House drops Confederate Flag ban for veterans cemeteries

politico.com ^ | 6/23/16 | Matthew Nussbaum

[ColdOne]

A measure to bar confederate flags from cemeteries run by the Department of Veterans Affairs was removed from legislation passed by the House early Thursday.

The flag ban was added to the VA funding bill in May by a vote of 265-159, with most Republicans voting against the ban. But Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) both supported the measure. Ryan was commended for allowing a vote on the controversial measure, but has since limited what amendments can be offered on the floor.

[x]

My point is, the financially powerful people of New England did not want the South to secede because it would crush much of their finances, and their former customers would become competitors.

No, Southern secession was a dire financial threat to the New England economy.

Now you are just being silly. Big cotton men in New England wanted the supply of cotton from the South to keep coming. It wouldn't have been affected by the tariffs and if the Southern tariffs were as low as you say, New England mills could have sold their products in the South just as they did before disunion. Textiles were the driving engine of the New England economy and textiles relied on the North-South trade of raw cotton and finished fabrics.

What else were New Englanders making? Pots and pans, I guess, that they could sell South and West as well, but the idea that secession meant a "dire financial threat to the New England economy" is nonsense. If Southerners really were going to start their own cotton mills it might have been different, but the rebels weren't about to do anything like that at the time. The whole point of low Confederate tariffs was that they didn't want to develop manufacturing.

The Northern response really was about non-material factors.

[rustbucket]

He never said that.

I have a copy of the original April 23, 1861 Baltimore Sun article, "Interview With The President" wherein Lincoln is quoted as having said: "And what is to become of the revenue? I shall have no government -- no resources."

Here are some excerpts from the article (I put Lincoln's reported words from these excerpts in bold font). The Reverend Dr. Fuller opened the conversation:

"seeking to impress upon Mr. Lincoln the vast responsibility of the position he occupied, and that upon him depended the issues of peace or war -- on one hand a terrible, fratricidal conflict, and on the other peace."

"But," said Mr. Lincoln, "what am I to do?"

"Why, sir, let the country know that you are disposed to recognize the independence of the Southern States. I say nothing of secession, recognize the fact that they have formed a government of their own, that they will never be united again with the North, and peace will instantly take the place of anxiety and suspense, and war may be averted."

"And what is to become of the revenue? I shall have no government -- no resources."

"Dr. Fuller expressed the opinion that the Northern States would constitute an imposing government, and furnish revenue, but our informant could not follow the exact turn of remark."

The conversation turning upon the passage of troops through Maryland," ... "Mr. Lincoln insisted that he wanted troops only for the defense of the capitol, not for the invasion of the Southern States." ... "Why, sir, those Carolinians are now crossing Virginia to come here and hang me, and what can I do?"

"The delegation, on leaving 'the presence,' conferred together, and agreed on the hopelessness of their errand and the sad prospect of any good thing from such a source, and the exclamation was actually made, 'God have mercey on us, when the government is placed in the hands of a man like this!' "

Even the New York Day Book picked up on Lincoln's remarks when they wrote about low tariff revenue. [Source: The New Orleans Daily Crescent newspaper of May 15, 1861 quoting an earlier New York Day Book article]:

The imports of dry goods this week are very small, probably the least reported for many years.

Well may Mr. Lincoln ask, "What will become of my revenue?"

[x]

What I said was that the North didn't want to let go of all that sweet sweet profit money they were making from slavery, which is what would have happened had the South been able to establish competing trade directly with Europe.

Given peace, Southern cotton would still come North. Southern funds would still be invested in Northern banks. Southerners would still import Northern goods with the low tariffs you're talking about. Southern plantation owners would still grind their profits from the labor of the slaves, and use the money to buy things from the North, which Northerners could use to buy things from Europe. So yes, there may have been dislocations, but nothing that those concerned couldn't have weathered.

