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Evidence Builds for DeLorenzo's Lincoln
October 16, 2002 | Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Posted on 11/11/2002 1:23:27 PM PST by l8pilot

Evidence Builds for DiLorenzo’s Lincoln by Paul Craig Roberts

In an excellent piece of historical research and economic exposition, two economics professors, Robert A. McGuire of the University of Akron and T. Norman Van Cott of Ball State University, have provided independent evidence for Thomas J. Dilorenzo’s thesis that tariffs played a bigger role in causing the Civil War than slavery.

In The Real Lincoln, DiLorenzo argues that President Lincoln invaded the secessionist South in order to hold on to the tariff revenues with which to subsidize Northern industry and build an American Empire. In "The Confederate Constitution, Tariffs, and the Laffer Relationship" (Economic Inquiry, Vol. 40, No. 3, July 2002), McGuire and Van Cott show that the Confederate Constitution explicitly prohibits tariff revenues from being used "to promote or foster any branch of industry." By prohibiting subsidies to industries and tariffs high enough to be protective, the Confederates located their tax on the lower end of the "Laffer curve."

The Confederate Constitution reflected the argument of John C. Calhoun against the 1828 Tariff of Abominations. Calhoun argued that the U.S. Constitution granted the tariff "as a tax power for the sole purpose of revenue – a power in its nature essentially different from that of imposing protective or prohibitory duties."

McGuire and Van Cott conclude that the tariff issue was a major factor in North-South tensions. Higher tariffs were "a key plank in the August 1860 Republican party platform. . . . northern politicians overall wanted dramatically higher tariff rates; Southern politicians did not."

"The handwriting was on the wall for the South," which clearly understood that remaining in the union meant certain tax exploitation for the benefit of the north.

October 16, 2002

Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions Evidence Builds for DiLorenzo’s Lincoln by Paul Craig Roberts

In an excellent piece of historical research and economic exposition, two economics professors, Robert A. McGuire of the University of Akron and T. Norman Van Cott of Ball State University, have provided independent evidence for Thomas J. Dilorenzo’s thesis that tariffs played a bigger role in causing the Civil War than slavery.

In The Real Lincoln, DiLorenzo argues that President Lincoln invaded the secessionist South in order to hold on to the tariff revenues with which to subsidize Northern industry and build an American Empire. In "The Confederate Constitution, Tariffs, and the Laffer Relationship" (Economic Inquiry, Vol. 40, No. 3, July 2002), McGuire and Van Cott show that the Confederate Constitution explicitly prohibits tariff revenues from being used "to promote or foster any branch of industry." By prohibiting subsidies to industries and tariffs high enough to be protective, the Confederates located their tax on the lower end of the "Laffer curve."

The Confederate Constitution reflected the argument of John C. Calhoun against the 1828 Tariff of Abominations. Calhoun argued that the U.S. Constitution granted the tariff "as a tax power for the sole purpose of revenue – a power in its nature essentially different from that of imposing protective or prohibitory duties."

McGuire and Van Cott conclude that the tariff issue was a major factor in North-South tensions. Higher tariffs were "a key plank in the August 1860 Republican party platform. . . . northern politicians overall wanted dramatically higher tariff rates; Southern politicians did not."

"The handwriting was on the wall for the South," which clearly understood that remaining in the union meant certain tax exploitation for the benefit of the north.

October 16, 2002

Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: dixielist
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To: Non-Sequitur
sirena's ancestor was shot.

free dixie,sw

421 posted on 11/15/2002 10:21:58 AM PST by stand watie
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To: stand watie
What about yours?
422 posted on 11/15/2002 10:24:09 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: Ditto
yet another STUPID post.

when are you damnyankees going to desegregate YOUR public schools, btw???

RIGHT NOW, Boston,MA has more segregated schools than the state of MISSISSIPPI had 30 years ago.

i think there's something in the Bible about complaining about the spinter in you neighbor's eye, while ignoring the log in your own???

free dixie,sw

423 posted on 11/15/2002 10:27:06 AM PST by stand watie
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To: GOPcapitalist
So Clinton testified and a day later he approved the missile strike against the camp where Osama had been a week earlier, but Osama had moved out and it missed. If you want to blame anybody for that, Walt, Clinton - the guy you voted for - is your man.

