What Should a First-Time Visitor to America Read?

A friend recently posed this question: “If you had to recommend one book for a first-time visitor to the U.S. to read, to understand our country, what would it be and why?”...

If the goal is an education, we could recommend Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager’s Growth of the American Republic, a two-volume history that used to be required reading...

Huckleberry Finn may be the greatest American novel... But there is no single novel, no matter how great, that can do the job alone.

Consider instead the great American essayists who invented a new style of writing in the 1920s and founded The New Yorker. E. B. White’s One Man’s Meat is the finest such essay collection... Joseph Mitchell’s Up in the Old Hotel is nearly as great...

Teddy Roosevelt’s short book The Strenuous Life, which opens with his 1899 speech by that name, is an explanation of America’s view of itself — a view that greatly shaped the 20th century. It was the peculiar marriage of power and prosperity together with a sense of moral urgency. Roosevelt demands an active life, a life of struggling for personal and national virtue. He commends a triad of strength in body, intellect, and character — of which character is the most important. America must meet its moral obligations vigorously, he tells us: “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”...

The origin of that moral urgency was America’s most important spiritual crisis. It is best expressed in a single speech, rich in Biblical imagery and contemporary prophecy: Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, which is the greatest of all American writing. It is a tone-poem or photograph of the American soul. A complete understanding, in just 697 words.

FLT-bird: "This is complete BS.
The Southern states never had the population or representation of the Northern states.
To claim they ran things despite being in the minority is patently absurd."

Oh, but they certainly did, in the beginning.
In 1790 Virginia was the most populous state (including slaves) and roughly half of Americans lived in the South.
In 1810 New York's population surpassed Virginia's and in 1820 so did Pennsylvania's, such that by 1830 the South's population had fallen to about 44% of the total.

Still the Constitution's 3/5 rule gave Southerners far more representation in Washington than their white populations alone would allow, and the huge political skills of such recognized Southern geniuses as Jefferson, Madison and Andrew Jackson gave the South far more clout in Washington, DC, than mere numbers suggest.

Unfortunately such giants were eventually followed by lesser men of lesser skills and correspondingly more difficult dispositions.
South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks comes to mind.

Regardless, before 1861 Southern Democrats always dominated their Doughfaced Northern Democrat brethren and together Democrats Dominated in Washington, DC, from about 1800 until secession in 1861 -- almost continuously, with very few exceptions.
The strength of Democrat dominance can be seen in the steady decline of tariffs after what was effectively the Calhoun/Jackson Tariff of Abominations.
Note my graph in post #290 above.

Again, if you'll note the two maps in post #290 of 1852 & 1856 elections, you'll see that in 1852 Democrats totally dominated the North and in 1856 still took some very important Norther states (i.e., Pennsylvania).
But in 1860 Preston Brooks' Fire Eater buddies succeeded in splitting the Democrat party, demoralizing Northern Democrats and paving the way for minority Republican victory.

So Southerners didn't lose power in Washington, DC, so much as they threw it away.

FLT-bird: "In a pamphlet published in 1850, Muscoe Russell Garnett of Virginia wrote: The whole amount of duties collected from the year 1791, to June 30, 1845, after deducting the drawbacks on foreign merchandise exported, was $927,050,097.
Of this sum the slaveholding States paid $711,200,000, and the free States only $215,850,097."

Speaking of "patently absurd", those numbers certainly are, since there is no possible way to collect them.
Federal import tariffs were collected at ports on entry and afterwards was no way to tell the ultimate customers, or even if Northern or Southern.
So what such numbers typically do refer to is US exports which were not taxed but were claimed to somehow "pay for" imports.

Thus, for example, if Deep South cotton represented, say, 50% of total exports (which it did), then it was claimed the Deep South "paid for" 50% of US imports and thus Federal revenue tariffs.
Likewise with tobacco or rice, etc.

But one problem is: cotton is the only product where that equation really works -- everything else could be and was produced in many places, only counted as "Southern products" because they were exported from Southern ports, i.e., New Orleans.
This was proved big-time in 1861 when Confederate South products were 100% deleted from US exports, and yet a "Southern product" like tobacco's exports fell only 14%.
Clearly tobacco was not only produced by Confederates.

Of course, if you wish to argue that Muscoe Russell Garnett's numbers are what many Southerners came to believe, then it might be true some believed it, but the numbers themselves are, ahem, "patently absurd".

FLT-bird: "Complete BS.
All the commentators at the time, as well as several Northern Newspapers, foreign commentators and Charles Adams all say otherwise.
On your side you have one 1928 book."

I don't dispute that some believed what you say, I only say that it was not true.
My opinions are based not only on that 1928 book, which shows that Federal spending was roughly equal North vs. South, but also on some of the same documents used to show that "Southern products" exceeded all other by far.

I simply note that when Confederate products were deleted, cotton exports did indeed fall 80% as you would expect.
But no other "Southern product" fell anywhere near than much and tobacco, for example fell only 14%.
Clearly not all "Southern products" were produced in the Confederate South.

FLT-bird: "So of the 6, none were arrested and that was due to the support of locals in Massachusetts as well as sympathetic local officials.
Texas was absolutely right to say that Northerners sympathize with financial backers of terrorism directed against the South."

Some Northerners, just like today some Americans sympathize and financially back Muslim terrorists.
History does not tell us the percentages, but I'd suggest that 150 close neighbors defending Franklin Sanborn against arresting Federal officers did not necessarily speak for all of several million Northern voters.
Indeed, in 1860 those Northern voters may still have returned more Democrats to office, had the party remained united.

FLT-bird: "I was talking about the refusal of the Southern states to accept the Corwin Amendment and the subsequent war Lincoln started.
Had it been “about” slavery, the Corwin amendment would have sufficed."

But slavery was the reason given by secessionists themselves, so slavery is what Congress addressed.
Now you say it wasn't really about slavery, since Confederates rejected all such compromises.
But the truth is that once they declared secession, then no compromise offered by Congress would have been adequate to entice their return.
So slavery was the stated reason for secession, but slavery would not get Confederates to return.
As it turned out, nothing would, short of Union victory and Confederates' Unconditional Surrender.

FLT-bird: "We have furthermore seen how 3 of those 4 had extensive economic grievances relating to tariffs and grossly unequal federal government expenditures..."

Wrong again.
All four focused on slavery, none mentioned tariffs or taxes.
Yes, Georgia complained about "bounties" for "fishing smacks" but did not claim they went exclusively to Northerners, nor can anybody seriously suggest Georgia was willing to secede and risk Civil War over "fishing smacks"!
The real reason was clearly slavery.

FLT-bird: "Next you desperately try to do a simple word count to claim Rhett’s #1 concern was slavery which is of course patently false."

Nothing either "desperate" or "patently false" about it because the fact remains that Rhett devoted twice as many words to slavery as to all other issues combined.
So I'm not claiming Rhett had no other red herrings to throw out, I'm only saying the real reason is the one he spent the most words talking about -- slavery.

FLT-bird quoting: "The legislation of this Union has impoverished them [the Southern States] by taxation and by a diversion of the proceeds of our labor and trade to enriching Northern Cities and States."

But that claim is false, beginning with the fact that Southerners were far from "impoverished".
Rather, on average, white Southerners were wealthier than any other people on Earth.
And Rhett's claim of "diversion" of proceeds is also false, though it appears some people then & now believed it.
In reality, such numbers were fake, as I've explained.

FLT-bird: [Doris Kerns Goodwin] "praises Lincoln for orchestrating it [Corwin].
Others have noted that he was pulling the strings on this as well."

Lincoln commented noncommittally on it in his first inaugural.
Other than that, I've seen no evidence of his "orchestration".
So I'm starting to think it's on a par with Trump's "Russia collusion" -- something devoutly wished for by his political enemies but sadly, for them, nothing but fantasy.

FLT-bird: "WHat the Corwin Amendment did do was demonstrate conclusively that the Northern states were quite willing to protect slavery effectively forever in the Constitution and that the original 7 seceding states were obviously not motivated by fears over the protection of slavery because they indicated no willingness to return upon being offered the Corwin Amendment."

Wrong on both counts.
But I did find your mysterious "orchestrator", it was President Buchanan, who took the trouble to sign the amendment, even though not required.
And Lincoln did forward it to the states, noting Buchanan's signature.
But only five states ratified it -- two Southern Border, two Northern Border, plus Rhode Island.
Most later rescinded their ratifications.
I think some allowances should be made for the local politics of those border states.

As for Confederates refusing to reconsider rejoining based only on the Corwin amendment, I would say rather that by that time secessionists were unwilling to consider anything the Union proposed, slavery related or not.

FLT-bird: "It doesn’t make them a lie.
The Northern states really had violated the compact by refusing to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution."

But that itself is a lie because the Compromise of 1850 removed responsibility for enforcing fugitive slave laws from states to Federal government.
Claims that somehow states were still responsible is rather a breech of faith by secessionists, not Northerners.

FLT-bird: "Slavery was something most white Southerners did not participate in."

