Posted on 07/07/2012 11:51:43 AM PDT by nickcarraway
At the height of the holiday shopping season of 1860, a bookseller in Richmond, Va., placed a telling advertisement in The Daily Dispatch promoting a selection of "Elegant Books for Christmas and New Year's Presents." Notably, the list of two dozen "choice books, suitable for Holiday Gifts" included five works by the late Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott in "various beautiful bindings."
Sir Walter Scott not only dominated gift book lists on the eve of the Civil War but also dominated Southern literary taste throughout the conflict. His highly idealized depiction of the age of chivalry allowed Southern readers and writers to find positive meaning in war's horrors, hardships and innumerable deaths. And his works inspired countless wartime imitators, who drew upon his romantic conception of combat.
In 1814 Scott had begun his ascension to the heights of literary stardom with the publication of the historical romance "Waverley," which was soon followed by other novels in the so-called Waverley series. The works were an immediate and immense success in Great Britain and America. Over the course of many volumes, Scott glamorized the Middle Ages, at once shaping and popularizing what we now consider the classic tale of chivalry. As one enamored 19th-century reader explained, each of Scott's romances focused upon the "manners and habits of the most interesting and chivalrous periods of Scottish [and] British history."
Among Scott's most famous works was "Ivanhoe," published in 1820. The romance, set in the 12th century, presents a tale of intrigue, love and valor. The plot traces the fortunes of young Wilfred of Ivanhoe as he strives, despite his father's opposition, to gain the hand of the beautiful Lady Rowena. In the course of Ivanhoe's adventures, Richard the Lionheart and Robin Hood appear, and Ivanhoe performs many a remarkable feat.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Anything else?
No, it took Lincoln starting a war to settle the financial problems.
First you said this: “Republicans were not a majority in either House of Congress when Lincoln came to office...”
Then when you were shown that you were wrong, you said this: “The only reason there was a majority Republicans in the Senate was because...”.
So, you were wrong, you reversed yourself, and then changed the subject.
You are not a very honorable poster. You should go back to your “Civil War” threads where you must fit in.
You still do not know what you are talking about.
You cling to the secession only by tyranny axiom.
Then why was New York seceding, since there was no tyranny for them?
And using the ‘drunk’ description truly shows that you are not familiar with the participants, and the degree of your ignorance.
FR mail Rockrr.......he can help you.
It’s mildly amusing to watch you with your nose in the air and then in the same breath attempt “dumb as a stump”.
Anything else?
In 1858, Senator Andrew Johnson issued the following data in his report to the United States Senate:
"Daily wages for bricklayers in New Orleans and Charleston averaged $3. Wages for bricklayers in Chicago and Pittsburg was $1.50.
Carpenters in New Orleans/Charleston earned $2.50 a day.
The same in Chicago/Pittsburg earned $1.50.
General laborers in these Southern cities earned $1.25. Their counterparts in the North earned $.75.
In 1860, the per capital income for Southern wage earners was $150 as compared with $142 for the North. See here
Consider yourself proved wrong.
“That must be why you posted that post, otherwise what the hell are you talking about?”
Wrong again Arrosobe.
3/2/1861 The Morrill Tariff was signed into law by outgoing President Buchanan.
Before the seats vacated in 1861 by the Southern congressmen could be filled, the economic order of the United States was dramatically changed. The tariff took off on an upward trajectory that was far above any tariff in history
This tariff raised the taxation rate from an average of approximately 15% to 37.5% with a greatly expanded list of covered items. This effectively tripled the taxation rate on imported goods. The law allowed a second additional rate averaging 47% for iron.
You said: “For all the alleged dependence on Southern exports somehow the United States of America survived for four yrs without them now didn't it?”
It survived by borrowing money on a massive scale. Federal debt escalated from 65 million in 1861 to over 2.7 billion by ‘65. So, to answer your question, when the trade system went down, debt took over.
“How did “protectionists” get in and remain in control when there was a majority Democrat Congress and mainly Democrat Presidents for most of the time before 1860?”
You truly are backward. Protectionism is a mild form of tariff law and totally unrelated to this conversation.
“Now the fine wines, expensive furniture, fancy clothes, silks, satins and brocades imported by the wealthy planters had their prices increased but common people were essentially unaffected.”
Where do you come up with that crap.
“Tariff issues were not so unpopular as to have it eliminated.”
Extreme forms were.
“James Madison was in the Congress which imposed the first tariff no matter what you imply with your pointless quote.”
That is not a serious comment, is it? </sar>
“U.S. exports EXPLODED during the period after the Wah (sic) even with high tariffs”
Not true. It took eleven years for exports to match the amount in 1860. You really should stop making things up.
How did the Union survive financially without the South during the Wah (sic)?
Through withering debt that took decades to pay. That is one reason the entire Union invasion made absolutely no rational sense.
The tariffocracy thought it could bully itself into stability.
As I said, anything else?
You said: “Very few Northern businessmen (or anyone else) supported secession contrary to the Pretend History you wallow in.”
Give the post where I used the word support. You are avoiding the issue of the question about secession efforts in New York and whether or not you believe that some form of tyranny caused that.
Address that please.
There was no non-trivial secession efforts in NY. I have repeatedly stated there was no “tyranny” justifying ANY secession efforts. I am a old man and can be expected to forget things but you must be older than I am.
I mocked the whole idea.
The point is what you think it is saying versa what is actually there.
Only an idiot would have thought that I was speaking of the period after the Traitors left. The Republicans did not win a majority in Congress in 1860.
Only a duplicitous dastard would attempt such a trick as you got caught in.
New York was not “seceding” except in your fevered imagination.
The Morrill Tariff was a major change in taxation.
