Our survival response is hemmed in by financial contractual obligations that were entered into under conditions radically different from the present. Many need to be readjusted, many need to be cancelled. Last time we faced disruption of this magnitude was after the Civil War. 1/ The New York Times of Nov 6, 1865 reported "The debts of the Confederate Government, contracted for the purposes of war, and for all other purposes, were swept away when the Confederacy fell." Reasoning like the Reconstruction governments, Johnson argued: 2/