Most in the Deep South certainly did, where nearly 50% of families owned slaves.
Outside the Deep South things were quite different, with slave ownership falling to 15% or less in Border States.
That's the reason those states didn't join the Confederacy, even after Fort Sumter.

FLT-bird: "They simply did not want to remain in given that they felt they had been economically exploited and could look forward to nothing but even more egregious economic exploitation."

Anyone could write up a list of reasons and order them by priority.
Then ask Confederates which of those reasons was more important.
I promise you, "economic exploitation" would not be near the top of any but a very few Confederates' lists.

FLT-bird: "Oh and of course it was Lincoln who launched the war and for the same reason the Southern states wanted out - he and his corporate fatcat supporters needed their cash cow ie the Southern States to finance their huge tariffs and infrastructure projects and corporate subsidies.
It was a war for empire and money.
Foreign observers saw that quite clearly."

Total nonsense, but of course there've always been rabid anti-Americans eager to denigrate our ideals and mock our motives.
Many then as now are Democrat Americans, or foreigners devoted to a larger world-government cause.
It was true then, it's true now.

But regardless of whose country it was, there was no “hostile intent”, it was a resupply mission with specific orders: no first use of force.
Equivalent then to resupplying or reinforcing our base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba today.
It was not an act of war and was actually irrelevant to Jefferson Davis’ demand for Fort Sumter’s surrender, under threat of military assault, which certainly was an act of war.

Uhh pure BS.

The steam sloop-of-war USS Pawnee, 181 officers and enlisted Armament: • 8 × 9 in guns, • 2 × 12-pounder guns

USS Powhatan, 289 officers and enlisted Armament: • 1 × 11 in (280 mm) Dahlgren smoothbore gun, 10 × 9 in (230 mm) Dahlgren smoothbore guns • 5 × 12-pounder guns, also transporting steam launches and about 300 sailors (besides the crew, these to be used to augment Army troops)

Armed screw steamer USS Pocahontas, 150 officers and men (approx.)
4 × 32-pounder guns, 1 × 10-pounder gun, 1 × 20-pounder Parrot rifle

The Revenue Cutter USS Harriet Lane, 95 officers and men Armament: 1 x 4in gun, 1 x 9in gun, 2 x 8in guns, 2 x 24 lb brass howitzers

The steamer Baltic transporting about 200 troops, composed of companies C and D of the 2nd U.S. Artillery, and three hired tug boats with added protection against small arms fire to be used to tow troop and supply barges directly to Fort Sumter (or some other point since it is inconceivable that they would be taking small arms fire from a union held fortification )
Totals

4 war ships
4 transports
38 heavy guns
1200 military personnel (at least 500 of whom were to be used as a landing party)

Does this sound like “provisions” to you????
No the Fox expedition was no attempt to “provision” a “starving” garrison. It was exactly what abe said it was, a flagrant and deliberate attempt to provoke war and it worked very well. If for what ever reason it hadn’t worked abe and gang would have certainly provoked war at Pensacola very soon afterward.

There is no law on any book anywhere in the world which says that a government’s property becomes not its property just because some local citizens declare secession.
The US Constitution gives Congress — and nobody else — authority to dispose of Federal property.

When a sovereign state secedes, all property within their sovereign territory can be claimed by them under Eminent Domain. The former owners are owed fair market value and that will be part of the negotiations for secession but they can no more lawfully refuse to hand over that property than any other property owner when the government exercises its power of eminent domain.

No, your posts are total fantasy, not a word of truth in them, so nothing for me to “handle”.
Nice try though.

Nah. I had it right. You just can’t deal with facts that are inconvenient for your dogma.

Clearly, on April 4, 1861, when Virginians voted against secession, they believed the reasons for secession as expressed by South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas and Rhett’s address were not adequate to justify Virginia’s secession.
But after Jefferson Davis started war at Fort Sumter, most Virginians changed their minds... well, West Virginians did not.
Clearly civil war was the clincher for Virginians, where issues of slavery or tariffs, etc., had not been.

And one reason is that Virginia’s Constitution signing statement requires “injury or oppression” before “withdrawing”.

Well to begin with this is more of your lying. Abe Lincoln started the war, not Jefferson Davis. Furthermore Virginia voting initially not to secede is not evidence that there was no injury or oppression - merely that they did not feel it sufficient to warrant secession until Lincoln chose to start a war to impose a government on people who did not consent to it.

The only provocations for war came from Confederates’ seizure of many Federal properties — forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc. — threatening of Union officials, firing at Union ships and forcing the surrender of Union troops in Union Fort Sumter.

Incorrect. The provocations for war came from Lincoln when he chose to send a heavily armed flotilla into South Carolina’s territorial waters to reinforce some squatters illegally occupying some of South Carolina’s sovereign territory.

But there was no “maneuvering” by Lincoln.
From Day One Confederates threatened & provoked war.
Lincoln merely gave them an opportunity to, as some would say: put their money where their mouth is.
And there was no “maneuvering” in that, since Lincoln only did what he must do to support Union troops in Fort Sumter.

Ah but there was. Lincoln knew what he was doing, knew it would start a war and that was what he wanted.

“Lincoln and the First Shot” (in Reassessing the Presidency, edited by John Denson), John Denson painstakingly shows how Lincoln maneuvered the Confederates into firing the first shot at Fort Sumter. As the Providence Daily Post wrote on April 13, 1861, “Mr. Lincoln saw an opportunity to inaugurate civil war without appearing in the character of an aggressor” by reprovisioning Fort Sumter. On the day before that the Jersey City American Statesman wrote that “This unarmed vessel, it is well understood, is a mere decoy to draw the first fire from the people of the South.” Lincoln’s personal secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay, clearly stated after the war that Lincoln successfully duped the Confederates into firing on Fort Sumter

So here’s the truth “you just can’t handle”: by the words of secessionists themselves, even Robert Rhett’s address, it was more about slavery than about all other issues combined.
And that’s a fact, but you will never confess it, right?

yet another lie on your part. Slavery provided the original 7 seceding states (well 4 really since only 4 issued declarations of causes) the legal basis for saying the Northern states had violated the compact - which they had. Rhett said he would support secession on the grounds of the tariff and unequal federal expenditures...but its inconvenient for you to admit that. Of course the Upper South only seceded when Lincoln chose to start a tyrannical war for money and empire seeking to impose a government on people who did not consent to it.

But what people like Rhett refused to confess was: until Fire Eaters like himself broke apart the national Democrat party in 1860 over slavery, “the South” had many friends & allies in the North, East and West, allies they could count on to support the South in any matters of importance.
That’s precisely why & how Democrats ruled over Washington, DC, from about 1800 until secession in 1861.

So the number one blame for what Rhett complained about was: Rhett himself.
Think about it.

This is a complete pile of BS. Obviously the South who were in the minority did not control things in Washington DC or the tariff would have been way way lower all along and there would not have been much by way of federal expenditures for internal improvements and corporate subsidies. The Walker Tariff which was claimed to be “advantageous” to the South was 17%. The Confederate Constitution set a maximum tariff rate of 10%....the very highest to be allowed was about half of what the supposed “advantageous” tariff rate was while in the US. That fact alone should disprove any ridiculous claims that the South somehow controlled everything in Washington all along.

Ah, but in fact there was no similarity whatsoever — none, zero, nada similarities — because in 1776 Americans had zero representation in Parliament, none, while in 1860 Southern Democrats still controlled the majority in the Senate, the President and Supreme Court (i.e., Dred Scott).
And they would have continued in substantial control if people like Rhett himself had not broken up the national Democrat party over slavery (yes, that was “all about slavery”) in 1860, thus throwing the election to “Ape” Lincoln and his Black Republicans.

Ah but there was. The similarity was striking. The British offered the colonies seats in the British parliament. Its just that it would not have been enough for them to be able to protect themselves from rapacious economic policies designed to bleed them dry while enriching others....exactly the situation the Southern states found themselves in in 1860.

How you think anybody is going to but this BS you spew is beyond me. Southern Democrats did not control the President. Buchanan was a Pennsylvanian.

“The House of Representatives, whose membership was based on the census returns for each state, reflected this growing disparity. Even counting three-fifths of the slave population (as the federal Constitution provided), free states increased their majority from twenty-three seats in 1830 to twenty-nine seats by 1840. The disparity expressed in total seats was 149 representatives from the free states to 88 from the slave states.” (John Niven, The Coming of the Civil War: 1837-1861, Arlington Heights, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1990, p. 21)

“. . . the Democrats in 1854 suffered grave reversals. Perhaps most stunning was the plurality the Republicans achieved in the new House of Representatives, where they were to hold 108 seats to 83 for the Democrats and 43 for the Know-Nothings. Indeed that new House, after two months of debate, would elect a Republican Speaker. . . .” (Catton, The National Experience, pp. 322-323)

“The election of 1858. . . . Southern Democrats . . . were no longer able to shape public policy. . . .” (Catton, editor, The National Experience, pp. 328-329)

Nothing to obfuscate, but a good many of your posts lead me to suspect that you truly don’t know the real history and have been big-time victimized by pro-Confederate propaganda.

Yes you obfuscate - a product no doubt of swallowing the PC Revisionist propaganda you want so badly to believe.