Over time, their unofficial position became "If we can't have the profits from the work of slaves, ain't nobody gonna have those profits from the work of slaves."

Pretty good summation of the secessionist mindset, given how things turned out, but I guess you'd still want those profits yourself.

And now we see what sort of evil bastards those New England robber barons (still the same today) were.

Really? Lowells and Cabots are very thin on the ground nowadays.

[PeaRidge]

If you want to deny Lincoln's obsession about the loss of the tariff revenue, others weren't.

2/7/1861 Senator Wigfall of Texas on the floor of the Senate on Feb 7,

“How will it be with New England? Where will their revenue come from? From your custom-houses? What do you export? You have been telling us here for the last quarter of a century, that you cannot manufacture even for the home market under the tariffs which we have given you. When this tariff ceases to operate in your favor, and you have to pay for coming into our market, what will you expect to export?” (2/7/61 Congressional Globe p. 789)

“Five million bales of cotton, each bale worth fifty dollars at least - fifty-four dollars was the average price of cotton last year - give us an export of $250,000,000 per annum, counting not rice, or tobacco, or any other article of produce. Two hundred and fifty million exports will bring into our own borders - not through Boston and New York and Philadelphia, but through our own ports - $250,000,000 of imports; and forty per cent upon that puts into our treasury $100,000,000. Twenty per cent gives us $50,000,000. What tariff we shall adopt, as a war tariff, I expect to discuss in a few months, and in another Chamber.

You suppose that numbers constitute the strength of government in this day. I tell you that it is not blood; it is the military chest; it is the almighty dollar. When you have lost your market; when your operatives are turned out; when your capitalists are broken, will you go to direct taxation?” (12/12/60 Congressional Globe p. 73)

[rockrr]

You mean where Fuller is allegedly quoted as quoting Lincoln who allegedly quoted...

Sorry, I’m not persuaded by third-hand anecdotes.

[rockrr]

I might be more persuaded (but not convinced)) if it had been a constant - or even reoccurring theme through his administration. But it wasn’t.

[DiogenesLamp]

That is good to know. Another piece of the puzzle.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "...independence for the South results in an immediate 237 million dollar loss per year for New England financial interests..."

Remember, there was no immediate shut-off of commerce or travel, or even mail, from South to North following declarations of secession.
So immediate losses would be relatively small.

The bigger picture:

1. For comparison, today's US cotton crop is circa 17 million bales worth about $2 billion dollars.

2. In 1860 the Deep South produced a record cotton crop of nearly 5 million raw bales whose export value was $192 million.
   The vast majority of that cotton went directly to European buyers, but a small portion also went to US manufacturers in New England.
   The value of US manufactured cotton products in 1860 was $11 million.

3. Total US exports in 1860 were $357 million (including specie, see page 605), making raw cotton 54% of it.
   Point is: while cotton was certainly important in 1860, it was not the be-all or end-all of the US economy.

DiogenesLamp: "Wasn't Lincoln supported heavily by rich New Yorkers in his bid to become President?"

"Rich New Yorkers", then as now were often Republicans.
But just as they are today, many "rich New Yorkers" had deep business ties in the South, and so supported their Democrat economic allies.
And normally -- then as now -- Democrats ruled, with minority Republicans just yapping around their edges.

But in 1860 the ruling Democrats split in half, and so minority Republicans suddenly found themselves a majority in most Northern states.

DiogenesLamp: "My recollection was that his New York speech is what convinced them to support him."

Lincoln's Cooper's Union speech, in February 1860, was certainly influential in persuading many Republicans of Lincoln's bonafides, but at that time, Lincoln was not yet seriously considered as a Republican nominee for President.
Several other better known candidates were thought to be leading contenders, including Seward, Cameron, Chase & Bates.
But with none of those achieving a majority, the convention turned to a darker horse, Lincoln.

