Free Republic

FLT-bird: "The "we must not let the South go" editorial makes it plain what the economic cost to the Northern States would be if the Southern states left.
It plainly states that the Southern states would win economically and the Northern States would lose.
*If* one is pushing the "all about slavery" argument then it is indeed a statement against interest.
Here is a northern newspaper making the economic argument quite clearly."

This is the same argument DiogenesLamp has made for years, and it's just as false here as it is when he makes it, because:

• First, "all about slavery" begins with declarations of secession and their official "Reasons for Secession" documents, which did emphasize slavery in every case.

• Second, "all about slavery" doesn't mean secessionists didn't have other complaints to throw in at the same time, which we've reviewed at length now:

  "Reasons for Secession" Documents before Fort Sumter -- % of words devoted to each reason *

  Reasons for Secession	S. Carolina	Mississippi	Georgia	Texas	Rbt. Rhett	A. Stephens	AVERAGE OF 6
  Historical context	41%	20%	23%	21%	20%	20%	24%
  Slavery	20%	73%	56%	54%	35%	50%	48%
  States' Rights	37%	3%	4%	15%	15%	10%	14%
  Lincoln's election	2%	4%	4%	4%	5%	0%	3%
  Economic issues**	0	0	15%	0%	25%	20%	10%
  Military protection	0	0	0	6%	0%	0%	1%

  * Alabama listed only slavery in its "whereas" reasons for secession.
  ** Economic issues include tariffs, "fishing smacks" and other alleged favoritism to Northerners in Federal spending.

• Third, nobody has ever argued that "all about slavery" referred to the Union responses to secession -- that is a complete strawman.
  Instead, the first Union response was, in effect: secession "at pleasure" is not constitutional and if it results in war, then we will fight to restore the Union.
  Many in the Union also looked for "compromises" they might offer to prevent further secessions, and these "compromises" were always "all about slavery".

• Fourth, the Battle of Fort Sumter, which launched the Civil War, had nothing directly to do with slavery, but was "all about" Jefferson Davis asserting Confederate "sovereignty" and winning over Upper South states to secession.

• Finally, "all about slavery" did play out throughout the war, beginning with freedom for "Contraband of War" and the Emancipation Proclamation for the North, along with many Confederate comments on the subject:

Slavery as a reason for secession and civil war was mentioned by many prominent Southerners over many years before, during and after the war:

Here are some, listed in date sequence:

1. 1849: "Henry L. Benning, Georgia politician and future Confederate general, writing in the summer of 1849 to his fellow Georgian, Howell Cobb (GA Governor, Buchanan’s Sec of Treasury):
   'First then, it is apparent, horribly apparent, that the slavery question rides insolently over every other everywhere -- in fact that is the only question which in the least affects the results of the elections.'
   [Allan Nevins, The Fruits of Manifest Destiny pages 240-241.]

   Later in the same letter Benning says,

   'I think then, 1st, that the only safety of the South from abolition universal is to be found in an early dissolution of the Union.'  “

2. 1856: "Richmond Enquirer, 1856:
   'Democratic liberty exists solely because we have slaves . . . freedom is not possible without slavery.' "

3. 1858: "Albert Gallatin Brown, U.S. Senator from Mississippi, speaking with regard to the several filibuster expeditions to Central America:
   'I want a foothold in Central America... because I want to plant slavery there....
   I want Cuba,... Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican States;
   and I want them all for the same reason - for the planting or spreading of slavery'
   [McPherson: Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 106.]"

4. 1858: Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature (16 November 1858)
   ’Whether by the House or by the People, if an Abolitionist be chosen President of the United States, you will have presented to you the question of whether you will permit the government to pass into the hands of your avowed and implacable enemies... such a result would be a species of revolution by which the purposes of the Government would be destroyed and the observance of its mere forms entitled to no respect.
   In that event, in such manner as should be most expedient, I should deem it your duty to provide for your safety outside the Union ‘

5. 1859 -- "Richard Thompson Archer (Mississippi planter):
   'The South is invaded.
   It is time for all patriots to be united, to be under military organization, to be advancing to the conflict determined to live or die in defence of the God given right to own the African'
   ---letter to the Vicksburg Sun, Dec. 8, 1859."

6. 1859: "Senator Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia:
   'There is not a respectable system of civilization known to history whose foundations were not laid in the institution of domestic slavery.'
   [McPherson: Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 56.]"

7. 1860: "Atlanta Confederacy, 1860:
   'We regard every man in our midst an enemy to the institutions of the South, who does not boldly declare that he believes African slavery to be a social, moral, and political blessing.' "

8. 1860: "Lawrence Keitt, Congressman from South Carolina, in a speech to the House on January 25, 1860:
   'African slavery is the corner-stone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence.
   Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depopulation and barbarism.'

   Later in the same speech he said,

   'The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy.
   We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States.'
   Taken from a photocopy of the Congressional Globe supplied by Steve Miller."