Osama Bin Laden, it's been said, burns because U.S. infidels foul the holy places in Saudi Arabia by their simple presence there. No Desert Storm, no cause of action.

For Hussein's part, he tried to get Bush Sr. in Kuwait in 1993, he tried to blow up the WTC in 1993, and most of us think that he had a big hand in actually wrecking the WTC on 9/11.

If you posit a reasonably adept foreign policy by the Bush I team, you have none of that, because he doesn't attack Kuwait and isn't threatened or humilitated by defeat. And there would be no earthly reason to be gearing up for Gulf War II.

It's on Bush, not Clinton.

What has Bush done in the last year to make us safer from WTC type attacks or Flight 587 type attacks -- something substantial that we can point to? Nothing.

Walt

424 posted on 11/15/2002 10:30:53 AM PST by WhiskeyPapa
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To: Non-Sequitur
Don't blame my neck of the woods, we went for the Republican both times.

If you mean your state, perhaps. I don't know what that state is so I couldn't tell you. On the same note, don't blame mine either because we went Republican both times as well.

If you mean regions, then you are wrong. In 1992 Clinton swept every single yankee state except for Indiana, a traditional GOP stronghold. He only won four of the deep south - his own state, that of his VP candidate, Georgia, and Louisiana. 1996 was a repeat in yankeeland. In the south he lost Georgia and gained Florida.

And don't try and disown him, either. Clinton was your gift to the North

Clinton was never "mine" in anything. My state never once voted for him, nor did Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, or North Carolina. Yankeeland, save Indiana, gave Clinton its unanimous approval not once but twice. Arkansas may have produced him, but the inescapable fact is that yankeeland elected him. Twice.

and in an independent confederacy he probably would have done just fine.

Really? Let's look at the numbers then for the old CSA states. I'll even throw in the border states Kentucky and Missouri if you like. Here are the presidential election results in the old CSA for 1992 and 1996

1992:
Bush - 108
Clinton - 58

1996:
Dole - 96 electoral votes
Clinton - 70 electoral votes.

RESULTS: Bill Clinton lost the old CSA plus its two border states both times. Bill Clinton swept yankeeland save Indiana two times. That means your assertion is dead wrong. Arkansas produced Bill Clinton, but yankeeland elected him. Twice.

425 posted on 11/15/2002 10:31:51 AM PST by GOPcapitalist
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To: Non-Sequitur
all we know for sure was that my 5 ancestors did not secumb to disease, wounds,starvation or other natural causes.

the precise form of their murder at the hands of the damnyankees is officially listed as "unknown", like that of so many other POWs that died at PLPOWC.

BTW, i heard a professor at a recent civil War roundtable here in DC say that "more than twice as many POWs died at Point Lookout from the effects of intentional mistreatment than died from all causes at Andersonville."

free dixie,sw

426 posted on 11/15/2002 10:33:44 AM PST by stand watie
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To: stand watie
DE had ALL their slaves still in bondage a YEAR after Richmond fell, for one.

Of the 1800 or so slaves in Delaware at the beginning of the war, only a couple of hundred were left in bondage at the end of the war--most had run off and joined the Union Army. And Delaware's continuation of the institution had a whole lot more to do with the obstructionism of a portion of the population of the state than with anything the North in general felt about the situation. Ironically, States Rights was what kept slavery persisting in Delaware.

http://www.geocities.com/etymonline/cw/delaware.htm

427 posted on 11/15/2002 10:36:08 AM PST by Heyworth
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To: stand watie
every time i hear someone say "get over it" i wonder if they'd say the same to a Jew about the Holocaust.that was "a long time ago" too. for the families that had a multitude of their civilian family members murdered, raped,robbed and/or the POWs in their family murdered/tortured by the damnyankees it is precisely the same.

So do you think that the descendants of slaves are entitled to reparations, or should they just get over it?

428 posted on 11/15/2002 10:38:17 AM PST by Heyworth
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To: Heyworth
YEAH, RIGHT.

every time i point out damnyankee lies, hypocrisy & hatefullness, some apologist for the damnyankees says that in so many words "that it really wasn't THAT bad" or "we just couldn't help ourselves".

damnyankees make me gag.

free dixie,sw

429 posted on 11/15/2002 10:41:32 AM PST by stand watie
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To: stand watie
BTW, i heard a professor at a recent civil War roundtable here in DC say that "more than twice as many POWs died at Point Lookout from the effects of intentional mistreatment than died from all causes at Andersonville."

