Had all the North been a unit
in feeling, the production of articles of luxury might have
ceased. Because of this emotional division of the North,
however, this business survived; for the sacrifice of luxurious
expenditure was made by only a part of the population, even
though it was the majority.
Furthermore, the whole matter was adjusted voluntarily without
systematic government direction, since there was nothing in the
financial policy of the Government to correspond to conscription.
Consequently, both in the way of loans and in the way of
contributions, as well as in the matter of unpaid service, the
entire burden fell upon the war party alone. In the absence of
anything like economic conscription, if such a phrase may be
used, those Northerners who did not wish to lend money, or to
make financial sacrifice, or to give unpaid service, were free to
pursue their own bent. The election of 1864 showed that they
formed a market which amounted to something between six and nine
millions. There is no reason to suppose that these millions in
1864 spent less on luxuries than they did in 1860. Two or three
items are enough. In 1860, the importation of silk amounted to
32 million dollars; in 1862, in spite of inflated prices, it had
shrunk to 7 millions; the consumption of malt liquors shrank from
101 million gallons in 1860 to 62 million gallons in 1863; of
coffee, hardly to be classed as a luxury, there were consumed in
1861, 184 million pounds and in 1863, 80 millions.
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