9. 1860: "Keitt again, this time as delegate to the South Carolina secession convention, during the debates on the state's declaration of causes:
   'Our people have come to this on the question of slavery.
   I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question.
   I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it.'

   Taken from the Charleston, South Carolina, Courier, dated Dec. 22, 1860.
   See the Furman documents site for more transcription from these debates.
   Keitt became a colonel in the Confederate army and was killed at Cold Harbor on June 1, 1864."

10. 1860: “William Grimball to Elizabeth Grimball, Nov. 20, 1860:
    ’A stand must be made for African slavery or it is forever lost."
    [James McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, p. 20]

11. 1860: "Senator Louis Trezevant Wigfall; December 11, 1860, on the floor of the Senate;
    'I said that one of the causes, and the one that has created more excitement and dissatisfaction than any other, is, that the Government will not hereafter, and when it is necessary, interpose to protect slaves as property in the Territories;
    and I asked the Senator if he would abandon his squatter-sovereignty notions and agree to protect slaves as all other property?'
    [Quote taken from The Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 2nd Sess., p. 58.]"

12. 1860: "Alfred P. Aldrich, South Carolina legislator from Barnwell:
    'If the Republican party with its platform of principles, the main feature of which is the abolition of slavery and, therefore, the destruction of the South, carries the country at the next Presidential election, shall we remain in the Union, or form a separate Confederacy?
    This is the great, grave issue.
    It is not who shall be President, it is not which party shall rule --- it is a question of political and social existence.'
    [Steven Channing, Crisis of Fear, pp. 141-142.]"

13. 1861: Jefferson Davis made a farewell address to the Senate, in January 1861.
    ’It has been a conviction of pressing necessity, it has been a belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us, which has brought Mississippi to her present decision.
    She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races.’

14. 1861: "John Tyler Morgan, Dallas County, Alabama; also speaking to the Alabama Secession Convention on January 25, 1861:
    ’The Ordinance of Secession rests, in a great measure, upon our assertion of a right to enslave the African race, or, what amounts to the same thing, to hold them in slavery.' "

15. 1861: "Henry M. Rector, Governor of Arkansas, March 2, 1861, Arkansas Secession Convention, p. 44
    'The area of slavery must be extended correlative with its antagonism, or it will be put speedily in the 'course of ultimate extinction.'....
    The extension of slavery is the vital point of the whole controversy between the North and the South...
    Amendments to the federal constitution are urged by some as a panacea for all the ills that beset us.
    That instrument is amply sufficient as it now stands, for the protection of Southern rights, if it was only enforced.
    The South wants practical evidence of good faith from the North, not mere paper agreements and compromises.
    They believe slavery a sin, we do not, and there lies the trouble.' "

16. 1861: from Lincoln's first inaugural address, on March 4, 1861:
    “One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended.
    This is the only substantial dispute."

17. 1861: from CSA VP Alexander Stephens's "Cornerstone Speech," seventeen days later:
    "The new [Confederate] Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions — African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization.
    This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. ..."

18. 1861: "Thomas F. Goode, Mecklenburg County, Virginia, March 28, 1861, Virginia Secession Convention, vol. II, p. 518,
    'Sir, the great question which is now uprooting this Government to its foundation---the great question which underlies all our deliberations here, is the question of African slavery...' "

19. 1861: "Methodist Rev. John T. Wightman, preaching at Yorkville, South Carolina:
    'The triumphs of Christianity rest this very hour upon slavery; and slavery depends on the triumphs of the South . . .
    This war is the servant of slavery.'
    [The Glory of God, the Defence of the South (1861), cited in Eugene Genovese's Consuming Fire (1998).]"

20. 1862: "The Vidette, a camp newspaper for Confederate Brig. Gen. John Hunt Morgan's cavalry brigade.
    In one of the November, 1862 issues, the following appeared:
    "...any man who pretends to believe that this is not a war for the emancipation of the blacks, and that the whole course of the Yankee government has not only been directed to the abolition of slavery, but even to a stirring up of servile insurrections, is either a fool or a liar.' "

21. 1863: "William Nugent to Eleanor Nugent, Sept 7, 1863:
    'This country without slave labor would be completely worthless.
    We can only live & exist by that species of labor; and hence I am willing to fight for the last.'
    [James McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, p. 107]"

22. 1864: "Catherine Ann Devereux Edmonston, December 30, 1864:
    'We have hitherto contended that Slavery was Cuffee's normal condition, the very best position he could occupy, the one of all others in which he was happiest... No!
    Freedom for whites, slavery for negroes.
    God has so ordained it.'
    From: The Journal of a Secesh Lady: The Diary of Catherine Ann Devereux Edmonston, 1860-1866."