So first of all, just so we’re clear on this: that “legal case” was indeed “all about slavery”, nothing else.
Second, that “legal case” was itself ludicrous since every condition it described had been tolerated by South Carolina for decades without secession.
There was nothing new in November of 1860 — no new laws, no new “oppression”, not even a new Congress yet.
And that’s what makes those declarations of secession at pleasure.
Literally, in November 1860 there was no new material cause, and no old cause which had been previously considered necessary for secession.

Yes the legal case was that the Northern states had violated the compact by refusing to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution.

Second, your claim here is false. The northern states had been agitating against the fugitive slave clause and its enforcement more and more as time went on and had passed state laws forbidding cooperating with the feds - kinda like Commiefornia’s “Sanctuary state” laws. It is up to each state to determine when its injury or oppression rises to a level sufficient to warrant secession. That is what it is to be sovereign. They hold power in their own right and can decide what to do on their own without requiring some kind of permission slip from others. They felt it necessary in 1860-61 and that’s enough. They had nothing to prove to anybody else when it came to choosing to exercise their sovereign rights.

Of course we all know what changed was the certainty that the Morill Tariff would pass which it did and was signed by Buchanan 2 days before Lincoln took office.

But there was nothing “accurate” about such analysis.
Federal spending in 1860 was roughly equal, North & South, and tariffs were then about as low as they had ever been.
So Rhett’s rhetoric was all just stuff & nonsense.

Oh it was completely accurate. The supposedly “advantageous” 17% Walker Tariff was going to be replaced by the Morrill Tariff which would double tariff rates (they were eventually tripled). Federal expenditures had long favored the Northern states as admitted by Buchanan and numerous Northern newspapers and as complained about bitterly for many years by Southerners. So Rhett’s statement was spot on.

A false case after the Compromise of 1850 made enforcement of Fugitive Slave laws a Federal not state responsibility.
And Federal government was ruled by Southern Democrats who could enforce Fugitive Slave provisions to their hearts desire.
Further, Georgia even more than South Carolina, had no legal standing to complain about Fugitive slaves since few if any could make it across at least four slave-catching states before reaching any kind of sanctuary in the North.

So it was all bogus!!

Are you trying to deny that various Northern states passed legislation forbidding cooperation with federal authorities as they tried to recapture escaped slaves and that Northerners engaged multiple times in mob violence to impede federal agents - which state authorities did nothing to stop? The evidence for this is quite clear. Its been bragged about by Northerners for a long time.

And your claims that the minority Southerners controlled the Federal government is nothing but pure fantasy.

Georgia’s case like South Carolina’s did not depend on how many slaves the Northern states prevented the feds from capturing and returning - but that they had willfully and repeatedly done so in violation of the Constitution.

There is no question that happened multiple times.

But in 1860 Democrats were still a majority in many Northern states, enough to have prevented alleged “ruinously high protective tariffs” had they remained united with Southern Democrats.
It was Fire Eaters like Rhett, Yancey, Avery, Wigfall, etc., who insisted the Democrat party must split rather than compromise on slavery.

You just ASSUME Northern Democrats would automatically kowtow to Southern Democrats and do whatever they were told. That is patently absurd. Some Northern Democrats were influenced by the same special interest groups in the North that the Republicans were and wanted ruinously high tariffs for the same reasons - and voted for them.

And yet, from the time of the Tariff of Abominations in 1828 until secession in 1861 Tariffs went steadily downwards.

Tariffs did not seriously increase until after Democrats walked out of Congress and declared war on the United States.

As for Republicans wedging slavery to raise tariffs — Whigs & Republicans always favored protective tariffs, but slavery only became their “wedge issue” when Southern Democrats gave it to them, by splitting their national Democrat party.

The Walker Tariff did reduce rates after the Tariff of Abominations. It was part of the compromise that ended the Nullification Crisis in the 1830s. That was about to end as the Morrill Tariff had already passed the House in May of 1860 and was sure to pass the Senate...and Buchanan the Pennsylvanian supported it as did Lincoln. Everybody could see a doubling of the rates at least was right around the corner. Southerners understood all too well what that would mean for their economy having seen how damaging the Tariff of Abominations had been a generation earlier.

Northern special interests had used slavery as a wedge issue to convince the Midwest to go along with their huge tariff hike. They also promised lavish subsidies for railroad construction and other internal improvements in the Midwest that would help defray the damage that would be done to Midwestern grain exporters.

Hardly, the 1860 Republican platform had 17 planks.
Most complained about Democrat malfeasance, four talked about slavery directly, one, #12, mentions import duties.

As for “block voting” — in 1852 virtually all Northerners were Democrats, whose party was ruled by Southern Democrats:

Lincoln had vigorously lobbied for the Morrill Tariff, telling a Pittsburgh, Pa. audience two weeks before his inauguration that no other issue, none, was more important.

Your notion that Southerners could just snap their fingers and control what Northern Democrats did and how they voted is simply comical and bears no relation to reality.

So you keep saying, but Confederates in early 1860 all said otherwise.
They said protecting slavery was their chief, if not only, reason for secession.
Tariffs were not even mentioned by most.
And those who did mention it still spent far more time on slavery.

3 of the 4 talked about it. None of the original 7 seceding states would return even when offered slavery effectively forever by express constitutional amendment. That alone should demonstrate that Slavery protected + Massively high tariff was not acceptable to them. Refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution was merely the legal means for saying the Northern states violated the compact - it was not what the real motivation of Southerners was. That they spent any time at all complaining about the tariff and unequal federal expenditures in their declarations of causes was remarkable considering that no matter how much they hated it, this was NOT unconstitutional. It was unfair. It was infuriating. It was oppressive and exploitative, but it was not unconstitutional.

Northerners cared far less about percentages of tariffs than they did about the threat of expanding slavery where they didn’t want it.
And expanding slavery was what Democrats were pushing (i.e., Dred Scott) in 1860.
Sure, Republicans were the anti-slavery party, but not because they wanted higher tariffs (that’s insane), but rather because they didn’t want slavery in their states & territories.

The reason the Republicans wanted to bar slavery from new territories was that they were locked in a power struggle with the Southern states over federal economic policy and over the relationship between the federal and the state governments. They wanted to stack the deck in their favor so that they could get more votes and then ram through everything they wanted over Southern objections. Jefferson Davis said it openly as did many others.

“Neither “love for the African” [witness the Northern laws against him], nor revulsion from “property in persons” [“No, you imported Africans and sold them as chattels in the slave markets”] motivated the present day agitators,”…... “No sir….the mask is off, the purpose is avowed…It is a struggle for political power.” Jefferson Davis 1848

“What do you propose, gentlemen of the free soil party? Do you propose to better the condition of the slave? Not at all. What then do you propose? You say you are opposed to the expansion of slavery. Is the slave to be benefited by it? Not at all. What then do you propose? It is not humanity that influences you in the position which you now occupy before the country. It is that you may have an opportunity of cheating us that you want to limit slave territory within circumscribed bounds. It is that you may have a majority in the Congress of the United States and convert the government into an engine of Northern aggrandizement. It is that your section may grow in power and prosperity upon treasures unjustly taken from the South, like the vampire bloated and gorged with the blood which it has secretly sucked from its victim. You desire to weaken the political power of the Southern states, - and why? Because you want, by an unjust system of legislation, to promote the industry of the New England States, at the expense of the people of the South and their industry.” Jefferson Davis 1860

Oh and let’s not “whitewash” things here.....Republicans not only did not want slaves entering the territories...they also did not want free Blacks either. Just read the original state constitutions for Kansas, Oregon, etc etc.

Morrill was blocked by Senate Democrats in 1860 and could not pass in 1861 until after secessionists walked out.
Had Southerners remained united with their Northern Democrat allies, they could have forced a compromise much more to their own liking.
Compromise... you remember that, right, “the art of the deal” etc., etc.??

The Senate was the South’s last line of defense and they had just barely managed to block the Morrill Tarrif in 1860 but all it was going to take was a little log rolling to flip a Senator or two. It was sure to pass and everyone knew it. Northern corporate fatcats and Lincoln were not about to be thwarted in imposing their huge tariff and corporate subsidies and infrastructure projects. There wasn’t going to be a compromise. They were just going to throw a bone to a Senator or two with adding something to the tariff schedule and/or a subsidy for some infrastructure project in somebody’s state there, it was going to happen. Remember how Nebraska got to opt out of Obamacare so the Democrats could get another vote to shove Obamacare down everybody’s throats? Same thing.

I have no “personal bitterness” towards RE Lee, none, zero.
“Personal bitterness” is you Lost Causers’ stock in trade, we don’t need it.

You clearly do since you tried to take all kinds of lame shots at Lee.

But... speaking of weak arguments, could any be weaker than yours?
Remember, in 1860 Federal government was ruled by Southerners, the army was commanded by Southerners, Federal revenues to be spent on the military were set by Southerners and had been for nearly all of the past 60 years.
So, if Southerners weren’t happy with Federal government, they simply weren’t happy with themselves.
It’s not the fault of Northerners if RE Lee could not adequately protect Texans from Indians or “banditti”.

