Posted on 12/30/2013 5:18:21 PM PST by dontreadthis
When Charles Adams published his book For Good and Evil, a world history of taxation, the most controversial chapter by far was the one on whether or not tariffs caused the American War between the States. That chapter generated so much discussion and debate that Adams's publisher urged him to turn it into an entire book, in the form of When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession.
Many of the reviewers of this second book, so confident were they that slavery was the one and only possible reason for both Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency and the war itself, excoriated Adams for his analysis that the tariff issue was a major cause of the war. (Adams recently told me in an email that after one presentation to a New York City audience, he felt lucky that "no one brought a rope.")
My book, The Real Lincoln, has received much the same response with regard to the tariff issue. But there is overwhelming evidence that: 1) Lincoln, a failed one-term congressman, would never have been elected had it not been for his career-long devotion to protectionism; and 2) the 1861 Morrill tariff, which Lincoln was expected to enforce, was the event that triggered Lincoln’s invasion, which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
... (snip)
"We are going to make tax slaves out of you," Lincoln was effectively saying, "and if you resist, there will be an invasion." That was on March 4. Five weeks later, on April 12, Fort Sumter, a tariff collection point in Charleston Harbor, was bombarded by the Confederates. No one was hurt or killed, and Lincoln later revealed that he manipulated the Confederates into firing the first shot, which helped generate war fever in the North.
(Excerpt) Read more at mises.org ...
>>Fort Sumter was under-construction fort intended to defend Charleston Harbor against seaborne attack.<<
Another government shovel ready job. Construction began in 1829, but was not completed at the beginning of the war.
The majority of ex saves became share croppers on the exact same plantations ...
It seems that both points are true and together they point to a larger difference between North and South at the root of the slavery issue.
Agricultural economies do not have the cash needed for wage labor. They could produce on average two crops per year, giving them two payouts per year. How could planters keep a ready store of cash on hand for wages? Banking was relatively primitive.
German homesteads in the North were successful--but they never produced on the same export driven scale as the planters. I doubt they could have.
The North never seriously dealt with this problem: provisioning the labor needed to maintain agricultural production-- at least to my knowledge.
Nor did north's invasion improve these circumstances--as evidenced by the share-cropping system that replaced slavery.
Lincoln was a capitalist and did propose solutions in this direction(rejected by both sides) suggesting some insight. I can't say how comprehensive his understanding was, or if he had sufficient power to do anything, but he gets some credit.
FWIW-I'm no historian and others here know more. So, fire away.
the real problem was the South’s one-dimensional
economy, export cotton, import everything else.-—>
every tax law becomes, here v. the other place
The main difference is that farm labour needs in the north are much more variable by season than in the south. In the northern climate it makes no sense to feed & house slaves year-round when the growing season is only a few months; it is more economical to use paid labour for the growing season only. The typical pattern in Canada for unskilled labourers was to spend the summer working the fields, then spend the winter in logging camps (it’s easier to move lumber overland if the ground is frozen).
Seldom considered.... Let’s, for the sake of argument, assume that the North actually did think that the Southern States were evil. Why then, would they not welcome secession? It’s like begging Apartheid South Africa to join the Union. It makes no sense now, made no sense then... Unless...
well, you seem to have pretty much debunked his theory with your apparent confident knowledge of history.
the article appealed to me by way of an unstated comparison of Lincoln to King George, and an American Revolution/civil war that grew out of taxation.
The entire US budget for 1860 was $60M, which, if I remember correctly was something like 2% of the national economy.
Does that sound like overwhelming taxation that forced those crushed by the rates into opposition? For that matter, does it sound like an out of control massive federal government machine?
OTOH, tax rates in America prior to the Revolution were also very low, but in that case the Patriots were, or claimed they were, fighting for the principle of no taxation without representation.
But of course the South was represented, indeed had held representation and power since the Founding disproportionate to their population.
The article, like everything by Di Lorenzo, uses all kinds of verbal tricks, like claiming people have been taught that slavery was the one and only reason for secession and war.
Well, the actual fact is that I have never known anybody to make that claim. It’s a straw man argument. As with every war, there were many causes for the conflict. But every single one of them could have been compromised except slavery.
Southerners became more and more adamant that it be accepted and celebrated as a positive good (remind you of any modern day cause?), while northerners became increasingly unwilling to allow it to spread. IOW, the minimum the South would accept was far beyond anything the North would agree to, and vice versa. That’s the original recipe for war.
The Whigs were not statists in the sense we mean it now. They believed that government’s role in the economy was to create the conditions that lead to economic growth and the creation of wealth. Today’s Statists see government’s role as taking from the productive and giving to the unproductive. Quite different from the Whigs, who were interested in helping the productive be more productive. When looking at Federalist-Republican, or Whig-Democrat, remember all of them would be in the GOP today.
The concept:
“Stay in our (political) group, or we will kill you. “
Makes no sense whatsoever.
It does make sense— when you consider that Russia, England, France, Spain, Mexico,and a few other Imperial states were interested in grabbing any pieces that might have broken away during the split.
This doesn’t get sufficient notice in these discussions.
A few points:
The economy: an unfair portion of the debt from the Revolution had been put on the South. They were a little touchy on that score. I should also point out that to people who are one bad harvest away from starvation, any tax cuts.
