The Confederacy faced much graver financial problems than the North because its economy was much smaller and more dependent upon foreign commerce, giving it a limited domestic tax base on which to finance wartime expenditures. In his first report, Confederate Treasury Secretary Christopher Memminger expected that a 12.5 percent average import duty would raise $25 million in revenue annually. In fact, the Confederacy raised just $3.4 million in customs duties over the entire war. During the war, the Confederate government collected only $258 million in taxes and loans but spent $1.5 billion,
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