US Civil War reading Recommendations?

jeffersondem: "Do you know why Lincoln and the northern states did not use the constitutional amendment process to end slavery peacefully?"

Actually, they did, in 1865 in Union states.

But things were quite different in 1860:

Look at the record: Southern Democrats dominated all branches of Federal Government in Washington, DC, almost continuously from 1788 through 1860.
They not only prevented congress from abolishing slavery, they prevented Congress from even discussing slavery for many years.
In 1860 the brand new Republican party was the only national party ever to promote even mildly abolitionist ideals.
Prior to the 1850s all US political parties, North and South, had been pro-slavery.
The 1860 Republican platform called for no slavery in US western territories which didn't want it, but said nothing about abolishing slavery in the South.
The reason is simple: the US constitution recognized slavery in the South, but not necessarily in western territories.
Further, very few Republicans had the courage to call for abolition in the South, but enough did to provide political ammunition for secessionist Fire Eaters to declare their disunion in 1861.
So bottom line: in 1860 a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery had no chance of passage or ratification and was not on anybody's agenda.
Indeed, in an effort to preserve the Union, Northern Democrats were willing to more explicitly recognize slavery in a new 13th amendment.

By 1865, things had changed quite radically.

jeffersondem: "And that’s why northern states wrote slavery into the constitution - until their accountants convinced them they could make more money with a different workforce model (combined with monopolies).
Ten seconds after that, they found that it was morally wrong for economic and political rivals in the southern states to own slaves.
Over simplified? Yes, but not by much."

Not just "over simplified", total rubbish & nonsense.

Americans' motivations for Union in 1776 and 1787 were doubtless multiple, but focused first on their need for a united front against Britain and other powers.
All understood that a single stick can easily be broken, while a bundle of weak stick became much stronger.
Beyond that, even though economics in 1787 were vastly different from, say, 1860, still Founders understood the utility of a large common American market.

As for the economics of slavery, nobody in 1787 understood the hugely profitable asset slavery would grow to be by 1860, so huge it prevented most slave-holders from even discussing abolition.
Nor did most Northerners in 1860 consider slavery less economically viable than abolition.
So in 1860 there was no economic argument -- none -- for abolition in the South.
Instead, American abolitionism in 1860 was based on morality, morality found ultimately in the Bible.

It was also a matter of economic self-interest: after Dred-Scott Northern workers didn't want Southern slaves brought into their states to take away their jobs.
Of course, most had no economic objections to slavery in the South, so long as it stayed there.

So the number one driver for Northern abolitionism was not economics but rather morality based in a religious revival rooted in the Bible.

Let me give you some detail on why so much treasury money was given to privately owned New York shipping companies.

Since the settlement of the colonies, American shipping interests hotly contested the British for profitable trading on ocean routes. When in 1838, a ship owned by the British Great Western Steamship company crossed the Atlantic in fifteen days, a drastic new beginning in the shipping trade was at hand. Within two years other British companies began transatlantic steam packet trade, adding a number of ships to their fleets.

Due to both governmental and private industry dissatisfaction with the emerging dominance of the British companies in the transatlantic mail packet trade, the United States government legislated a state subsidized mail service in 1845. The United States Postmaster General's Office solicited bids from US based shipping companies to initiate service from New York to European ports. Four companies submitted proposals. The eventual winner of a five year mail carrying contract for the European operation was awarded to the Ocean Steam Navigation Company, led by Edward Mills, which began service in 1846. Interestingly, it seems that Mr. Mills did not own a steam ship at the time of the award of the contract, but had New York banking ties.

In 1847 the 29th United States Congress passed the Mail Steamer Bill which which was designed to stimulate mail delivery in various directions. The Mail Steamer Bill was essentially a federal policy of mail subsidies that formed the financing of steamship investment and operation.

As a result, several steamship companies sprang up to serve the various government mail service requirements.

The United States Mail Steamship Company was formed in 1847 by George Law, Marshal Roberts and Bowes McIlvaine. The US Mail Steamship Company took over a contract for bi-weekly mail service between New York, Havana, and New Orleans. The company was contracted to provide service, employing 5 ships, and would receive approximately $300,000 in annual contract monies. After the gold discovery in 1848 and financial success, Law acquired four more ships to compete with his primary rival, William H. Aspinwall of the Pacific Company.

In 1848, William Henry Aspinwall of New York secured a ten year government contract and formed the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, of which he became President. This company was, by contract, paid $199,000 per year by the U. S. Government.

