When the war began, the United States had no national banking system, no national currency, and no federal income tax. But the secession of eleven slave states cut the Democrats’ strength in Congress in half and destroyed their capacity to resist Republican economic programs. Before the war ended, the Republicans had turned their economic vision into law.

The Republicans’ wartime legislation also aimed at integrating the West into the Union. In May 1862, Congress approved the Homestead Act, which offered 160 acres of public land to settlers who would live and labor on it. The Homestead Act bolstered western loyalty and in time resulted in more than a million new farms. The Pacific Railroad Act in July 1862 provided massive federal assistance for building a transcontinental railroad that ran from Omaha to San Francisco when completed in 1869. To achieve this goal, Congress also offered subsidies for the Pony Express mail service and a transcontinental telegraph.

In addition, Congress created the Department of Agriculture and passed the Land-Grant College Act (also known as the Morrill Act after its sponsor, Representative Justin Morrill of Vermont), which set aside public land to support universities that emphasized “agriculture and mechanical arts.” The Lincoln administration immeasurably strengthened the North’s effort to win the war, but its ideas also permanently changed the nation.