LOL! Yours is the weakest because its based on multiple giant steaming piles of BS like your claim that SOutherners ruled the federal government somehow.....even though they were in the minority and even though they had long bitterly complained about tariffs and unequal federal expenditures. Texans understood full well that the fault lay with the federal government in refusing to supply enough troops or resources to adequately defend the border as had been promised them when they joined the US. They weren’t stupid enough to blame Lee who was sent there for a relatively short time with nowhere near enough resources to guard the border.

Oh, but they certainly did, in the beginning.
In 1790 Virginia was the most populous state (including slaves) and roughly half of Americans lived in the South.
In 1810 New York’s population surpassed Virginia’s and in 1820 so did Pennsylvania’s, such that by 1830 the South’s population had fallen to about 44% of the total.

In the beginning the population was more balanced though of course blacks did not have the vote be they free or slave so the South had less votes than the North from the start and that got steadily worse over time as the North’s population grew faster due to immigration.

Regardless, before 1861 Southern Democrats always dominated their Doughfaced Northern Democrat brethren and together Democrats Dominated in Washington, DC, from about 1800 until secession in 1861 — almost continuously, with very few exceptions.
The strength of Democrat dominance can be seen in the steady decline of tariffs after what was effectively the Calhoun/Jackson Tariff of Abominations.
Note my graph in post #290 above.

Again, if you’ll note the two maps in post #290 of 1852 & 1856 elections, you’ll see that in 1852 Democrats totally dominated the North and in 1856 still took some very important Norther states (i.e., Pennsylvania).
But in 1860 Preston Brooks’ Fire Eater buddies succeeded in splitting the Democrat party, demoralizing Northern Democrats and paving the way for minority Republican victory.

So Southerners didn’t lose power in Washington, DC, so much as they threw it away.

Democrats were the dominant party. Your claim however that Southerners always ran things and could just snap their fingers and Northern Democrats would do their bidding is absurd. Things like the grossly unequal federal expenditures and the tariff of Abominations never would have passed at all had Southerners been that influential in Washington DC. Even after it was agreed to lower tariffs as part of the compromise that ended the Nullification Crisis, the rates were still considerably higher than would have been ideal for Southern economic interests. Then as the North steadily grew bigger and bigger it sought to impose sky high tariffs once again and this time the Southern states saw they weren’t going to be able to stop it so they seceded. Seeing their cash cows departing was intolerable to Lincoln and his corporate fatcat supporters.

Speaking of “patently absurd”, those numbers certainly are, since there is no possible way to collect them.
Federal import tariffs were collected at ports on entry and afterwards was no way to tell the ultimate customers, or even if Northern or Southern.
So what such numbers typically do refer to is US exports which were not taxed but were claimed to somehow “pay for” imports.

Thus, for example, if Deep South cotton represented, say, 50% of total exports (which it did), then it was claimed the Deep South “paid for” 50% of US imports and thus Federal revenue tariffs.
Likewise with tobacco or rice, etc.

But one problem is: cotton is the only product where that equation really works — everything else could be and was produced in many places, only counted as “Southern products” because they were exported from Southern ports, i.e., New Orleans.
This was proved big-time in 1861 when Confederate South products were 100% deleted from US exports, and yet a “Southern product” like tobacco’s exports fell only 14%.
Clearly tobacco was not only produced by Confederates.

Of course, if you wish to argue that Muscoe Russell Garnett’s numbers are what many Southerners came to believe, then it might be true some believed it, but the numbers themselves are, ahem, “patently absurd”.

More rubbish, nonsense and economic illiteracy. Where a cargo lands and thus where the tariff is paid is irrelevant. WHO owns the goods and thus pays the tariff is what is relevant. Likewise who buys those manufactured goods is irrelevant. Who owned those goods? Southerners.

They were the ones who contracted with the shipping companies to ship their cash crops across the Atlantic. They were the ones who had to find something to fill the cargo holds of those ships with to help pay for the cost on the return journey. Obviously the thing that made sense to fill the cargo holds with was manufactured goods since France and especially Britain had industrialized first and thus had economies of scale and could sell more and better manufactured goods at lower prices.

Your claim that because Northern shipping companies were still able to export decent quantities of rice, indigo, sugar and tobacco that means that the North somehow produced these goods is laughable. Firstly things do get stored in warehouses. You realize that right? Secondly even during the war there was trade going on between both sides. Gee....what’s the South going to be offering in trade?

I can cite any of a number of Northern newspapers at the time which also openly admitted the South was providing the vast majority of exports for the whole country and when we look at what was exported its not difficult to see that cash crops comprise most of it.

I don’t dispute that some believed what you say, I only say that it was not true.
My opinions are based not only on that 1928 book, which shows that Federal spending was roughly equal North vs. South, but also on some of the same documents used to show that “Southern products” exceeded all other by far.

I simply note that when Confederate products were deleted, cotton exports did indeed fall 80% as you would expect.
But no other “Southern product” fell anywhere near than much and tobacco, for example fell only 14%.
Clearly not all “Southern products” were produced in the Confederate South.

No not all of the cash crops were produced in the states which seceded. Missouri and Kentucky did and still do grow some cotton and tobacco as well. Some things will inevitably get stored in warehouses as well. There was some trading between both sides during the war as well. The vast majority of the exports were provided by the Southern states though (including border states).

As for federal expenditures, those were totally unbalanced in favor of Northern states and had been since the beginning. For example: From 1789 to 1845, the North received five times the amount of money that was spent on southern projects. More than twice as many lighthouses were built in the North as in the South, and northern states received twice the southern appropriations for coastal defense.

Some Northerners, just like today some Americans sympathize and financially back Muslim terrorists.
History does not tell us the percentages, but I’d suggest that 150 close neighbors defending Franklin Sanborn against arresting Federal officers did not necessarily speak for all of several million Northern voters.
Indeed, in 1860 those Northern voters may still have returned more Democrats to office, had the party remained united.

The fact that NONE of the 6 who openly supported and financed a terrorist who launched an attack with the express aim of killing Southern civilians were arrested says it all.

But slavery was the reason given by secessionists themselves, so slavery is what Congress addressed.
Now you say it wasn’t really about slavery, since Confederates rejected all such compromises.
But the truth is that once they declared secession, then no compromise offered by Congress would have been adequate to entice their return.
So slavery was the stated reason for secession, but slavery would not get Confederates to return.
As it turned out, nothing would, short of Union victory and Confederates’ Unconditional Surrender.

Firstly you don’t know that no compromise offered after secession would have been sufficient to entice the original 7 seceding states to come back. What we know is that the slavery with massively high tariffs carrot was offered and they refused it.

That both the North was willing to offer it and that the Southern states rejected it says a lot. Slavery was simply not what was motivating most people on either side.

Wrong again.
All four focused on slavery, none mentioned tariffs or taxes.
Yes, Georgia complained about “bounties” for “fishing smacks” but did not claim they went exclusively to Northerners, nor can anybody seriously suggest Georgia was willing to secede and risk Civil War over “fishing smacks”!
The real reason was clearly slavery.

Wrong. Georgia talked extensively about both the tariffs and the unequal federal expenditures. Texas talked about that as well as the failure to provide border security as well as the Northern states refusing to act against terrorists based there who had attacked the South. South Carolina attached Rhett’s address which talked extensively about tariffs and unequal federal expenditures. Had the “real reason” been slavery then the Corwin Amendment would certainly have satisfied that....yet it did not.

Nothing either “desperate” or “patently false” about it because the fact remains that Rhett devoted twice as many words to slavery as to all other issues combined.
So I’m not claiming Rhett had no other red herrings to throw out, I’m only saying the real reason is the one he spent the most words talking about — slavery.

and I’m saying that’s laughable BS and that Rhett had said he would support secession on economic grounds alone.

But that claim is false, beginning with the fact that Southerners were far from “impoverished”.
Rather, on average, white Southerners were wealthier than any other people on Earth.
And Rhett’s claim of “diversion” of proceeds is also false, though it appears some people then & now believed it.
In reality, such numbers were fake, as I’ve explained.

His claim is clearly true. By 1860, the South’s wealth was only on par with that of the North even though it was the South which produced the vast majority of the valuable exports. Clearly a lot of money had been drained out of Southerners’ pockets over the years for that to happen.

Such numbers were true as I have demonstrated from multiple sources from all sides.

Lincoln commented noncommittally on it in his first inaugural.
Other than that, I’ve seen no evidence of his “orchestration”.
So I’m starting to think it’s on a par with Trump’s “Russia collusion” — something devoutly wished for by his political enemies but sadly, for them, nothing but fantasy.

Lincoln....brace yourself.....I hope you are sitting down for this......Lied! I know it will come as a great shock to you to learn that politicians lie but yes, it indeed does happen and did happen in the past too. That the de facto head of the party would have only “heard about” and “not seen” a bill that was going to be so central to his presidency is side splittingly funny.