Having evolved from the low taxation rates of the early 1800’s, voters in certain sections of the country were in favor of higher tariffs to protect their manufacturing industries. Southerners, whose income came from agriculture, of course demanded low tariffs. They preferred buying European products, which were better and cheaper than those made in the United States.
Westerners, whose income also came from agriculture at first opposed high tariffs. But they came to accept the “American System” proposed by Representative Henry Clay of Kentucky. In 1824, Congress had boosted most tariffs as a result of Clay’s proposals.
Many people, especially Southerners protested the rising tariffs in 1828. Subsequent negotiations in the US Congress caused the tariffs to rise and fall intermittently during the 1840’s and 1850’s. Since the agricultural South needed more imported goods than the industrial North, the tariff highly affected the South while benefiting the manufacturing interests in the North. Most of the discretionary Federal spending was on Northern projects and infrastructure that did not encourage industrial development in the South.
When Morrill’s tax plan was introduced into debate in Congress in 1860, the Southerners felt betrayed when the West and North joined in support of the high tariffs.
“In the first place, it is to be remembered, that the general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any.” —James Madison
Earlier in the year, the New Haven Daily Register said,
“There was never a more ill-timed, injudicious and destructive measure proposed, than the Morrill tariff bill, because while Congress is raising the duties for the Northern ports, the Southern Constitutional Convention is doing away with all import duties for the Southern ports, leaving more than three-fifths of the seafront of the Atlantic States…beyond the reach of our tariff…Southern ports would then invite the free trade of the world.”
The editor advised that the South be left alone, and the Morrill tariff be repealed.
The Republican Party and Lincoln’s major focus was on raising taxes, in particular raising and enforcing the tariff. His convention victory was particularly made possible by support from the Pennsylvania delegation.
Pennsylvania had long been the home and the political focus of the nation’s iron and steel industry which, ever since its inception during the War of 1812, had been chronically inefficient, and had therefore constantly been bartering its votes for high tariffs and, later, import quotas.
“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.”
—Samuel Adams
Virtually the first act of the Lincoln administration was in passing the Morrill protective tariff act, doubling existing tariff rates, and creating the highest tariff rates in American history
“Without justice being freely, fully, and impartially administered, neither our persons, nor our rights, nor our property, can be protected.” —Joseph Story
3/2/1861 The New York Evening Post stated:
“That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the port must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources, which supply our treasury, will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe.
There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of public officers; the present order of things must come to a dead stop.”
The following table demonstrates the rationale of the comments by the Evening Post writer. It shows the value of Southern cotton and tobacco expressed as a percentage of the total value of US exports. With very little cash money, or specie, returning to the United States, essentially the sale of Southern goods financed the purchase of goods returning to the country and taxed at port of entry.
“Historical Statistics of the United States”
US Documents Section
317.3
U. S. Department of Commerce
Pages 890-899
International Transactions and Foreign Commerce
Total Exports Cotton and Tobacco Percentage
In dollars dollar value as assign- of total export
Year (less re-exports * ed at port of exit dollar values
and specie) by US Customs
Dollar values expressed in millions
1860 $316m $208m 65%
1859 $278m $182m 65%
1858 $251m $148m 58%
1857 $279m $152m 54%
1856 $266m $140m 52%
1855 $193m $103m 53%
*re-exports defined as commodities shipped into the US for re-shipment to Europe.
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3/2/1861 Senator Louis T. Wigfall, said:
“That the people of the North shall consider themselves as more blessed than we, more civilized, and happier, is not a matter at which we would complain at all, if they would only content themselves with believing that to be the fact; but when they come and attempt to propagandize, and insist that we shall be as perfect as they imagine themselves to be, then it is that their good opinion of themselves becomes offensive to us.
“Let my neighbor believe that his wife is an angel and his children cherubs, I care not, though I may know he is mistaken; but when he comes impertinently poking his nose into my door every morning, and telling me that my wife is a shrew and my children brats, then the neighborhood becomes uncomfortable, and if I cannot remove him, I will remove myself; and if he says to me, “you shall not move, but you shall stay here, and you shall, day after day, hear the demerits of your wife and children discussed,” then I begin to feel a little restive, and possibly might assert that great original right of pursuing whatever may conduce to my happiness, though it might be kicking him out of my door.
“If New England would only be content with the blessings which she imagines she has, we would not disturb her in her happiness.”
Outside of New England and territories populated by transplanted New Englanders, the idea of forcing the South to stay in the Union was highly unpopular.
In many middle-tier states, including Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, there was a considerable sentiment to mimic the South by forming a middle Confederacy to isolate the fanatical Yankees.
It's obvious you thought you did, but you were showing your ignorance.
I note that you still do not know what I am talking about. There was a massive meeting in New York designed to develop and organize the secession of parts of the area into a “free trade” area and to align with the South. It was done in anticipation of the secession and the implementation of the Morrill tariff.
So, was this the result of tyranny?
Do some research and get back to me.
“That must be why you posted that post, otherwise what the hell are you talking about?”
So, you really don’t know, do you?
Those numbers are interesting if accurate which coming from a Democrat are always suspect. However, you also need to know how many days the workers were working to get an idea of actual income. And we know that the Northern cities where growing very rapidly and using a lot of labor.
Your link does not show me to be wrong in any way but, in fact, verifies what I said the per capita income in the North was $141 and in the South $103. And, if you had the median income figures there would be an even greater disparity between the regions.
According to those numbers the only region of the South which exceeded the National average was the West South Central region. I suppose this would be Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi. There the income was much higher than in any other regions presumably because of the rich lands along the River.
Nice try though.
A mass meeting is transformed into a major movement? Not hardly. At least not in the real world.
Free booze always drew a crowd. Democrats still use the tactic.
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