By the time of the May 1861 convention, Lincoln's star was indeed rising, but still Seward won the most votes on the first ballot, with Lincoln a distant second.
What put Lincoln ahead was not New York, but rather Pennsylvania flipping from its own favorite son, Cameron, to Lincoln on the second ballot.
On the third ballot other northern states switched to Lincoln, but New York remained loyal to Seward through the last ballot.

DiogenesLamp: "Is this that same 'Wall Street' class that decries money in politics so long as it is someone's other than their own?"

In 1860, then as now, Republicans did well in more rural up-state New York, and carried the state.
But, also then as now, Democrats carried New York City, and adjacent counties, by substantial margins.
Who did "Wall Street" support?
Well, cotton was the US number one export, and "Wall Street" would want nothing to upset their apple-carts.
So, as they had in 1856, they would want to support a compromise Democrat candidate (ala James Buchanan).
Such a candidate was not there in 1860, but regardless, Wall Street would not vote for a back-woods country lawyer from the boonies of Illinois, regardless of how erudite he may have sounded at Cooper Union in February 1860.

[x]

I have a copy of the original April 23, 1861 Baltimore Sun article, "Interview With The President" wherein Lincoln is quoted as having said: "And what is to become of the revenue? I shall have no government -- no resources."

An original copy? So scan it and post it. Otherwise, how do we know?

That story was published in a lot of different papers, some of them quite far away from Baltimore. It would be helpful whether it actually appeared in any Baltimore paper before it was reprinted all those times.

And why, oh why didn't the Baltimore Sun or Baltimore Exchange (a paper sympathetic with the secessionists) ask Fuller or other members of the delegation whether the "informant's" version was accurate?

[rustbucket]

You mean where Fuller is allegedly quoted as quoting Lincoln who allegedly quoted...

Sorry, I’m not persuaded by third-hand anecdotes.

The meeting with Dr. Fuller was not the only occasion when Lincoln was reported to have said similar words. See: Link. The second "episode" in the link quotes a different man who met with Lincoln at about that time who reported similar revenue concerns expressed by Lincoln.

Why is it so hard for you to accept those reports? The government had greatly increased the debt of the country in the years right before the Civil War. (Sound familiar?) How were they going to pay for all that with the South gone? That is the situation Lincoln faced. Import businesses in Northern ports started failing almost immediately. As the New York Day Book put it, "All New York is failing."

Anyway, before the war Lincoln was willing to not interfere with slavery in the South, but he was more concerned that the South leaving would have a negative effect on Northern tariff revenue and economy.

[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge: "It is a fact that Lincoln was quoted as saying: 'but what about the tariff?'
You make the statement that: 'He never said that.' "

I'm not certain of the historiography here, but certainly Lincoln would at some point have spoken words similar to "what about the tariff" -- for example, when talking about Federal revenues with his Secretary of Treasury, Chase.

However, since the vast majority of Federal revenues came from tariffs collected in Union ports, they could not have an immediate impact on Lincoln's actions of March & April 1861.

PeaRidge: "In 1860, the tariff supplied the Treasury with 94.5% of its total revenue base."

A tariff collected almost entirely from Union ports.
Huge wartime demands for money were addressed by Congress when it met, starting on July 4, 1861.
In the mean time, Washington's financial belts were tightened as never before, or since.

Why does the thought of overweight bureaucrats getting a financial haircut somehow not disturb me?

[rustbucket]

I was unclear in what I said. I have a copy of that article made for me by the University of Texas. I suspect it was made from a microfilm of the paper’s editions. They had moved their Baltimore Sun papers or microfilm to where only students and faculty could access it, but they kindly made a copy of this one article at my request.

The University in the past has asked me to sign a statement that I would not publish a copy made from an actual paper they owned, and I have followed that guidance even with microfilm. The words in the old articles are no longer under copyright, but photos of papers they own or microfilm might be.

I’d be happy to take a picture of the heading over the article the University gave me which lists the paper they copied and even which page it was on if that would satisfy you.