In 1856, Aspinwall retired from the position of President of the Pacific Mail Company, and in 1858, the company's contract with the government expired. At the same time, the contract of their competitor, the United States Mail Steamship Company also expired.

To properly compete with the US Mail Steamship Company, the Pacific Mail Company bought three ships, the SS Adriatic, SS Atlantic, and the SS Baltic, all of which had formerly belonged to the Collins Line.

The New York and Liverpool United States’ Mail Steamship Company, which was commonly known as the Collins Line, was formed in 1848 by I. G. Collins.

Israel Collins had an extensive seafaring background, and had originally founded his company, the Collins Line in 1818. The company was modestly successful until 1825 when it took advantage of the cotton shortage in England and chartered a schooner in order to reach Charleston and establish large contracts to ship cotton. Because of the success of this one effort, company growth allowed the purchase of a number of packet ships serving not only the New York-New Orleans market, but the New York to Liverpool. These were the SS Atlantic, SS Arctic, SS Baltic, and SS Pacific.

Federal financing enabled several companies to build large oceangoing transports as well as side-paddle steamers, and schooners for the coastal trade. The generosity of the legislation was rationalized by the stipulation that in time of war, these ships would be transferred to the Navy for service.

If you recall, a number of these ships were involved with Lincoln's attempted invasion of Charleston and Pensacola in '61.

Read further: "To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world."

Why do you put so much stock in their listed grievances? As I pointed out, the Canadians did not find these conditions so intolerable, so the degree of misery involved depends upon the perspective of those who suffer it.

It is irrelevant to their claim that under "the laws of nature and of nature's God..." "...Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,". This principle stands on it's own merits and does not require grievances to make it valid.

The founders listed grievances in an effort to win support for their cause, not because it was necessary to the assertion of the principle of "consent of the governed."

It was different in 1861. Constitutional and democratic processes for the redress of grievances existed but were ignored by the secessionists.

The existence of a "process" does not mean the grievances will get addressed. This is the fallacy of the Democratic process, that two wolves and a sheep can vote on what's for dinner. It makes no difference if there is a "process" when it does not produce a result that is tolerable for all parties.

The North had the government sewn up, and there was nothing the South could do to fix any of this. Under the existing system, they not only had to keep paying for 3/4ths of all federal revenues, they also had to keep losing about 40% of their export revenues to New York.

They were stuck in a position where their only option within the system was to keep feeding the beast to the North, all the while listening to the chorus of smug Northern Liberals telling them what horrible rotten people they were.

Sort of like Modern America.

Lincoln was a man of his times who grew up with the ideas common in his time.

As were they all. I keep pointing out that so many of you keep trying to apply modern morality to a different time period, showing no comprehension of the zeitgeist of that era.

Their motivation and decisions must be looked at from perspective of the era in which they lived, not from the perspective of 2016 USA.

By the end of his life Lincoln was willing to countenance giving at least some African-Americans the vote -- at a time when Dickens was mocking the idea.

This is not at all inconsistent with a claim that political power was paramount to him. Newly enfranchising voters who were guaranteed to vote for your party will insure political supremacy and therefore power.

It is not unlike the tactic which modern Democrats use in importing all sorts of third worlders (especially non whites) who can be counted on to reliably vote for handouts, meaning Democrats.

A cynical man would assert this was just a raw grab for more power by Lincoln, and this actually dovetails quite nicely with the assertion that the whole Civil War was about power anyway.

Whoever controls the government gets to spend the money, and more importantly get to set policy that can enrich their friends and cronies. I will once again point out that the era subsequent to Lincoln was an occasion of the worst graft and corruption the nation had ever seen.

George Washington improved in his lifetime. Lincoln still wanted to deport them out of the Country just prior to the end of his.

In post #556, this statement was made:

“Thomas Prentice Kettell’s book was refuted by Stephen Colwell’s The Five Cotton States and New York, a pamphlet of 1861.”

First, nowhere is it stated, other than the poster, that Kettell’s work was ‘refuted’. In fact, Kettell was an economist that published reputable journals, books, and magazines. Colwell was a pamphleteer, and not an economist.

Kettell based his commentary on U.S. Treasury and census data. Colwell changed the data to serve his purposes as found on page 27 of his work where he uses the following term regarding U.S. Treasury data: “We therefore give the...sum with the addition of fifty percent” and offers his conclusion with the caveat that “It appears from this approximation...”.

Over the next several pages Colwell uses phrases such as “We shall not err greatly...”, “...which may be safely estimated...”, “the population would have...” and many more.

These are not the writings of an economist.

In fact Colwell was a socialist, writing against the free enterprise South.

