up the matter resolutely and in earnest, and devised and
inaugurated a system of internal and direct taxation, which for its
universality and peculiarities has probably no parallel in anything
which has heretofore been recorded in civil history, or is likely to be
experienced hereafter. The one necessity of the situation was revenue,
and to obtain it speedily and in large amounts through taxation the
only principle recognised--if it can be called a principle--was akin to
that recommended to the traditionary Irishman on his visit to
Donnybrook Fair, 'Wherever you see a head hit it'. Wherever you find an
article, a product, a trade, a profession, or a source