The states that formed the Confederate States of America began seceding months before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration. At his death in April 1865, Richmond had fallen and Lee had surrendered, but Confederate resistance continued. The 49 months of Lincoln’s Presidency has been measured by the conduct of the Civil War, and his effectiveness as a war leader. But several other issues occupied Lincoln as President. They have long been pushed aside in the public mind by those focused on the long and bloody war which dominated his administration.
But his accomplishments outside of the combat between the Confederacy and the United States were considerable. Union victory remained Lincoln’s highest priority throughout his administration, but the business of the United States also occupied his attention. The US economy grew throughout his administration. Two new states were added, West Virginia and Nevada. Transportation, infrastructure, education, finance, and national expansion all required the President’s attention. Here are some of the less well-known accomplishments of the Lincoln Administration not directly linked to the combat between North and South.
10. The Legal Tender Act of 1862
On February 25, 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the Legal Tender Act of 1862 after its passage by Congress. For the first time the United States government printed paper money, not backed by reserves of gold and silver in the Treasury’s vaults. The notes were printed in several denominations, and earned the name “greenbacks” for the color of ink on the reverse side of the notes. The notes were deemed “legal tender in payment of all debts, public and private”. The government was initially allowed to print $150 million in notes backed only by the faith and credit of the federal government.
Despite the misgivings of many bankers and financial experts of the time, who believed the issuance of paper money would destroy the American economy, the issue actually did the opposite. The infusion of cash stimulated industry and the financial system. During the Civil War the US economy boomed. Additional acts passed by Congress, and signed by Lincoln, eventually allowed the government to print $500 million in greenbacks during Lincoln’s Presidency.
The federal bank notes became the standard currency in the United States, replacing privately issued bank notes. The cash infusion threatened to create inflation in the economy, and Congress responded with additional measures to keep inflationary pressures under control. The word “greenback” became a slang term for the dollar, and remained so over the ensuing decades.
9. The Revenue Act of 1861
Prior to the Lincoln Administration the chief source of revenue for the federal government came from tariffs and excise taxes on certain products, such as alcoholic beverages. During the first year of Lincoln’s Presidency it was evident the government needed another source of funds in order to pay its bills and finance the war. After consultation with his Cabinet, Lincoln and members from both chambers of Congress hammered out an agreement which eventually passed as the Revenue Act of 1861. Lincoln signed the act into law on August 5, 1861.
The law imposed taxes on imports and on land ownership. It also, for the first time in American history, imposed a tax on personal incomes. All incomes over $800 (about $22,500 today) per year were subjected to a flat tax of 3%. Unfortunately for the government, only about 3% of all Americans had incomes above that level. As a result, the new income tax only affected a small minority of Americans, and of course it had no impact on the seceded states at all.
Besides only affecting a few Americans, the new law did not have an enforcement mechanism. Most Americans who were required to pay the tax simply ignored the law. Those who did try to pay it found the government had not created an agency to receive the funds. The first income tax was thus of little value to the government. Congress had to revisit the issue several times during Lincoln’s Administration.
8. The Morrill Land-Grant Act of 1862
The Morrill Land-Grant Act first passed in Congress in 1859. President James Buchanan vetoed the act, and the measure lacked sufficient support in the Southern states to override the veto. In 1862 it passed through Congress again and Lincoln, who supported the act, signed it into law on July 2, 1862. It was later expanded in 1890. The Act as passed in 1862 awarded 30,000 acres of federal territory to a state for every representative that state had in Congress, as well as its two Senators. The lands thus granted to the states were to be used to create colleges and universities dedicated to education in industry and agriculture, but not excluding “other scientific and classical studies…”
The first state to take advantage of the Land-Grant Act was Iowa, in September, 1862. It used the grants to expand an already extant institution, which is today Iowa State University. New York accepted some of its endowment in the form of notes, which it used to purchase timberland in Wisconsin. The sale of the valuable timber was then used to found Cornell University. Many of America’s most famed institutions of higher learning owe their existence to the Land-Grant Acts, among them Purdue, the entire University of California system, Nebraska, Ohio State, and Rutgers.
