The May 3, 1864 Green Mountain Freeman leads with a rousing speech by Vermont Congressman Justin Smith Morrill delivered to the House on April 19, defending an aggressive new Internal Revenue Bill designed to fund the Civil War's unprecedented costs. Morrill lays out staggering numbers: the government now needs to raise $100 million annually (compared to $60 million in 1862), maintain interest payments on a projected $3 billion national debt, and keep America's newly formidable military machine—including "one of the finest navies in the world" with ironclads, monitors, and gun boats—supplied and operational. He argues that increased taxes on spirits, incomes (raised from 3% to 5%), and manufactured goods will be painful but necessary, and insists that American wealth grows so rapidly that the nation can bear this burden while still paying off its entire debt in just over a decade. The paper also features a lengthy romantic poem about Shakespeare, celebrating him as humanity's greatest interpreter of the human condition.

This speech captures a pivotal moment in the Civil War's third year, when the Union finally grasped the true scale of the conflict. The rebellion had lasted far longer and cost vastly more than anyone anticipated in 1862. Morrill's argument—that American wealth and productivity are so extraordinary that even wartime taxation won't cripple the economy—reflected a growing Northern confidence in industrial capacity and population growth as decisive advantages over the agrarian South. The Internal Revenue Act of 1864 would become one of the most important fiscal measures in American history, establishing the framework for federal income taxation that would persist long after Appomattox. Morrill was essentially telling Congress: we can afford this war, and we must finish it with sound finances intact.

• Morrill boasts that between the 1830 and 1860 censuses, the annual increased value of national wealth "as actually taxed for each year" was $804,188,000—and he uses this staggering figure to argue that war debt is manageable against such productivity. This was frontier-era economic triumphalism at its height.
• The government admits it has so much gold on hand that it is "absolutely begging its creditors to accept payment long in advance in order that it may be relieved of a plethora of sold, which, locked up, is not only idle, but, by deranging values, detrimental to the commerce of the country." The Union was drowning in specie—a stunning admission of financial strength amid war.
• Morrill projects that if the war ends by 1865 and current taxation continues, the government could pay off the *entire national debt* in "but a little more than ten years." He was spectacularly wrong (it would take decades), but the optimism is breathtaking.
• The speech addresses a racial anxiety simmering beneath the surface: Morrill defends against those who say emancipated freedmen will become a burden on Northern taxpayers, arguing the loyal people have already proven willing to pay "cheerfully all taxes demanded" and spend "untold thousands." This hints at the political backlash over Reconstruction costs to come.
• The paper subscription cost is $2 if paid in advance, $2.50 otherwise—and it notes proudly that the Freeman is mailed free of postage to all Washington County towns, while subscribers elsewhere in Vermont pay an extra 20 cents per year for postage. A microcosm of how the war was reshaping commerce and communication.

• Justin Smith Morrill, the Vermont congressman delivering this speech, would go on to author the Morrill Land-Grant Act (signed just weeks before this speech was published), which gave federal land to states to establish colleges. That act created Cornell, MIT, Berkeley, and dozens of others—his legacy shaped American higher education more than almost any politician in history.
• Morrill claims America's "decennial increase of population is six times greater than that of any nation in Europe." He was right: the 1860 Census showed roughly 31 million Americans, a 35% increase from 1850. Europe's growth was anemic by comparison, and Morrill used demography as an argument for American exceptionalism and fiscal capacity.
• The speech emphasizes that the government has built or purchased ships, ironclads, monitors, and gun boats in such numbers that the U.S. Navy is now among the world's finest—this was literally true in May 1864. The Monitor-Virginia duel was nearly two years past, and Union ironclad construction had accelerated dramatically, making the North's naval dominance the South's death knell.
• Morrill warns Congress against issuing legal tender notes beyond current limits, arguing that inflating the currency from $400 million to $600 million won't buy more property, only raise prices 50%—a remarkably prescient argument about inflation that echoes in modern economic debates.
• The poem on the front page, celebrating Shakespeare as the voice through whom 'the Mighty Mother' (Nature/Humanity) spoke, reflects the 19th-century Romantic veneration of the Bard. By 1864, Shakespeare had become an almost sacred figure in American intellectual life, invoked to argue about human nature amid unprecedented slaughter.