I was asking if you thought Lincoln was a white supremacist. If you don’t think he was, just say, “Lincoln was not a white supremacist.”

Virtually all White Americans -- and Europeans -- were "white supremacists" in the 19th century. But differences between individuals were striking and important.

The issue was slavery. People who believed that "the White race" should remain on top, could have very different attitudes toward slavery and the rights that Blacks might have.

It's not wrong to point out that many Britons of the day had a serious blindspot. Like you guys, they may have "opposed" slavery. They might not have "believed" in it. But they hated abolitionists and Americans more than they hated slavery.

Agree, but there is more. They wanted secure borders. They wanted more allied states in the event of war. They wanted trading partners and a larger economic market. They wanted, as you say, a big country, to produce prosperity and wealth.

They wanted, in a word: money.

You start out saying "but there is more" and end up reducing it to a lot less. Concern for secure borders and a peaceful, united continent was a lot more than just desire for money.

And that’s why northern states wrote slavery into the constitution - until their accountants convinced them they could make more money with a different workforce model (combined with monopolies).

You show your bias saying "northern states wrote slavery into the Constitution." That was a decision of the entire convention. It was largely done to keep South Carolina and Georgia inside the country, rather than having them outside as rivals and enemies.

Ten seconds after that, they found that it was morally wrong for economic and political rivals in the southern states to own slaves.

Over simplified? Yes, but not by much.

Massively oversimplified. We're a rich country. We oppose a lot of things done in other countries. But it's not just about money. Morality does come into play. Or do you think we only oppose what ISIS is doing now just because we're a rich country?

Sure, you can't grow cotton in Maine or New Hampshire. If you feel the need to needle some kind of "Northern hypocrisy," fine. That's your problem. Nobody else cares. But it doesn't make slavery right, or secession justified or abolition less of a moral achievement.

You are cherry picking: picking out places where Colwell makes an estimate and using that in an effort to discredit his book. Kettell refers estimates and approximations as well.

Kettell's argument is akin to saying that the American economy is dependent on Saudi Arabia and exploitative -- that American wealth is the illegitimate product of Saudi oil. In fact, dependence cuts both ways. We provide goods and services to Saudi Arabia in exchange for their oil. Dependence is mutual and a country that produces a variety of goods and services are in a better position than the Saudis who have only oil.

In fact, Kettell was an economist that published reputable journals, books, and magazines. Colwell was a pamphleteer, and not an economist.

Colwell was a distinguished and respected writer on economics, as well as a successful businessman. Kettell was a journalist and editor -- a pamphleteer, in other words -- who wrote on economics. Neither man had an academic chair.

I doubt anybody would seriously say that one Kettell, the editorialist and controversialist, was a great economist and Colwell was a hack, though the opposite view might legitimately be argued. It's also worth noting that Kettell went on to write a history of the Civil War that doesn't reflect his earlier view by any means.

In fact Colwell was a socialist, writing against the free enterprise South.

Slavery is freedom?

"War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength?"

You must really loathe free markets to identify them with slavery.

George Washington improved in his lifetime. Lincoln still wanted to deport them out of the Country just prior to the end of his.

Washington became more ambivalent about slavery during the Revolution but didn't go further than expressing his doubts in private.

Lincoln went from accepting slavery to supporting abolition and voting rights for some African-Americans.

Lincoln supported voluntary colonization by freedmen during the war, but by the end of his life he certainly wasn't seeking to deport African-Americans.

Why the cheap caricature of Lincoln, anyway?

I won't say your comic book version of history is unworthy of you, but you might want to aspire to something higher.

PeaRidge: "There were two governmental actions to underwrite the development of domestic shipping....
Meeker gives the details as follows: Bremen line (1847-57) $2,000,000...
Charleston Line founded by George Anson, New York [??] (1848-58) $500,000."

Depending on how you calculate it, $2 million in 1857 equates to hundreds of millions today.

So let's note that first, what you here call "subsidies" or "underwriting", in other posts you've admitted were merely payments for services, such as transporting US mail.

Second, given the nature of Federal government at the time, we don't expect that much, if any, of that money was outright grants -- no "free money".

Third, Federal contracts were supposed to be awarded on the basis of competitive bids, and the fact that you've listed not just one monopolizer, but rather six different carriers strongly suggests plenty of competition.

Fourth, from the names we might well suppose that shippers listed were Northern owned & operated, though the Charleston Line and George Anson are more associated with Charleston SC.
Bremen Line and Havre Line sound more foreign owned than US.
Your numbers do not suggest which shippers carried mail to & from such major Southern ports as New Orleans and Baltimore.