For a while you were saying most were shot in the back of the head, then it was most were drowned by the damnyankee guards, now we're down to 'intentional mistreatment'. First it was 3,000 died at Point Lookout, then 15,000 murdered at Point Lookout, and now you're up to 26,000. You need to get your stories straight or else we'll wind up with 100,000 murdered and they were all tickled to death by the sadistic damnyankee guards.

430 posted on 11/15/2002 10:42:17 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: WhiskeyPapa
Osama Bin Laden, it's been said, burns because U.S. infidels foul the holy places in Saudi Arabia by their simple presence there.

Think what he may, but the smell emitted from that region is internally produced and their so-called "holy place" is nothing more than a meteorite in a fancy box that for some bizarre reason they worship.

No Desert Storm, no cause of action.

BZZZT! Incorrect. Israel is still there, still supported by the US, and is much more a thorn in their side than any troop presence. Besides, what do you think would have happened had we not gone in? There's a good chance that Saddam would have marched on Saudi Arabia and last I checked, few people consider control of the arabian peninsula by an expansive islamo-arab nationalist to be a good thing.

It's on Bush, not Clinton.

Again, Walt, you are simply wrong. First, your hypothesis that Osama would not be incited to terror absent US presence there is nonsense. That region engaged in terror long Bush Sr. was there and long before he was even a congressman back in the 60's. The reason is their desired conquest of Israel and their hatred of anything even remotely seen as an Israeli ally, or for that matter, anything that even remotely resembles something other than a smelly refuse filled backwards 7th century islamo-cultist rat hole. Saddam is a problem because he seeks islamo-arab nationalism and expanionism. He seeks that whether the US is there in Saudi or not.

Second, your blaming of Bush is wholly irrational in its nature. You say it was more Bush's fault than Clinton based on the fact that Bush did not take out a suspected indirect supporter of the 9/11 attacks, yet at the same time you remain oblivious to Clinton's failure to take out the direct perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks when he had an opportunity to do so that Bush never had with Hussein. It's fundamentally irrational on your part and shows your continued devotion to the leftist slimeball of an ex-president YOU helped elect into office.

What has Bush done in the last year to make us safer from WTC type attacks or Flight 587 type attacks -- something substantial that we can point to? Nothing.

To the contrary. While attacks are still a major threat, Al Qaeda's rat nest of terrorist training compounds in the caves of Afghanistan are up in smoke and their command thrown into dissarray. Certainly you don't believe this has no effect on their capabilities, do you?

Or do you think your desired leader Al Gore would have handled it better?

431 posted on 11/15/2002 10:48:14 AM PST by GOPcapitalist
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To: GOPcapitalist
Don't forget that he pardoned Admiral Poindexter, Caspar Wienburger and others late in 1992 to keep them out of prison.

Good. Iran-Contra was largely a democrat-fabricated scandal built upon a congressional attempt to infringe upon administration foreign policy jumbled with a string of unconstitutional legislation and some bureaucratic mishaps.

Like most of the people on FR, I have way too many books. But you never know when you might need one or another. I'm reminded of this because I just saw my copy of the Tower Commission Report on Iran-Contra. "I'll never need that again," I thought.

I also have a copy of "The Acting President" by Bob Scheiffer. He names the actual date that Reagan was briefed (with Bush I in the room) on the arms for hostages activities -- March 5, 1986.

Whatever Congress did in passing the Boland amendment or whatever, that was done in public. The Reagan administration acted in secret to pervert the Constitution. The facts are not in dispute. Reagan's operatives raised money and used it to fund a secret army. As you doubtless know, the separation of powers in that Pact with the Devil we call our Constitution, gives only Congress the right to raise and spend money. The executive branch can't get the grass cut at the White House unless Congress approriates the funds. Bush I lied about his knowledge of all this, and that is on the record too. The only reason some of the charges against Poindexter (for example) were thrown out was -not- because of the factual content, he was cearly guilty -- but because the court ruled that he had been granted immunity.