The link I provided in my last post lists Lincoln’s words which agree with what I just posted above in case you question my accuracy. It makes no sense for me to misquote something and lose credibility.

[rockrr]

I might be inclined to believe it if you could proffer a newspaper article where someone sat down with the president and asked him questions and got that quote. Likewise if you could supply us with the extract of a speech, independently verifiable.

It isn't that I doubt your word Rustbucket, but something as important as this phantom quote has to remain suspect until a primary source can be found.

[rustbucket]

The link I posted to you above reported a meeting between Virginia Convention Delegate John B. Baldwin and President Lincoln on April 4th, 1861. Baldwin, I think, was one of the more Union favoring delegates to that convention, at least in early April. As the link indicates Baldwin said something similar to Congress in 1866. He is the guy who met with Lincoln in person and later testified before a congressional committee about what Lincoln said. Believe whatever you want, rockrr, of course.

“(From testimony before the Reconstruction Committee of the US Congress by Mr. Baldwin in 1866,
http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/personalpapers/documents/
augusta/p3baldwininterview.html#baldwin)”

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "But the institution of slavery was still legal in New Jersey longer than it was in the South."

No, you are confusing New Jersey with states like Delaware -- slave states which remained loyal to the Union, and so were unaffected by Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
Delaware, for example, did not officially abolish slavery until required by the 13th Amendment.
Of course, Delaware had relatively few slaves to begin with, and far more freed- blacks.

New Jersey began gradual abolition in 1804 when it had about 12,000 slaves.
By 1860 only 18 of those slaves remained alive, and were freed by the 13th Amendment in 1865.
For comparison, Georgia's slave population grew from 60,000 in 1800 to 462,000 in 1860.

DiogenesLamp: "Seems to me if they thought it was so bad, they wouldn't have waited until they were forced to abolish it.
Why didn't they abolish it in 1861? Wasn't that when the war started?"

Of the Northern states, by 1860 only New Jersey still had a handful of old slaves still living -- 18 according to census.
So slavery was effectively abolished.

But in 1860 almost every Northerner understood that slavery in the South was a precondition for Union, and so did not wish to impose abolition on those states.

At the same time, slavery was arguably a dying institution in such Border States as Delaware, Maryland and even Missouri.
Many Northerners would have welcomed those states' votes to abolish slavery, but none would have insisted on it, if that meant disunion.

DiogenesLamp: "Four more years of Slavery in New Jersey makes you think they didn't really give a rat's @$$ about slavery as an issue."

I would rather suspect that the, ahem, "rat's *ss" nobody cares about are some of DiogenesLamp's more ignorant or misinformed opinions.

[x]

You said you had a copy of the Baltimore Sun with the anecdote. Most of the published versions of the story cite the Baltimore Exchange saying they got the story from the Baltimore Sun.

It would have been useful to know if the story actually appeared in the Sun (or the Exchange for that matter. There actually is an image of a page of the Exchange online that is supposed to have the story. But you say you can't release an image from the Sun. That's nice, but it doesn't resolve the question.

You also say that there are various accounts of Lincoln saying the "What about my tariff" line. Of course there are. It became part of the folklore (if it wasn't folklore all along). It was repeated time and time again in different versions and contexts. But we still don't know if Lincoln actually ever said it. We can be pretty sure that a lot of those variant versions weren't said by Lincoln.

Moreover the context is lost. If Lincoln said it, was it really a jaw-dropping moment that revealed his inner-most motivations, or was it one of many things said in the conversation? Plenty of the versions that have come down to us have clearly been "remembered" so as to make the tariff more central than it may have been.

[jmacusa]

BroJoeK you the man!! (and btw those ‘’slaves’’ in my home state in NJ were actually four in number.)

[jmacusa]

x like BroJoek you know your stuff. My hat’s off to the two of you.

[jmacusa]

Project much do you?

[jmacusa]

Yeah, they even went so far as to put it in print,re their Constitution.