But here's the important point to remember: in 1860 80% of US citizens lived in Union states and 90% of US city dwellers lived in Union states.
So we would not expect Southern mail carriers to add up to more than 10% to 20% of the total.

And one might well suppose that with so little mail to carry, Southerners would focus their economic attention elsewhere, such as on growing highly profitable cotton.

Finally, the nature of politics being what it is, we can presume that whatever benefits Northerners derived from Federal spending, Southerners would demand & receive their "fair share" in some other activity.

PeaRidge: "the United States government legislated a state subsidized mail service in 1845.
The United States Postmaster General's Office solicited bids from US based shipping companies..."

And there it is: competitive bids for US mail service, hardly rank "subsidies".
Words like "bids" mean that Southerners, if they wanted to, could also participate in such business.

PeaRidge: "The generosity of the legislation was rationalized by the stipulation that in time of war, these ships would be transferred to the Navy for service."

If the contracts were truly bid, as you say, then they were not "generous", but competitive.
We know this because, for example, the Collins Line you mentioned before went bankrupt in 1857, despite "subsidies".
That suggests such shipping was far less lucrative than it was risky, and may begin to explain why most Southerners weren't so interested in doing it.

PeaRidge: "If you recall, a number of these ships were involved with Lincoln's attempted invasion of Charleston and Pensacola in '61."

The SS Baltic, for one,was not "transferred to the Navy", it was leased, for $1,500 per day in 1861, down to $1,000 in 1865.

DiogenesLamp to x: "Why do you put so much stock in their listed grievances?
As I pointed out, the Canadians did not find these conditions so intolerable, so the degree of misery involved depends upon the perspective of those who suffer it."

As previously pointed out, Canadians did not suffer conditions listed in the Declaration of Independence, so there was nothing "subjective" or "perspective" about it:

"He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."

DiogenesLamp: "The founders listed grievances in an effort to win support for their cause, not because it was necessary to the assertion of the principle of 'consent of the governed.' "

But for our purposes here, there is an even greater principle, the principle that trumps all others: to be considered a genuine American conservative (as opposed to "conservative" in other countries) you must subscribe to the principle of: Founders' Original Intent.
That's because American conservatives, Free Republic conservatives, can be defined with two words: Constitution and Bible, not necessarily in that order.
And in both cases the words refer to Original Intent, not some later reinterpretation or reimagining of what they should have meant.

Conservatives do not consider either Constitution or Bible to be "living documents" which can mean whatever the h*ll the latest fad ideas wish they meant.
Instead we base our understandings on Original Intent, so the Declaration means what Founders meant, not necessarily what DiogenesLamp wishes they would have meant.

Apropos this discussion, no Founder ever advocated an unrestricted "right of secession" at pleasure, period.

DiogenesLamp to x: "The North had the government sewn up, and there was nothing the South could do to fix any of this.
Under the existing system, they not only had to keep paying for 3/4ths of all federal revenues, they also had to keep losing about 40% of their export revenues to New York. "

That is a crock of lies now corrected many times on these threads.

First of all, due to the Constitution's 3/5 representation clause and other reasons, Southerners dominated Federal Government almost continuously from 1788 through 1860, often by huge majorities.
So there was nothing they seriously wanted from Washington they could not eventually get.

Second, Deep South cotton & rice exports grew to pay for about 50% not 75% of total US imports.
The next largest US export, tobacco, came mostly from Union states.

Third, we know this for certain because when Deep South cotton was taken out of the US export mix, Federal import revenues fell only 26% in 1861, then rose 19%, 37% and 51%% in the following years.
Clearly, pro-Confederates then & now grossly exaggerated the overall importance of their exports.

Fourth, as pointed out in recent posts, shipping was risky business, even with Federal "subsidies", so SS Baltic owners, the Collins Line, went bankrupt in 1857 despite them.
That may help explain why most Southerners preferred the economic security of, for example, raising cotton.

DiogenesLamp to x: "They were stuck in a position where their only option within the system was to keep feeding the beast to the North, all the while listening to the chorus of smug Northern Liberals telling them what horrible rotten people they were."

In fact, until the election of November 1860, Southerners dominated Washington DC so could have, and did, demand whatever adjustments they needed in Federal laws.
All claims otherwise are cockamamie nonsense.
To consider just one Federal acquiescence to Southern demands, simply remember the 1857 SCOTUS Dred Scott decision.

After the 1860 election, Deep South Fire Eaters did not wait for any "unpleasantness" to justify disunion as "necessary", but rather immediately declared secession "at pleasure".

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