Posted on 04/25/2015 2:42:51 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The official beginning of the war was on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, which was what I meant when I said "A month after Abe took office, the country came apart in a civil war".
The secession movement started upon Lincoln's election, with the South knowing Lincoln's positions.
LOL. This is hilarious!
And they were wrong:
EXECUTIVE MANSION,
WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
DEAR SIR: I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements or assumptions of fact which I may know to be erroneous, I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing,” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy Slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free. Yours,
A. LINCOLN.
Open-Borders-Boy Rubio is running his mouth again. Doesn’t he have another Amnesty Bill to write with Schumer and McCain?
He also would never had been elected but for the Dems splitting their votes. Maybe that’s an idea for the next dozen cycles. Is there a Lefty Perot we could entice to run?
I would rather write-in than vote for Rubio who, unsurprisingly, fell for this non-issue. But, Perry, Walker, and Christie started this whole b.s. Gov. v. Senator false narrative back in Oct/Nov.(I believe Walker exempted Paul Ryan from this broad stroke). And, that’s what I have a problem with.
This manufactued campaign speak still persists today and reeks of “Statist” stench. It reminds me of the Stephanopoulos (birth control) tactic to engineer talking points to dominate the low info. crowd.
I agree with Mark Levin who stated that this is “really stupid” and, Is an attempt to “redefine the qualifications for the presidency to exclude all other competition.”
He continued this line of thought last month by saying, “when we say ‘we need a governor,’ what we’re saying is ‘we need a manager.’ And what I’m saying is we don’t need a manager, we need a visionary who can hire the managers. That’s what Reagan did as governor, that’s what he did as president.” And “whether it’s a governor, a senator, whether it’s a shoemaker, a candlemaker, whether it’s a janitor, I don’t much care.”
What caused them to fire on Fort Sumter, whose purpose was enforcement of tariff collection, was the tariff, a tax on imported goods which provided much of the government's revenue:
At the Republican National Convention in Chicago, the protectionist tariff was a key plank. As Luthin writes, when the protectionist tariff plank was voted in, "The Pennsylvania and New Jersey delegations were terrific in their applause over the tariff resolution, and their hilarity was contagious, finally pervading the whole vast auditorium." Lincoln received "the support of almost the entire Pennsylvania delegation" writes Luthin, "partly through the efforts of doctrinaire protectionists such as Morton McMichael . . . publisher of Philadelphia’s bible of protectionism, the North American newspaper."The South's cotton mostly went to England. What the ships brought back were British manufactured goods which were cheaper and better quality than what the North produced.Returning victorious to his home of Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln attended a Republican Party rally that included "an immense wagon" bearing a gigantic sign reading "Protection for Home Industry." Lincoln’s (and the Republican Party’s) economic guru, Pennsylvania steel industry publicist/lobbyist Henry C. Carey, declared that without a high protectionist tariff, "Mr. Lincoln’s administration will be dead before the day of inauguration."
The U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Morrill tariff in the 1859-1860 session, and the Senate passed it on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration. President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian who owed much of his own political success to Pennsylvania protectionists, signed it into law. The bill immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent (according to Frank Taussig in Tariff History of the United States) to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items. The tax burden would about triple. Soon thereafter, a second tariff increase would increase the average rate to 47.06 percent, Taussig writes.
So, Lincoln owed everything--his nomination and election--to Northern protectionists, especially the ones in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He was expected to be the enforcer of the Morrill tariff. Understanding all too well that the South Carolina tariff nullifiers had foiled the last attempt to impose a draconian protectionist tariff on the nation by voting in political convention not to collect the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations," Lincoln literally promised in his first inaugural address a military invasion if the new, tripled tariff rate was not collected.
At the time, Taussig says, the import-dependent South was paying as much as 80 percent of the tariff, while complaining bitterly that most of the revenues were being spent in the North. The South was being plundered by the tax system and wanted no more of it. Then along comes Lincoln and the Republicans, tripling (!) the rate of tariff taxation (before the war was an issue). Lincoln then threw down the gauntlet in his first inaugural: "The power confided in me," he said, "will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion--no using force against, or among the people anywhere" (emphasis added).
"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.
With slavery, Lincoln was conciliatory. In his first inaugural address, he said he had no intention of disturbing slavery, and he appealed to all his past speeches to any who may have doubted him. Even if he did, he said, it would be unconstitutional to do so.
But with the tariff it was different. He was not about to back down to the South Carolina tariff nullifiers, as Andrew Jackson had done, and was willing to launch an invasion that would ultimately cost the lives of 620,000 Americans to prove his point. Lincoln’s economic guru, Henry C. Carey, was quite prescient when he wrote to Congressman Justin S. Morrill in mid-1860 that "Nothing less than a dictator is required for making a really good tariff" (p. 614, "Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff").
Only a small percentage of Southerners owned slaves. But EVERY Southerner had to pay tariffs. Lincoln was willing to grant the South autonomy in its internal affair, PROVIDED they continued to supply the tariff revenue which kept the federal government afloat, and which benefited Lincoln's Northern industrialist backers.
In the election of 1860, Lincoln only got 39.7 percent of the vote. If there had been a runoff between the two top vote getters, Lincoln would likely have lost in a landslide.
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