(MUNTZ - Honorary post) War & Taxes

Louis Debaillon was born in 1810 in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. He married Aimee Toledano in 1838 and they made their home in St. Landry. Louis was a doctor and a farmer.¹ Although during “much of the nineteenth century, pretty much anyone had the right to call oneself a physician,”² Louis actually earned the title. “He was for five years a student of Emmetsburg College, Maryland, and subsequently pursued a course of medicine in the Medical College of Paris, from which institution he received his degree [an M. D.]. … [He] prospered financially, and own[ed] considerable property in St. Landry parish.”³ 

It is likely that Louis maintained his prosperity despite, not because of, the Civil War.


From their point of view, affluent Southerners had little reason to appreciate Abraham Lincoln. First he got himself elected. Then he objected to Dixie’s secession. His insistence on preserving the Union wreaked havoc on the safety and finances of Confederate citizens. Not to mention he freed the slaves. And to pay for it all, he approved taxes. Lots and lots of taxes.


From the outset of the Civil War, the Union realized the importance of controlling ports. By Spring 1862 they had retaken New Orleans and controlled most of the Mississippi River. The Confederacy had few troops in Louisiana: New Orleans was surrendered without a fight and the entire state was regained fairly easily. After reclaiming an area, the Union troops gathered valuable supplies. The Debaillons were probably affected like others. “Every house, farm and store in Imperial St. Landry Parish…[was] ‘virtually denuded by…efficient foraging teams.’”⁴ 

Under these circumstances, “some Louisianans turned to guerilla warfare tactics.” Unfortunately, after a time “the guerillas operated with less and less official sanction and less and less allegiance to the Confederacy. Often labeled jayhawkers, some groups combined draft dodgers, deserters, and outlaws, and fought against both Union and Confederate soldiers while preying on the civilian population. …these jayhawker bands could number as high as 1,000 men.” One of these groups “gathered recusant conscripts from St. Landry and neighboring parishes, an area whose reputation for lawlessness predated the Civil War.”⁵ 

A newspaper of the time reported on the “outrages and depredations of the Jayhawkers” in St. Landry, who “show no mercy to their victims, but take all they have, even to leaving them naked.” When apprehended, jayhawkers were shot.⁶ 

Between the Union troops and the jayhawkers, presumably many rich Southerners lost considerable capital during the war. Whether or not Louis Debaillon’s fortunes suffered because of them is uncertain. His bottom line was unquestionably affected, however, by a different outgrowth of the war: taxes. 

"Peace with a War Measure" ¹⁰

Congress created and “President Lincoln signed into law a revenue-raising measure to help pay for Civil War expenses”⁷ — “the first federal income tax in American history.” Enacted within months of the Confederate attack on Ft. Sumter, it imposed “a 3 percent tax on annual incomes over $800”. As war costs increased, so did tax rates. By 1864, annual incomes of over $600 were taxed at 5% and higher incomes were taxed at higher rates.⁸ ($600 in 1862 was equal to about $16,000 in 2003.⁹) 

“States that seceded were included in the tax base as soon as Union troops established control,”¹¹ which means Louisianans began paying taxes as soon as the law went into effect.

“The Civil War income tax was only a small part of a very complicated system of federal duties, stamp taxes, and fees that the government collected from individuals and businesses.” One federal worker “described the tax structure as being based on a principle” of “‘whenever you find an article, a product, a trade, a profession, or a source of income, tax it!’”¹² 

The “Act placed excise taxes on just about everything, including sin and luxury items like liquor, tobacco, playing cards, carriages, yachts, billiard tables, and jewelry. It taxed patent medicines and newspaper advertisements. It imposed license taxes on practically every profession or service except the clergy.”¹³

Physicians—like Louis Debaillon—paid “ten dollars for each license”¹⁴ annually¹⁵.

1866 Tax list for license fees. Louis is on Line 20.  ¹⁶

Also required to have licenses were peddlers, innkeepers, confectioners, pawnbrokers, soapmakers, photographers, lawyers, bankers, auctioneers, and jugglers, among others. To ensure maximum governmental revenue, each profession was defined, sometimes broadly. “Juggler,” for instance, included “Every person who performs by sleight of hand”.¹⁷

“To administer these excise taxes…the…Act also created” the precursor of the IRS, described by its first commissioner as “the largest Government department ever organized.”¹⁸

This universal taxation “was based on nothing in past experience” and some officials believed it “would likely never be repeated.” If only we were so lucky! “In fact, the 1862 tax law served as the basis for the present internal revenue system, both in articles taxed and in organization for collecting taxes.”¹⁹ 

Unfortunately for paychecks everywhere, “Congress …discovered that the income tax…provided a flexible and lucrative source of revenue.”²⁰ 


To wealthy Southerners, the ugly realities of war, pillaging, taxation, and financial ruin might have seemed to be Lincoln’s legacy. But despite the president’s notions of right and liberty, they survived. And many, like Louis Debaillon, continued to flourish.