Of the verbal tricks: people are taught that the war was based on slavery. That’s the general view and it has been reinforced in academia and in popular culture. Citing slavery as the primary cause tucks everything away in a tidy box with two morally separate compartments. It lets people believe they’d never do a thing like that. But the problem is that it dehumanizes one and lionizes the other.
It distorts the record and lets people believe they’d never do a thing like that. It’s not history, its ideology.
Finally, I agree that Southerners did become adamant as tensions escalated, but this is unremarkable given the circumstances. Southerners faced the loss of their property and livelihood. There was also Bleeding Kansas, Nat Turner and Harper’s Ferry and the fear that their slaves would eventually outnumber them, acquire knowledge and arms and do what humans do. Paradoxical that, but characteristically human. Then there was the deluge of defamation and exaggeration poured out of the Northern press. It continues today. I think the stubbornness you cite was more a product of the division than the cause of it.
Thanks Jeepers for vindicating my shoot from the hip memory on the 50% asset claim.
Since WW2, major population reducing war has been avoided because the degree of reduction has become unfathomable. It kept the cold war cold.
Back then, war was considered the solution more easily. It worked against the British, the Spanish in Texas and the Indians in the plains. So it was considered and implemented.
The post upthread that the south wanted slavery celebrated, not just accepted by the north is an excellent point. The north could have grandfathered in slavery in Alabama, but was adamant that Colorado-Kansas be non slavery. The south had the opportunity to accept new states are without slaves and continued on. There was a workable compromise here.
Sure, slavery is immoral; but so are 600,000 bodies.
Where do you get that idea?
Of the verbal tricks: people are taught that the war was based on slavery. That’s the general view and it has been reinforced in academia and in popular culture. Citing slavery as the primary cause tucks everything away in a tidy box with two morally separate compartments. It lets people believe they’d never do a thing like that. But the problem is that it dehumanizes one and lionizes the other. It distorts the record and lets people believe they’d never do a thing like that. It’s not history, its ideology.
The seceding states all said that the conflict was about slavery.
Finally, I agree that Southerners did become adamant as tensions escalated, but this is unremarkable given the circumstances. Southerners faced the loss of their property and livelihood. There was also Bleeding Kansas, Nat Turner and Harper’s Ferry and the fear that their slaves would eventually outnumber them, acquire knowledge and arms and do what humans do.
So you admit that the war was about slavery, in contradiction to your last paragraph.
BTW, slaves did outnumber whites in South Carolina, which is exactly why the rebellion started there.
An 11 year old plug by an author for his book? And this is newsworthy how?
The Confederate Army was the largest best equipped Army in the world, with one exception - the US Army.
The Confederate Army would have made mince meat of any contemporary European Army of the time. Heck if you can imagine transporting the CS Army to Europe, they could have conquered all of Europe at the time.
“It does make sense— when you consider that Russia, England, France, Spain, Mexico,and a few other Imperial states were interested in grabbing any pieces that might have broken away during the split.” - T
Still makes no sense...
Spending the lives of your people to bring a group back into your political association through war, really? (Sounds like a sociopathic ex-boyfriend.)
There is no good reason for this killing. If some other imperial power wanted to attack, and rule over that land, the “North” could have helped repel the invasion. (at a much lessor cost of lives)
Boy, these neo-confederates. What can you even say?
The economy: an unfair portion of the debt from the Revolution had been put on the South. They were a little touchy on that score.
I have never read anything contemporaneous where southerners brought this up. It was 70 years in the past in 1860. Foreshortening of history causes 1860 to look closer to 1890 to seem closer in time to use than it did to those living then. It would be like regional resentments of today being based on things that had happened during WWII. It should also be noted that this "unfair" stuf took place under G. Washington's administration, a southerner. Southerners agreed to it in a bargain whereby they got the national capital in the South.
I should also point out that to people who are one bad harvest away from starvation, any tax cuts.
True, but the people in power in the South, the planters, weren't in that position. And I see no reason to believe northern farmers were any better off.
Citing slavery as the primary cause tucks everything away in a tidy box with two morally separate compartments. It lets people believe they’d never do a thing like that. But the problem is that it dehumanizes one and lionizes the other.
I quite agree. The issue was more complex than that. But that doesn't make the basic issue that slavery was the primary (not sole) cause of the war untrue.
Southerners faced the loss of their property and livelihood. There was also Bleeding Kansas, Nat Turner and Harper’s Ferry and the fear that their slaves would eventually outnumber them, acquire knowledge and arms and do what humans do. Paradoxical that, but characteristically human.
Unfortunately, here you undercut your previous claims. Protecting slavery was critically important to them for all these reasons and more.
Then there was the deluge of defamation and exaggeration poured out of the Northern press.
Often matched or exceeded by the vitriol headed North. Defamation and exaggeration was tossed around by both, and the hotheads on both sides eventually succeeded in polarizing the two sides sufficiently that was became almost inevitable. Up to around 1810/1820 both regions were generally in basic agreement on the subject of slavery: It's an evil, but we can't figure out how to get rid of it safely. Such a position lends itself to compromises of various kinds.
By 1860 the South was very nearly unanimous that slavery was a positive good, and should be extended in both time and space. That position cannot be compromised with their earlier belief, much less with the increasing opinion in the North that they didn't care whether slavery was ended safely or not, it needed to be ended whatever the consequences.
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