Title: What is the National Debt Year By Year From 1790 to 2019? - TheStreet
Headings: What is the National Debt Year By Year From 1790 to 2019?
What is the National Debt Year By Year From 1790 to 2019?
The First Decades: 1790-1849
The Late 19th Century: 1850-1899
The Early 20th Century: 1900-1950
The Late 20th Century: 1950-1999
The Present Day

Content: That added more than $63 million to the national debt (a little more than $2 billion in 2019 money). But the bigger picture is, America has never really stopped paying for the Civil War. Whether or not you approve of government debt, those five years were the first time that the national debt truly spiked. Between 1860 and 1866 the debt rose from $64.8 million to more than $2.7 billion, approximately $42 billion by today's standards. To keep the nation whole, President Abraham Lincoln pushed debt to nearly 30% of gross domestic product and introduced the first income tax in American history. This was the first time America would experience the one-way ratchet of debt that follows each of the country's major wars. Each major conflict in U.S. history has been accompanied by a sharp rise in debt as the government raises funds to pay for the fighting. This wartime debt establishes a new normal, setting the baseline around which debt will fluctuate until the next major war pushes borrowing higher. In the wake of the Civil War, the U.S. debt rose to more than $2 billion and never dipped below $1.5 billion afterward, although a rapidly growing economy did quickly reduce the debt's share as a portion of GDP after the end of the Civil War. What is also noteworthy about America's late-19th century debt is the borrowing that didn't happen.