It's a real laffer for you to jump on Abraham Lincoln over something that has never been authoritatively decided, but call Iran Contra a "congressional attempt to infringe upon administration foreign policy".

At least Lincoln did everything openly. The Reagan administration (and Bush I knew all) acted behind our backs. I feel that admiration for Reagan has rightly diminished over time, and rightly so.

These facts are -not- in dispute. The Reagan administration raised money and spent it on secret causes. That Bush I knew about this and in fact was a major player, is NOT in dispute either. Bush denied any knowledge of these illegal activities in the 1988 campaign, but in his first term, it all came out. That is another reason he lost in 1992.

Bill Clinton has always been shot full of luck, and another bit of that luck was facing the non-entity Bush in an election.

Walt

432 posted on 11/15/2002 10:48:26 AM PST by WhiskeyPapa
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To: GOPcapitalist
Let's look at the plains states, where I live. That would be Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. In 1992 there were zero, zip, zilch, nada electoral votes for Clinton. In 1996 the same thing. Looks like y'all down south liked the boy more than we did.
433 posted on 11/15/2002 10:49:02 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: Heyworth
OK, i'll say it AGAIN, though i've written about this precise question numerous times before on the forum.

NEITHER desendents of slaves OR desendents of innocent civilians & POWs tortured/raped/robbed/murdered deserve REPARATIONS, but BOTH GROUPS deserve a SINCERE APOLOGY from the US government, for crimes committed against their families.

ONLY persons who wewre actually abused deserve REPARATIONS. (i think we all agree that there are no living victims at this time.)

for dixie,sw

434 posted on 11/15/2002 10:50:32 AM PST by stand watie
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To: WhiskeyPapa; billbears; shuckmaster; 4ConservativeJustices; Twodees; stainlessbanner; wardaddy; ...
You read it here first everybody! Walt's on a left wing role today...

"I'll say again that based on what I knew in 1992, I would vote for Bill Clinton ten times out of ten before I would vote for George Bush Sr." - Walt, 11/15/02

SOURCE: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/786927/posts?q=1&&page=401#420

435 posted on 11/15/2002 10:51:31 AM PST by GOPcapitalist
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To: stand watie
And you don't even make an apology for pining for a treasonous enterprise against the United States that began purely--PURELY--as a way of holding onto slavery in the South and in reaction to the way it was not being allowed to spread further.

Just out of curiosity, what would you call an officer of United States Army, one who has sworn an oath of allegiance to the United States, who then resigns that army and joins another that is taking up arms against the United States? Lee and all the rest should have been tried as the traitors they were. And you know who you have to thank that they weren't? Lincoln.

436 posted on 11/15/2002 10:52:17 AM PST by Heyworth
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To: stand watie
all we know for sure was that my 5 ancestors did not secumb [sic] to disease, wounds,starvation or other natural causes.

Turned into shark chum, weren't they?

Walt

437 posted on 11/15/2002 10:52:27 AM PST by WhiskeyPapa
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To: Non-Sequitur
wouldn't you guess "intentional mistreatment" includes murder, intentional starvation, denial of medical treatment & torture?

as i've said before, the BEST ESTIMATE of those POWs MURDERED is about 15,000.

BTW, is this subject really AMUSING for you?

for dixie,sw

438 posted on 11/15/2002 10:53:25 AM PST by stand watie
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To: Non-Sequitur
Looks like y'all down south liked the boy more than we did.

Only in his home state, his VP's home state, and two others. The rest of us provided some of his strongest and largest opposition. Your beloved yankeeland, as in the old Union states, supported Clinton UNANIMOUSLY save Indiana.

Arkansas may have created him, but yankeeland elected him. Twice. Live with it.

439 posted on 11/15/2002 10:54:17 AM PST by GOPcapitalist
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To: stand watie
NEITHER desendents of slaves OR desendents of innocent civilians & POWs tortured/raped/robbed/murdered deserve REPARATIONS, but BOTH GROUPS deserve a SINCERE APOLOGY from the US government, for crimes committed against their families.

Well, you seem to want an apology...AND YOUR OWN COUNTRY.

440 posted on 11/15/2002 10:54:38 AM PST by Heyworth
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