Wrong on both counts.
But I did find your mysterious “orchestrator”, it was President Buchanan, who took the trouble to sign the amendment, even though not required.
And Lincoln did forward it to the states, noting Buchanan’s signature.
But only five states ratified it — two Southern Border, two Northern Border, plus Rhode Island.
Most later rescinded their ratifications.
I think some allowances should be made for the local politics of those border states.

As for Confederates refusing to reconsider rejoining based only on the Corwin amendment, I would say rather that by that time secessionists were unwilling to consider anything the Union proposed, slavery related or not.

Nope! I’m right on both counts. The Northern dominated Congress passed it, The Northern president signed it and multiple states ratified it. It was a bona fide offer. Had the original 7 seceding states indicated this would be sufficient and would address their concerns, I have no doubt the votes would have been there to pass it in enough states for it to be ratified.

You just claim the original 7 seceding states were not going to come back no matter what. You don’t know that. What we do know is that a constitutional amendment protecting slavery effectively forever and very high tariffs was not acceptable to them.

But its not because multiple Northern states passed state laws forbidding cooperation with the feds over return of escaped slaves. In several cases mobs had prevented federal agents from capturing escaped slaves and state courts had excused all of it. The breech of faith was by the Northern states as they have long bragged about.

Most in the Deep South certainly did, where nearly 50% of families owned slaves.
Outside the Deep South things were quite different, with slave ownership falling to 15% or less in Border States.
That’s the reason those states didn’t join the Confederacy, even after Fort Sumter.

Most certainly did not. As I’ve already shown, your 50% claims are pure BS. What we know is that slave ownership was in the single digit percentages among the white population. Oh and your claim about the border states is dubious at best. Missouri did eventually secede and Maryland was occupied and its legislature jailed by Lincoln without charge or trial before they could vote on the matter.

Anyone could write up a list of reasons and order them by priority.
Then ask Confederates which of those reasons was more important.
I promise you, “economic exploitation” would not be near the top of any but a very few Confederates’ lists.

I promise you that you’re wrong. Again.

“Why did this war come? There was a widely shared feeling among many in the Confederacy that their liberty and way of life were being overpowered by northern political, industrial, and banking powers.” (Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, p. 152)

Here is what was in the Confederate Constitution:

“. . . delegates from the Deep South met in Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4 [1861] to establish the Confederate States of America. The convention acted as a provisional government while at the same time drafting a permanent constitution. . . . Voted down were proposals to reopen the Atlantic slave trade . . . and to prohibit the admission of free states to the new Confederacy. . . .

“The resulting constitution was surprisingly similar to that of the United States. Most of the differences merely spelled out traditional southern interpretations of the federal charter. . . .

“. . . it was clear from the actions of the Montgomery convention that the goal of the new converts to secessionism was not to establish a slaveholders’ reactionary utopia. What they really wanted was to recreate the Union as it had been before the rise of the new Republican Party, and they opted for secession only when it seemed clear that separation was the only way to achieve their aim. The decision to allow free states to join the Confederacy reflected a hope that much of the old Union could be reconstituted under southern direction.” (Robert A. Divine, T. H. Bren, George Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams, America Past and Present, Fifth Edition, New York: Longman, 1998, pp. 444-445, emphasis added)

“The most remarkable features of the new instrument sprang from the purifying and reforming zeal of the delegates, who hoped to create a more guarded and virtuous government than that of Washington. The President was to hold office six years, and be ineligible for reelection. Expenditures were to be limited by a variety of careful provisions, and the President was given budgetary control over appropriations which Congress could break only by a two-thirds vote. Subordinate employees were protected against the forays of the spoils system. No bounties were ever to be paid out of the Treasury, no protective tariff was to be passed, and no post office deficit was to be permitted. The electoral college system was retained, but as a far-reaching innovation, Cabinet members were given seats in Congress for the discussion of departmental affairs. Some of these changes were unmistakable improvements, and the spirit behind all of them was an earnest desire to make government more honest and efficient.” (Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, p. 435)

“In its general pattern the [Confederate] constitution closely resembled that of the United States; indeed at most points its wording was precisely the same. . . .

“The framers of the Confederate constitution improved upon the Constitution of the United States in a number of minor ways, designed to produce ‘the elimination of political waste, the promotion of economical government, and the keeping of each echelon of complex government within its appointed orbit.’ So effective were these changes that William M. Robinson, Jr., has termed the document ‘the peak contribution of America to political science.’ The process of amendment was altered. With certain exceptions Congress was not to appropriate money except by two-thirds vote of both houses. The amount and purpose of each appropriation were to be precisely specified; and after the fulfillment of a public contract Congress was not to grant any extra compensation to the contractor. ‘Riders’ on money bills were discouraged by the provision that the President might veto a given item of an appropriation bill without vetoing the entire bill. Each law was to deal with ‘but one subject,’ to be expressed in the title.” (Randall and Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, pp. 157, 159)

and you want to just scream “slavery slavery slavery!!!” like a wind up doll whose string has been pulled. Don’t tell me these people did not care about the overcentralization of power, wasteful expenditures under a broad interpretation of the “general welfare” clause exactly as Patrick Henry had warned about when he urged rejection of the Constitution, government being in bed with corporate special interests, etc. They would never have gone to the trouble of drafting a constitution so elaborately designed to stop exactly the kind of abuses wrt expenditures they had long complained about if they didn’t care about it. They would not have set the maximum tariff rate at 10% had this not been important to them.....and as for the provision allowing non slave states to join.........

I only WISH we had many of the provisions that were in the Confederate Constitution. It would have spared us much of the difficulty we have today with our massive debts and uncontrollable spending on social programs as well as our constant military adventures overseas.

Total nonsense, but of course there’ve always been rabid anti-Americans eager to denigrate our ideals and mock our motives.
Many then as now are Democrat Americans, or foreigners devoted to a larger world-government cause.
It was true then, it’s true now.

All true - just inconvenient for you to admit. The motives of the federal government and the special interests who backed them was the same as it is everywhere......money and power. Its always about money and power. Ideals like government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed get chucked aside the second they get in the way of the acquisition of more money and power. Ask Southerners or the Plains Indians or indeed many foreigners about that. They’ll all tell you the US Federal govt has often shown itself to be quite aggressive and imperialist.

FLT-bird: "Davis repeatedly talked about the South 'and their industry' and how the money being bled out of the South slowed down economic development in the Southern states.
Its laughable BS to think they did not see that industrialization was the way things were going in the world by 1860"

Sure, and I'll believe that when you find a quote from a leading Confederate in early 1861 who says essentially what you did in post #212:

"The South just wanted to industrialize on its own terms and not have to pay for somebody else’s industrialization."

I don't believe industrialization was their goal at all, just the opposite, they wanted to remain as they were, mostly agrarian.
I base this on the famous 1861 quote from Texas Senator Lois Wigfall to the Times of London correspondent:

"We are an agricultural people; we a primitive but civilized people.
We have no cities-we don't want them.
We have no literature-we don't need any yet.
We have no press-we are glad of it.
We have no commercial marine-no navy-we don't want them.
Your ships carry our produce and you can protect your own vessels.
We want no manufactures; we desire no trading, no mechanical or manufacturing classes.
As long as we have our cotton, our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from these nations with which we are in amity."

Remember, Wigfall was a leading Fire Eater pushing the South towards secession, so his opinion here would count more than somebody else's (i.e., Senator Davis) who apparently sat back & let events unfold until asked to lead the Confederacy.

BJK post #208: "What’s not true is the claim that Federal spending went disproportionately to the North.
It didn’t."

FLT-bird #212: "Yes it did."

BJK post #218: "Only in the propaganda from certain Southern sympathizers."

FLT-bird #212: "The denial is only from Northern sympathizers and PC Revisionists."

IOW, truth tellers. ;-)
OK, here's what we know for certain: some Southerners claimed there was too much Federal spending in the North, but the only real data on that comes from a 1928 book by John van Deusen, "Economic bases of Disunion in South Carolina".
The data shows that in the 1830s spending favored the South, in the 1840s it favored the North and in the 1850s both equally.
Of course, if you select out any particular category and ignore all others, you can make any case you wish, which seems to me what our antebellum secessionists were doing.

FLT-bird: "Laughable propaganda and BS to claim that the North which had more representatives was ruled over in the federal government by the South which had fewer....especially in light of how federal economic policy consistently took money from Southern states and transferred it to Northern states via the Tariff and federal expenditures."

What's insane here is your total refusal to see US politics in terms of political parties -- i.e., Democrats, Whigs, Republicans, etc.
And yet it was parties, not geographic regions, who elected presidents, Congresses and selected Supreme Court justices.
For over 150 years, beginning around 1800, Democrats were the party of the Solid South, and when they ruled in Washington, DC, it was with Northern Democrat allies who supported the South's agenda.
And the fact that Southerners dominated the Democrats can be seen clearly in 1860 when Southerners walked out of their Democrat party convention rather than submit to Northern Democrat policies.

FLT-bird: "Most certainly did happen.
George McDuffie of South Carolina stated in the House of Representatives, 'If the union of these states shall ever be severed, and their liberties subverted, historians who record these disasters will have to ascribe them to measures of this description...' "

Nobody disputes the fact that Southerners frequently tried to increase their influence on Congress by threatening secession over bills they didn't like.
And it worked!
That's why they called their Northern Democrat allies "Doughfaced", because whenever the Slavepower shook its fists in Congress, Northern Doughfaces came running to appease them.

