The Gillett Law Firm

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The war expenses of the individual states added up to $114 million compared to $37 million by the central government in 1790 Congress combined the remaining state debts with the foreign and domestic debts into one national debt totaling $80 million at the recommendation of first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton Everyone received face value for wartime certificates so that the national honor would be sustained and the national credit established. In Alabama slaves were not allowed to leave their master's premises without written consent or passes This was a common requirement in other states as well and locally run patrols (known to slaves as pater rollers) often checked the passes of slaves who appeared to be away from their plantations in Alabama slaves were prohibited from trading goods among themselves in Virginia a slave was not permitted to drink in public within one mile of his master or during public gatherings Slaves were not permitted to carry firearms in any of the slave states. In the US as a whole by 1810 the number of free blacks reached 186,446 or 13.5 percent of all blacks. After that period few slaves were freed as the development of cotton plantations featuring short-staple cotton in the Deep South drove up the internal demand for slaves in the domestic slave trade and high prices were paid. Alexander Hamilton At the beginning of the war Washington's only defense was one old fort (Fort Washington 12 miles (19 km) away to the south) and the Union Army soldiers themselves. When Maj Gen George B McClellan assumed command of the Department of the Potomac on August 17 1861 he became responsible for the capital's defense. McClellan began by laying out lines for a complete ring of entrenchments and fortifications that would cover 33 miles (53 km) of land He built enclosed forts on high hills around the city and placed well-protected batteries of field artillery in the gaps between these forts, augmenting the 88 guns already placed on the defensive line facing Virginia and south in between these batteries interconnected rifle pits were dug allowing highly effective co-operative fire. This layout once complete would make the city one of the most heavily defended locations in the world and almost unassailable by nearly any number of men; .