Endnote: For the record, Abraham Lincoln is one of my favorite presidents.  I wanted to write about these events as a contemporary Southerner might have seen them. I don’t even know if the Debaillons were Confederate sympathizers. Either way, war and taxes affected them; that is the central point of this post.
  

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Line of descent:
Louis Debaillon, born 1810
Marie Antoinette Debaillon, b. 1851
Edmee Marielouise Dufilho, b. 1869
Roger Lambert, b. 1903
Marie Louise Lambert, b. 1930

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Notes: 
1 – All biographical information is from records at ancestry.com.
2 - United States Department of Health and Human Services, Life in 1918 “Seeking Medical Care,”  www.flu.gov/pandemic/history/1918/life_in_1918/medicalcare/  , Accessed December 5, 2014.
3 - “Southwest Louisiana Biographical and Historical,” Biographical Section, p. 34. Ed. William Henry Perrin. Gulf Publishing Company, 1891. files.usgwarchives.net/la/stlandry/bios/debaillo.txt 
4 - Gary M. Lavergne, “The Civil War and Reconstruction,” Lives of Quiet Desperation,  www.garylavergne.com/oath.htm  . Accessed 11 Dec 2014.
5 - John M. Sacher, “Civil War Louisiana,” KnowLA Encyclopedia of Louisiana.  www.knowla.org/entry/536   . Accessed 11 Dec 2014. Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 6 Jan 2011.
6 - “Jayhawking in St. Landry Parish,”  www.louisianacivilwar.org/2010/07/jayhawking-in-st-landry-parish.html?m=1   . Accessed 11 Dec 2014. Quoting the New Orleans Daily Picayune, 21 Apr 1864.
7 - IRS, “Brief History of IRS,”  www.irs.gov/uac/Brief-History-of-IRS  , Accessed December 5, 2014.
8 - Tax Analysts, Tax History Museum: 1861-1865, The Civil War.  www.taxhistory.org/www/website.nsf/Web/THM1861?OpenDocument  , Accessed December 5, 2014.
9 -  www.history.com/this-day-in-history/lincoln-imposes-first-federal-income-tax  , citing U. S. Treasury Department, Accessed December 5, 2014.
10 – Thomas Nast, “Peace with a War Measure,” Harper’s Weekly, 9 Feb 1878,  www.taxhistory.org/thp/imagegallery.nsf/Images/93B8F3B89C28458585257419006EB0AA?OpenDocument  
11 - National Archives, Prologue, Winter 1986, Vol. 18, No. 4, “Income Tax Records of the Civil War Years,” Cynthia G. Fox,  www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1986/winter/civil-war-tax-records.html  , Accessed December 5, 2014.
12 - National Archives, Prologue, Winter 1986, Vol. 18, No. 4, “Income Tax Records of the Civil War Years,” Cynthia G. Fox,  www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1986/winter/civil-war-tax-records.html  , Accessed December 5, 2014.
13 - Tax Analysts, Tax History Museum: 1861-1865, The Civil War.  www.taxhistory.org/www/website.nsf/Web/THM1861?OpenDocument  , Accessed December 5, 2014.
14 - Charles F. Estee, “The Excise Tax Law. Approved July 1, 1862; and all the Amendments,” paragraph 32, page 48, published 1863, archive.org , Accessed December 5, 2014.
15 - Charles F. Estee, “The Excise Tax Law. Approved July 1, 1862; and all the Amendments,” p. 42, published 1863, archive.org , Accessed December 5, 2014.
16 –Ancestry.com. U.S. IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862-1918 http://mediasvc.ancestry.com/v2/image/namespaces/1264/media/rhusa1862_101850-00627.jpg?securitytoken=134d0fb8646f2af50942d81af20086f3&download=false&client=IIV&imagequality=HighQuality&enhancement=AdaptiveContrast
17 - Charles F. Estee, “The Excise Tax Law. Approved July 1, 1862; and all the Amendments,” published 1863, archive.org , Accessed December 5, 2014.
18 - Tax Analysts, Tax History Museum: 1861-1865, The Civil War.  www.taxhistory.org/www/website.nsf/Web/THM1861?OpenDocument  , Accessed December 5, 2014.)
19 - National Archives, Prologue, Winter 1986, Vol. 18, No. 4, “Income Tax Records of the Civil War Years,” Cynthia G. Fox,  www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1986/winter/civil-war-tax-records.html  , Accessed December 5, 2014.
20 - Tax Analysts, Tax History Museum: 1861-1865, The Civil War.  www.taxhistory.org/www/website.nsf/Web/THM1861?OpenDocument  , Accessed December 5, 2014.