And when Northerners actually stood up for themselves in Congress... well, that's what the 1856 Sumner-Brooks Affair was all about.

FLT-bird: "While the Northern manufacturer enjoyed free trade with the South, the Southern planter was not allowed to enjoy free trade with those countries to which he could market his goods at the most benefit to himself."

Which is why Southerners demanded and received some of the lowest tariff rates in the world.
Note declining tariff rates from 1830 to 1860:

FLT-bird: "Furthermore, while the six cotton States — South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas — had less than one-eighth of the representation in Congress, they furnished two-thirds of the exports of the country, much of which was exchanged for imported necessities..."

A most curious claim, since cotton was also grown in Texas, Tennessee, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.
But cotton's total was 50%, not two thirds, and nearly every other commodity claimed as "Southern products" was also produced outside the Deep South, and much of it outside the Confederate South altogether.
We know this from the 1861 effects of eliminating Confederate exports from US totals.

We should also note here that the one-eight representation from the six listed states is considerably more than the one-tenth of free-white citizens who lived there.
Those states were over represented in Congress.

FLT-bird: "Thus, McDuffie noted that because the import tariff effectively hindered Southern commerce, the relation which the Cotton States bore to the protected manufacturing States of the North was now the same as that which the colonies had once borne to Great Britain; under the current system, they had merely changed masters."

Total hyperbole, rubbish & nonsense, since 1776 Americans had zero representation in Britain's parliament, while 1860 Southern Democrats were overrepresented and had ruled in Washington, DC, along with their Northern Democrat allies, since 1800.
So there was no legitimate comparison between 1776 colonists and 1860 secessionists.

FLT-bird: "and as has already been discussed, the facts show that federal government expenditures for corporate subsidies and 'internal improvements' massively favored the Northern states."

And as it has already been refuted, since the facts say otherwise.

FLT-bird: "False.
As has been shown by numerous quotes from both sides as well as foreign observers as well as Tax Expert Charles Adams.
The South provided the overwhelming majority of exports."

The data says otherwise.
Deep South cotton made up about 50% of US exports.
Everything else classified as "Southern products" could be and was also produced in other regions.
This was proved conclusively in 1861.

FLT-bird quoting: "...It is very clear the South gains by this process and we lose.
No, we must not let the South go.” The Manchester, New Hampshire Union Democrat Feb 19 1861"

Nobody disputes the fact that some Northern Democrats were damaged economically by secession & Confederacy.
But people like DiogenesLamp here claim such people were really secret Republicans, not Northern Democrats, and as such they were Lincoln's masters, issuing orders for Lincoln to start civil war to save their own businesses.
Sorry, but the facts say otherwise.

FLT-bird quoting: "...'allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten percent which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York.
The Railways would be supplied from the southern ports.' New York Evening Post March 12, 1861 article 'What Shall be Done for a Revenue?' "

Total hyperbole, even if from an abolitionist newspaper, because the fact remained that any merchant would be a fool to import railroad iron through Savanah for re-export to, say, Chicago, since that would mean paying double duties, first to the Confederacy, then to the US, plus the extra transportation costs from Savanah.
Furthermore, in March 1861, the Union population outnumbered the first seven Confederate states by 10 to one, so there would be no incentive for 90% of imports to use Confederate ports.

FLT-bird quoting: "December 1860, before any secession, the Chicago Daily Times foretold the disaster that Southern free ports would bring to Northern commerce:

'In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is.
Our coastwide trade would pass into other hands.
One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves.
We should lose our trade with the South, with all of its immense profits.
Our manufactories would be in utter ruins.
Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue, and these results would likely follow.' Chicago Daily Times Dec 1860"

The first thing we should note is that the Chicago Daily Times did not exist until 1929, so if the quote is legitimate it came from some other source.
So my first suggestion is: before you throw out this quote again, confirm its source & legitimacy.

Second, we know now that's all just nonsense.
Nothing like what this alleged newspaper predicted happened.
Yes, in 1861 cotton exports did decline 80% and that was huge, but all other "Southern exports" declined much less and some even rose substantially, for examples, clover seed and hops.

Of course, then as now, newspapers must grab their readers' attentions and nothing serves to sell more than predictions of doom, no matter how far fetched.

FLT-bird: "No. Referring instead to your BS and propaganda."

Sorry, but in this discussion, all the "BS and propaganda" comes from our Lost Causer FRiends.
We are only here to keep the facts straight.

FLT-bird on Rhett's address: "Desperate attempt to tapdance noted.
Rhett laid out in exhaustive detail the economic exploitation of the Southern states by the Northern states and how the slavery issue was used as a wedge issue by Northern interests to accomplish and further their sectional partisan economic legislation."

But the "desperation" and "tap dancing" are all yours, FRiend.
Sure, there's no disputing that Rhett discussed economic issues and unlike other "Reasons for secession" documents, he put them first.
But with economics mentioned, Rhett went back to the main issue, spending twice the effort on slavery that he did on all other issues combined.

FLT-bird "...among them that there could only be one slaveholder per family.
Anecdotally we know this was often not the case as children were gifted slaves, wives inherited slaves etc etc.
There could and often were multiple slaveowners in one family.
Of course if that were to be admitted, the percentage of families estimated to own slaves would plummet and we obviously can’t have that now can we!"

And you talk about desperation and tap-dancing!
That's about as desperate a crock of tap-dancing as I've seen.
The fact is that 1860 era farming families, like today's, were typically quite large, with four, six or more children the norm, not exceptional.
And legal slave ownership would seldom be divided up amongst family members, regardless of their informal understandings.

But there's a more important argument here: why do you suppose the seven Deep South states quickly seceded, primarily over slavery, but no other slave-states did?
The answer is: because slavery was the primary concern in the Deep South, where nearly half of families owned slaves, but it was of much less concern in the Upper South (25%) and Border states, where slave-holding fell to 15% & below of families.
So the parts of the Upper South, at circa 25% of slave-holding families could be persuaded to secede by Civil War, but Border States at 15% or less refused to secede regardless.

So slavery explains everything, and all your hocus pocus about tariffs and "unequal spending" explains nothing.

FLT-bird "Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia, may be said to defray three-fourths of the annual expense of supporting the Federal Government; and of this great sum, annually furnished by them, nothing or next to nothing is returned to them, in the shape of Government expenditures.
That expenditure flows in an opposite direction - it flows northwardly, in one uniform, uninterrupted, and perennial stream.
This is the reason why wealth disappears from the South and rises up in the North.
Federal legislation does all this.' ——Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton"

This is at least the second quote of yours I have reason to question as legitimate, since, first, it has no date or other information included.
And second, Missouri Democrat Senator Benton would be less interested in Old South economics than in Western concerns.
Benton was a close ally of President Jackson, whose views on nullification & secession are well known.

But most important, Benton was that rarest of political animals: a Southern Democrat abolitionist!
This tells me the tone & tenor of the alleged quote are... well, off.

And since this is at least the second of your posted quotes I have reason to question, I'll put you on notice now that if I find another, I'll discount all of your alleged quotes as being nothing more than your own personal opinion gussied up to look like historical "fact".
So, take a little time to confirm them before posting nonsense.
Tell us the source and link.

FLT-bird : "Firstly BS.
Southerners had long bitterly complained about high tariffs and unequal federal government expenditures.
Those were hardly passed because they controlled everything as you claim...somehow....despite the fact that they were in the minority. "

Sorry, but the BS is all yours, FRiend.
First, the so-called Tariff of Abominations passed in 1828 over the objections of many New Englanders because of support from Southerners Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun.
Then, from 1830 to 1860 high tariffs were steadily reduced to some of the lowest ever, and that is because Southerners wanted lower tariffs -- which they got.
It demonstrates the political power of the South in Washington, DC.

As for alleged unequal Federal spending, the only real data we have says otherwise.

FLT-bird "Secondly, BS.
As I’ve amply demonstrated the South was being economically exploited by the Northern states and everybody knew it.
I’ve provided numerous quotes supporting this."

Setting aside your dubious quotes, what's left is political hyperbole, not confirmed data.
Further, it's beyond obscene for people whose wealth was built on exploiting slave-labor to complain of "exploitation" by a Federal government which they themselves largely controlled.

FLT-bird: "Thirdly, most Southerners did not own slaves."

In many regions of the Deep South especially, most white families did own slaves.
In other regions of the Upper South and Border States relatively few families owned slaves and that's why they remained loyal Unionists.

FLT-bird "And how much sympathy should anybody have for Northern slave traders who derived enormous profits from slave trading which continued illicitly long after it was prohibited in 1810 and who were only too happy to profit again servicing goods produced in part at least by slave labor?"

Democrats all, close friends, family, political allies and business associates of Southern Democrat slave-holders.
Yes, I do have lots of sympathy for Democrats, but I don't want them in charge of anything important.

FLT-bird: "The attempt to draw parallels with the political parties of today are ridiculous.
Neither party in the mid 19th century were remotely like either party today."