After Reconstruction the Land-Grant Act was expanded to include the Southern states excluded from its benefits during the Civil War. Louisiana State University, Tuskegee University, Auburn, University of Florida, and many others were born out of the act. Possibly no other measure signed by any American President has had a more far-reaching impact on American culture and history than the Morrill Land-Grant Act.
7. Creation of the Department of Agriculture in 1862
Though the states which remained loyal to the Constitution during the Lincoln Administration held a larger industrial base than the Confederacy, the North was nonetheless largely agricultural. More than half of the population either worked on farms, or in agricultural related trades and industries. Lincoln called for a new agency of the federal government which he called “The People’s Department”.
On December 3, 1861, in his first annual message to Congress (today’s State of the Union Address) Lincoln said, “While I make no suggestions as to details, I venture the opinion that an agricultural and statistical bureau might profitably be organized.” Lincoln urged Congress to pass legislation which allowed him to create a below Cabinet level Department of Agriculture. Congress obliged, and Lincoln signed the legislation on May 15, 1862.
The President appointed Isaac Newton as the first Commissioner of Agriculture. Newton was a dairy farmer from Pennsylvania who advocated for daily weather reports being sent across the nation via telegraph. He also created an experimental farm in Washington, studying new crops and agricultural techniques, sited on what is today the National Mall, visible from Lincoln’s White House. The legislation prompted by Lincoln remains the authority under which the Department of Agriculture operates today. In 1889 it was elevated to full Cabinet status.
6. The Revenue Act of 1862
In 1862, having observed the futility of the Revenue Act of 1861 and its inability to collect taxes, Congress enacted the Revenue Act of 1862. President Lincoln signed the act into law on July 1, 1862. An important provision of the act was the creation of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. The new commission received the task of tax collection within the United States. Many of those taxes were from excise taxes on consumer goods and services, as well as on profits from business activities, interest on investments and savings, and business licenses.
The Act also did away with the 3% income tax on incomes over $800, replacing it with a progressive tax system. The tax threshold was lowered to $600, and incomes between that level and $10,000 were assessed a 3% tax. Above $10,000 a 5% rate was assessed. $10,000 in 1862 equates to roughly $260,000 today, making the tax rate relatively low compared to those assessed today. The Commissioner hired three detectives in 1863 to pursue tax evaders, especially those imposed on alcohol and tobacco.
The Revenue Act of 1862 introduced the concept of a progressive tax in American history. It was abandoned in 1872, but returned in 1913 with the ratification of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue evolved into the Internal Revenue Service, everyone’s favorite branch of the federal government, which today employs about 75,000 people, and operates under an annual budget exceeding $11 billion.
5. The Yosemite Grant led to the creation of National Parks in the United States
Today, the United States is blessed with 59 National Parks as well as over 6,000 State Parks, set aside for recreation rather than creation of profit. Their roots can be traced to the Yosemite Grant Act. The act, which originated as Senate Bill 203, was passed by Congress in 1864, and Lincoln signed the legislation into law on June 30, 1864. The act transferred federal lands to the State of California, though it mandated their use.
The Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Tree Grove were granted to the state, “upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation”. The act also mandated that areas within the grant could be leased by the state to other entities, and that all proceeds from any such leases be used for preservation of the properties, or improvements to roads and trails accessing the properties.
Lincoln’s action on Yosemite and Mariposa was the forerunner of what eventually became America’s National Parks. Eight years after Lincoln’s action on Yosemite, President Ulysses S. Grant signed legislation setting aside Yellowstone as the first National Park in the United States, the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act. Much of the language in that legislation was derived from the earlier Yosemite Grant Act.
4. The National Bank Act of 1863
Following President Andrew Jackson’s termination of the Second Bank of the United States there was no central banking system in America. Instead, a hodgepodge of state-chartered banks existed across the country, issuing their own bank notes. Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, and Senator John Sherman (brother of General William Tecumseh Sherman) worked together to create a centralized banking system, both to create a market in which to sell government bonds and to stabilize banknotes.
Their efforts led to the National Bank Act of 1863. The act provided for charters and federal supervision of banks, known as National Banks, secured by bonds deposited with the government. The amount and types of loans issued by National Banks was regulated by the government, and the banks issued the national currency through their branches. State chartered banks were allowed to continue to issue their own banknotes, though the 1863 Act imposed a tax of 10% on them, which rendered them too costly to use and led to their decline.
The National Bank Act of 1863, which was amended the following year, thus introduced a stable national currency, eliminated much of the corruption inherent in the state-chartered banks, and created a modern national banking system. By the end of the American Civil War state bank issued notes had all but vanished, replaced by the paper currency produced by the US government. The modern banking system was another creation of the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln.
3. The Pacific Railway Acts of 1862 and 1864
On July 1, 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act of 1862. The Act provided rights of way to two competing railroad companies, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific and authorized them to complete a railroad connecting Sacramento, California and Omaha, Nebraska. The Union Pacific began in Omaha, laying track in the westward direction. The Central Pacific began in Sacramento heading east, where it soon encountered the disheartening obstacles of the Sierras.
Both railroads, under the provisions of the 1862 Railway Act, received land grants via public domain on both sides of the tracks they laid. Loan bonds were calculated per miles of tracks laid, and the degree of difficulty encountered during construction. Construction began in January, 1863 in Sacramento, and both companies raced to lay the greater amount of track. In 1864 Congress passed another Pacific Railway Act, effectively doubling the lands awarded to the two companies and giving the railroads the ability to raise their own funds through the sale of railway construction bonds.
It took six years, and Lincoln, long a champion of the Pacific Railway, had been dead for over four years before the Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869. Yet it stood as a monument to his belief in national unity. Even while his administration was beset by Civil War, Lincoln strove to unite the East and West through the use of then cutting-edge technology. The Union Pacific Railroad still operates, one of the nation’s largest freight haulers. The Central Pacific was absorbed by the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1959.
2. The Homestead Act of 1862
In 1860, eager to populate western lands owned by the federal government, Congress passed the Homestead Act of 1860. Opposed by Southern Democrats, who wanted western lands available for purchase by slave owners, President Buchanan, a Democrat, vetoed the bill. After the Southern states seceded and Lincoln endorsed the concept, Congress passed the Homestead Act of 1862. Lincoln signed the bill into law on May 20, 1862. It led to arguably the largest land giveaway in history. Roughly 10% of the land in the United States was given away for free to those who qualified under the act.
The qualifications were not particularly stringent. If one was over age 21, or was the head of a household, he qualified, as long as he had not borne arms against the United States. In return for a promise to settle on and improve the land, he received a patent for 160 acres, mostly in the west. Families with several members over 21 could claim several patents, contiguous with their siblings’ holdings. A filing fee was the only cost, other than those for transportation, construction, farm equipment, livestock, and so forth. After meeting the length of the homestead requirement, usually 20 years, the homesteader could obtain title and land ownership.
Over 270 million acres of land was transferred from the federal government to private ownership, through 1.6 million homesteads. The open lands of the west became the farmlands of today. Homesteading continued in the lower states until 1976, and in Alaska for a decade beyond that. The Homestead Act was later emulated in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and it was amended and adjusted many times over its long term in force.
1. Thanksgiving as a federal holiday
Abraham Lincoln is not usually associated with the Thanksgiving Holiday, dominated by Pilgrims, turkeys, Black Friday, and football. But it was President Lincoln who first made Thanksgiving a National Holiday, via Presidential proclamation in October, 1863. That year Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November to be a National Holiday, with the ordinary business of the day suspended, “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise”. Prior to Lincoln’s proclamation there had been no national observance of Thanksgiving.
November occasionally contains five Thursdays. In those events celebrating Thanksgiving on the last Thursday in November impinged on the Christmas season. By the 1930s the Thanksgiving Holiday was seen as the beginning of the holiday season and shopping. In 1939, with the last Thursday in November falling on November 30, President Franklin Roosevelt moved the day of celebration to the fourth Thursday of the month.
He could do so because when Congress officially designated Thanksgiving as a permanent national holiday in 1870, it left to the President the discretion of specifying the date in his annual proclamation. After some Roosevelt-hating states ignored the President and celebrated the holiday on the last Thursday, Congress intervened in 1941. It passed legislation designating Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November, FDR signed it, and Thanksgiving, introduced nationally by Lincoln in 1863 and again in 1864, became a Congressionally mandated celebration.