That is a fundamental misunderstanding on your part, FRiend.
In fact, Democrats in 1860 were exactly like Democrats today in seeking to use Federal government to support privileged legal status for their own voters.
Only their constituencies have changed -- from slave-holders then to the descendants of slaves today.
But their goals & methods remain the same, including going berserk when voted out of power.

FLT-bird "Your argument that Southerners controlled everything in Washington DC despite not having as many votes is pure fantasy."

No, the fantasy is all yours in believing that majority Democrats were not ruled over by their majority Southerners.
Despite being a minority nationally, Southerners were the majority in the majority Democrat party, from about 1800 until secession in 1861.

And as the 1856 Sumner-Brooks affair demonstrated, when Southern majority votes were not enough, well then, the Slavepower had other...ah, methods to achieve their goals.

FLT-bird: "Various Northern states refused to cooperate with federal authorities, passed laws that hindered the work of federal agents etc etc.
South Carolina and all the other Southern states could accurately say that the Northern states had deliberately obstructed recapture and return of escaped slaves as the Fugitive slave clause of the Constitution required."

But that was all nonsense, for several reasons:

In the 1850 Compromise, the South agreed to pass on jurisdiction over fugitive slaves from states to Federal government, meaning state actions were irrelevant to Constitutional obligations.
By Constitutional requirement, Federal law took precedence over state laws meaning Federal authorities could overrule whatever state impediments they encountered.
Repsonsiblity for Federal government since 1800 had been almost continuously in the hands of Southern Democrats and their Doughfaced Northern Democrat allies.
We must therefore assume those Democrats enforced their own fugitive slave laws as vigorously as such laws needed.
And if not, then they could blame nobody but themselves.
Deep South states like South Carolina had no legal standing whatever to complain about Federal fugitive slave law enforcement, since there were no known fugitive slaves from the Deep South being protected by Northern states.
And even if some were known, no legal actions were taken by Deep South states to redress their grievances.

FLT-bird: "This artificial distinction you are trying to draw between necessity and at pleasure is entirely fictitious.
Each state determines necessity for itself.
Obviously the Southern states in 1860 and 61 felt the necessity was as great as they had felt it was in 1776."

False, false & false.
It's not my distinction, it was drawn by Founders themselves, especially the Father of the Constitution, James Madison.
And the key point is that no Founder ever supported unilateral unapproved declarations of secession, at pleasure.
And the very real distinction between "at pleasure" and "necessity" is found in events of 1776 and such words as the Virginia ratification statement on "powers perverted to their injury or oppression".

No such conditions existed in 1860.
So 1860 Fire Eaters declared their secessions at pleasure.

FLT-bird: "There were numerous statements by Jefferson and various other presidents as well as the New England Hartford Convention as well as a textbook used at West Point saying a state may unilaterally secede."

But there were none -- zero, nada -- statements by Founders supporting unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure.

FLT-bird quoting: " 'The future inhabitants of [both] the Atlantic and Mississippi states will be our sons.
We think we see their happiness in their union, and we wish it.
Events may prove otherwise; and if they see their interest in separating why should we take sides?
God bless them both, and keep them in union if it be for their good, but separate them if it be better.' – Thomas Jefferson"

Jefferson here expresses his own mutual consent, just as our Founders "seceded" from the old Articles of Confederation by mutual consent in 1788.
So reasons of necessity and mutual consent are approved by our Founders, but no Founder ever supported unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure, which is what Fire Eaters in late 1860 began to do.

FLT-bird " 'If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers separation' over 'union,' 'I have no hesitation in saying, ‘let us separate.’ ” Thomas Jefferson"

Surely, yet another fake Jefferson quote, but regardless, it expresses nothing more than Jefferson's mutual consent, just as Founders "seceded" from the Articles of Confederation by mutual consent in 1788.
And we should well note that in reality, when Jefferson was faced with his VP Aaron Burr's attempts to secede Louisiana, Jefferson had Burr arrested and tried for treason.

So Jefferson well understood the real distinction between mutual consent and at pleasure disunion.

FLT-bird quoting: "It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union.
To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed." —William Rawle, Chapter 32, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America"

Two points here:

Rawle was not a Founder, though he was a district attorney who prosecuted members of the Whiskey Rebellion.
So Rawle clearly knew the differences between mutual consent and necessity versus rebellion at pleasure.
Rawle in 1829 does allow that, "The secession of a state from the Union depends on the will of the people of such state.", but even Rawle now decades into the secession debate, does not support unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure.

So I'd consider Rawle second generation and as such an unreliable purveyor of our Founders' original intentions.

FLT-bird: " 'If they had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should be war between brothers.' (The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, Old Saybrook, Connecticut: Konecky & Konecky, 1992, reprint, p. 131)"

Assuming for sake of discussion that this quote is not fake, then Grant's opinion is his own, not our Founders'.
And Grant clearly implies Founders did not foresee and therefore did not sanction it.
Indeed, Grant here talks about "withdrawal" as the alternative to civil war, when in reality, it lead directly to civil war.
The fact remains: no Founder ever supported unilateral unapproved declarations of secession at pleasure, and yet that is just what Deep South Fire Eaters began to do in late 1860.

FLT-bird: "President John Tyler likewise believed a state had the right to leave the Union.
So did President John Quincy Adams who tried to organize the New England states to secede in the 1820’s."

This is at least the second posting of such claims, and they were addressed the first time:

President Tyler was a Southern slave-holder whose opinions corresponded to those of other slave-holders.
The claim that President Adams tried to organize secession in the 1820s is unsupported by any facts I've ever seen and contradicts his life-long devotion to the Union.

FLT-bird: "The Northern Federalists’ Hartford Convention declared in 1814 that a state had the right to secede in cases of 'absolute necessity' (Alan Brinkley... "

Exactly right!!
Which I'm certain was not your intention, obviously a serious mistake on your part, but here you've unintentionally hit on the truth of our Founders' Original Intent -- "secession" by mutual consent or absolute necessity only, not at pleasure.
But no "absolute necessity" existed in 1814 and neither did it in 1860.

FLT-bird quoting: "...'Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.' Abraham Lincoln January 12, 1848 in a speech in the US House of Representatives.
OOPS! How did that one get there?
How embarrassing!"

Thirty-eight year old Lincoln was here supporting Texans freedom from Mexico.
But notice his key word here: "revolutionize", strongly implying making war for freedom.
Lincoln nowhere implies that those who make such war must always win.

Sure, and I’ll believe that when you find a quote from a leading Confederate in early 1861 who says essentially what you did in post #212:

Ridiculous. The overwhelming majority could see that industrialization was the way forward by then.

I don’t believe industrialization was their goal at all, just the opposite, they wanted to remain as they were, mostly agrarian.
I base this on the famous 1861 quote from Texas Senator Lois Wigfall to the Times of London correspondent:

“We are an agricultural people; we a primitive but civilized people.
We have no cities-we don’t want them.
We have no literature-we don’t need any yet.
We have no press-we are glad of it.
We have no commercial marine-no navy-we don’t want them.
Your ships carry our produce and you can protect your own vessels.
We want no manufactures; we desire no trading, no mechanical or manufacturing classes.
As long as we have our cotton, our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from these nations with which we are in amity.”

Remember, Wigfall was a leading Fire Eater pushing the South towards secession, so his opinion here would count more than somebody else’s (i.e., Senator Davis) who apparently sat back & let events unfold until asked to lead the Confederacy.

One man does not speak for the entire South. Maybe he had no desire to industrialize. It was already underway in the Upper South. Everybody could see that those who had industrialized first in Europe were wealthier and more powerful. Of course most would want that for themselves.

BJK post #208: “What’s not true is the claim that Federal spending went disproportionately to the North.
It didn’t.”

BS. It did and I’ve provided plenty of evidence already showing that.

BJK post #218: “Only in the propaganda from certain Southern sympathizers.”

In reality. I’ve provided plenty of comments from politicians and newspapers and foreign sources showing it.

IOW, truth tellers. ;-)

The exact opposite.....though why does it not surprise me y’all would side with Leftist Wackademics?

OK, here’s what we know for certain: some Southerners claimed there was too much Federal spending in the North, but the only real data on that comes from a 1928 book by John van Deusen, “Economic bases of Disunion in South Carolina”.
The data shows that in the 1830s spending favored the South, in the 1840s it favored the North and in the 1850s both equally.
Of course, if you select out any particular category and ignore all others, you can make any case you wish, which seems to me what our antebellum secessionists were doing.

You cling desperately to one 1928 book in the face of comments from people at the time in Northern Newspapers, Southern Newspapers, Foreign Newspapers, comments from Southern Political Leaders, the declarations of secession issued by the Southern states and the analysis of a tax expert in the 1990s and others that the North did indeed get far more by way of federal expenditures. Not surprising since to admit the truth would undermine your whole case.

What’s insane here is your total refusal to see US politics in terms of political parties — i.e., Democrats, Whigs, Republicans, etc.
And yet it was parties, not geographic regions, who elected presidents, Congresses and selected Supreme Court justices.
For over 150 years, beginning around 1800, Democrats were the party of the Solid South, and when they ruled in Washington, DC, it was with Northern Democrat allies who supported the South’s agenda.
And the fact that Southerners dominated the Democrats can be seen clearly in 1860 when Southerners walked out of their Democrat party convention rather than submit to Northern Democrat policies.

What’s insane is your claim that Southerners could just snap their fingers and make Northern Democrats do their bidding....because they were in the same party. As if Northern politicians were just going to ignore the special interest groups in their regions in favor of an oath of fealty to Southerners which they undertook for, ummm....well I guess you’re still working on that part.

Nobody disputes the fact that Southerners frequently tried to increase their influence on Congress by threatening secession over bills they didn’t like.
And it worked!
That’s why they called their Northern Democrat allies “Doughfaced”, because whenever the Slavepower shook its fists in Congress, Northern Doughfaces came running to appease them.

And when Northerners actually stood up for themselves in Congress... well, that’s what the 1856 Sumner-Brooks Affair was all about.

Again ridiculous. The Sumner-Brooks affair happened because Sumner was such an incredible jerk that he was not satisfied with disagreeing with and debating his political opponents, he took to publicly mocking one of them, Andrew Butler, over Butler’s speech impediment due to a recent stroke Butler had suffered. Butler was in ill health and was in no position to defend himself. Brooks was Butler’s cousin and gee surprise surprise, took offense at Sumner for being such a jerk.

Once again your claim that Northern Democrats were nothing more than lackeys to Southern Democrats is just ridiculous.

Which is why Southerners demanded and received some of the lowest tariff rates in the world.
Note declining tariff rates from 1830 to 1860:

Yes as we have previously gone over as part of the compromise which ended the Nullification Crisis brought about by the Tariff of Abominations, the tariff rate was lowered. It was still higher than that of Great Britain, but it was lower....right up until the Northern special interests were about to push through a massive tariff hike in 1861.

A most curious claim, since cotton was also grown in Texas, Tennessee, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.
But cotton’s total was 50%, not two thirds, and nearly every other commodity claimed as “Southern products” was also produced outside the Deep South, and much of it outside the Confederate South altogether.
We know this from the 1861 effects of eliminating Confederate exports from US totals.

We should also note here that the one-eight representation from the six listed states is considerably more than the one-tenth of free-white citizens who lived there.
Those states were over represented in Congress.

Much like the ridiculous claim that the North did not get the overwhelming majority of federal expenditures which one 1920s era book claimed, you cling like grim death to ONE stat in ONE year in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Even Northern newspapers at the time admitted that the South was providing the overwhelming majority of total exports. Foreign observers like the English who were trading directly with them said the same. Southerners said the same. Others who have looked at this issue like Charles Adams and Charles Beard have said the same. You inevitably respond with “but but but....1861....so therefore that means the North was producing large amounts of sugar, rice, indigo, tobacco, etc”. Laughable.

Total hyperbole, rubbish & nonsense, since 1776 Americans had zero representation in Britain’s parliament, while 1860 Southern Democrats were overrepresented and had ruled in Washington, DC, along with their Northern Democrat allies, since 1800.
So there was no legitimate comparison between 1776 colonists and 1860 secessionists.

Unvarnished truth. The Brits offered the colonies seats in the British Parliament to soothe their concerns about havin no representation. What is rubbish and nonsense is your claim that Southerners had ruled the federal government in Washington DC despite being in the minority.

The comparison of being taxed for the benefit of others while not having enough representation to prevent it is perfectly analogous to 1775.

And as it has already been refuted, since the facts say otherwise.

Your BS has already been refuted. The facts say otherwise.

The data says otherwise.
Deep South cotton made up about 50% of US exports.
Everything else classified as “Southern products” could be and was also produced in other regions.
This was proved conclusively in 1861.

Nope! False. The data says the South supplied the overwhelming majority of all exports and thus paid the overwhelming majority of the tariff burden. The statements of everybody at the time on all sides as well as the analysis of Charles Beard and and Charles Adams conclusively prove what everybody was saying then. Its just inconvenient for you to admit it so you desperately search for one thing to cling to and then make some laughable broad sweeping denial of reality based on that.

Nobody disputes the fact that some Northern Democrats were damaged economically by secession & Confederacy.
But people like DiogenesLamp here claim such people were really secret Republicans, not Northern Democrats, and as such they were Lincoln’s masters, issuing orders for Lincoln to start civil war to save their own businesses.
Sorry, but the facts say otherwise.

Your claim that somehow Northern Democrats were just shills for the South because they happened to be in the same party as Southerners is ridiculous. Northern business interests wanted sky high protectionist tariffs to gain market share while being able to jack up prices to fatten their wallets. Both they and the working class wanted federal government handouts for corporate subsidies and infrastructure projects which would be paid by those tariffs they knew Southerners would be paying as owners of the imported manufactured goods. Many of these same corporate interests got the government to use the very same generals to commit ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Plains Indians...because those Indians were in the way of their choo choos.....

Total hyperbole, even if from an abolitionist newspaper, because the fact remained that any merchant would be a fool to import railroad iron through Savanah for re-export to, say, Chicago, since that would mean paying double duties, first to the Confederacy, then to the US, plus the extra transportation costs from Savanah.
Furthermore, in March 1861, the Union population outnumbered the first seven Confederate states by 10 to one, so there would be no incentive for 90% of imports to use Confederate ports.

Total denial of reality on your part. Yes railroad iron through Savannah would not have been a good business proposition. How about through New Orleans? Here is what Sherman who was in New Orleans at the time said to his brother in the US Senate:

[the North relied on money from tariffs] “so even if the Southern states be allowed to depart in peace, the first question will be revenue. Now if the South have free trade, how can you collect revenues in eastern cities? Freight from New Orleans, to St. Louis, Chicago, Louisville, Cincinnati and even Pittsburgh, would be about the same as by rail from New York and imported at New Orleans having no duties to pay, would undersell the East if they had to pay duties. Therefore if the South make good their confederation and their plan, The Northern Confederacy must do likewise or blockade. Then comes the question of foreign nations. So look on it in any view, I see no result but war and consequent change in the form of government. William Tecumseh Sherman in a letter to his brother Senator John Sherman 1861.

“Down here they think they are going to have fine times. New Orleans a free port, whereby she can import Goods without limit or duties, and Sell to the up River Countries. But Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore will never consent that N. Orleans should be a Free Port, and they Subject to Duties.” William T. Sherman

Here is what the NY Slimes was saying:

The predicament in which both the government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws, is now thoroughly understood the world over....If the manufacturer at Manchester (England) can send his goods into the Western States through New Orleans at less cost than through New York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage....if the importations of the country are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel. The produce of the West, instead of coming to our own port by millions of tons to be transported abroad by the same ships through which we received our importations, will seek other routes and other outlets. With the loss of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many hundred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior? They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers. Once at New Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country duty free. The process is perfectly simple. The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North. We now see whither our tending, and the policy we must adopt. With us it is no longer an abstract question of Constitutional construction, or of the reserved or delegated power of the State or Federal Government, but of material existence and moral position both at home and abroad. We were divided and confused till our pockets were touched.” New York Times March 30, 1861

Here’s the leading Boston paper:

On the very eve of war, March 18, 1861, the Boston Transcript wrote: If the Southern Confederation is allowed to carry out a policy by which only a nominal duty is laid upon the imports, no doubt the business of the chief Northern cities will be seriously injured thereby. The difference is so great between the tariff of the Union and that of the Confederated States, that the entire Northwest must find it to their advantage to purchase their imported goods at New Orleans rather than New York. In addition to this, the manufacturing interest of the country will suffer from the increased importations resulting from low duties….The…[government] would be false to all its obligations, if this state of things were not provided against.

The first thing we should note is that the Chicago Daily Times did not exist until 1929, so if the quote is legitimate it came from some other source.
So my first suggestion is: before you throw out this quote again, confirm its source & legitimacy.

Daily Chicago Times, “The Value of the Union,” December 10, 1860, in Howard Cecil Perkins, ed., Northern editorials on Secession (Gloucester,MA: Peter Smith, 1964), (Vol.II, 573-574

Second, we know now that’s all just nonsense.
Nothing like what this alleged newspaper predicted happened.
Yes, in 1861 cotton exports did decline 80% and that was huge, but all other “Southern exports” declined much less and some even rose substantially, for examples, clover seed and hops.

Of course, then as now, newspapers must grab their readers’ attentions and nothing serves to sell more than predictions of doom, no matter how far fetched.

LOL! Still clinging to one year’s trading data to try to explain away what everybody at the time on both sides as well as foreign sources were saying and what generations of historians have said. The South was providing the overwhelming majority of total exports for the country. Cotton alone was 60% of total exports. Northern business interests knew that without their cash cow - the Southern states, they would be a lot poorer. They weren’t exporting much at all. Their manufacturers could not compete with British and French manufacturers.

Sorry, but in this discussion, all the “BS and propaganda” comes from our Lost Causer FRiends.
We are only here to keep the facts straight.

Nope. The BS and propaganda comes from the PC Revisionists.

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