23. 1864: "CS Brigadier General Clement Stevens:
    'If slavery is to be abolished then I take no more interest in our fight.
    The justification of slavery in the South is the inferiority of the negro.
    If we make him a soldier, we concede the whole question.'
    [Cited in James C. Nisbet, Four Years on the Firing Line, pp. 172—173]"

24. 1894: CSA Col. John S. Mosby – leader of “Mosby’s Rangers”:
    “I've always understood that we went to war on account of the thing we quarreled with the north about.
     I've never heard of any other cause of quarrel than slavery.
    Letter (1894), as quoted in The Confederate Battle Flag: America’s Most Embattled Emblem (2005), by John M. Coski

25. 1907: Letter from Samuel "Sam" Chapman (June 1907)
    ’The South went to war on account of slavery. 
    South Carolina went to war, as she said in her secession proclamation, because slavery would not be secure under Lincoln. 
    South Carolina ought to know what was the cause for her seceding.
    The truth is the modern Virginians departed from the teachings of the Father's.”

26. 1997: James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997), p. 106.[40]
    ’Unlike many slaveholders in the age of Thomas Jefferson, Confederate soldiers from slaveholding families expressed no feelings of embarrassment or inconsistency in fighting for their liberty while holding other people in slavery.
    Indeed, white supremacy and the right of property in slaves were at the core of the ideology for which Confederate soldiers fought.’

    “McPherson states that Confederate soldiers did not discuss the issue of slavery as often as United States soldiers did, because most Confederate soldiers readily accepted as an obvious fact that they were fighting to perpetuate slavery and thus did not feel the need to debate over it:

    “[O]nly 20 percent of the sample of 429 Southern soldiers explicitly voiced proslavery convictions in their letters or diaries.
    As one might expect, a much higher percentage of soldiers from slaveholding families than from non-slaveholding families expressed such a purpose: 33 percent, compared with 12 percent.
    Ironically, the proportion of Union soldiers who wrote about the slavery question was greater, as the next chapter will show.
    There is a ready explanation for this apparent paradox.
    Emancipation was a salient issue for Union soldiers because it was controversial.
    Slavery was less salient for most Confederate soldiers because it was not controversial.
    They took slavery for granted as one of the Southern 'rights' and institutions for which they fought, and did not feel compelled to discuss it.”
    — James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997), pp. 109–110.[41]

    “Continuing, McPherson also stated that of the hundreds of Confederate soldiers' letters he had examined, none of them contained any anti-slavery sentiment whatsoever:
    

    'Although only 20 percent of the soldiers avowed explicit proslavery purposes in their letters and diaries, none at all dissented from that view’.”
    
    — James M. McPherson, For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1997), p. 110, emphasis in original.[41]

Bottom line: there's no doubt that protecting slavery was important to many Confederates as was abolition to many Unionists.
Others eventually began to say the war was really over something else:

Fortunately, Jefferson Davis did not get his wish in either case.

DiogenesLamp: "I recall once a long time ago that I got you to admit it was at least 60%.
I remarked on it at the time, that perhaps with a little more coaxing, I could get you all the way up to the number we can see in the official records.

72%."

You can see it yourself now in my post #221 above, how to distort the actual ~50% into something resembling 70%.
All you have to do is delete $58 million in specie exports from the US total ($400 million minus $58 million = $342 million) and then add Union tobacco ($12 million), plus Union manufactures of cotton ($11 million), to the Confederate side ($206m plus $23m = $229 million).
$229 divided by $342, gets you up to 67%.

Then if you divide by the smaller preliminary total merchandise export number reported at the time, $316 million, instead of the larger final number, $342 million, you can goose 67% all the way up to 73%.

And if all you are looking for is a number you can weaponize in propaganda against the United States, then that just might be good enough.

But, if you care about facts and truth, then, no, not so much.

FLT-bird: "Contrary to the laughable Northern propaganda posted here,

"The Confederate States accounted for 70% of total US exports by dollar value.
Cotton was the primary export, accounting for 75% of Southern trade in 1860."
Stanley Lebergott 'Why the South Lost:Commercial Purpose in the Confederacy' pp. 59–60"

So everyone can see the fake math at work, here's how you get from accurate, roughly 50% of US exports being "Southern Products", to the exaggerated 70% or more as claimed by our pro-Confederate propagandists:

1. $400 million actual total US exports in 1860
   minus $58 million net specie (gold & silver) exports
   = $342 million US merchandise exports

   $342 million is revised from $316 million as incompletely reported on earlier documents.

2. $229 million in claimed "Southern Products" exports
   including $11 million in manufactured cotton products -- Northern Products and
   including $12 million in tobacco produced (of $19 million total) in Union states like Kentucky, Missouri and Indiana.

3. $229 million "Southern Products" divided by $342 million total exports = 67%,
   or $229 million divided by originally reported $316 million = 72%.

That's how they arrive at 70%.
The true number is approximately 50%.

FLT-bird quoting:

"by 1860 the Southern states were paying in excess of 80 percent of all tariffs”
The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War; by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, 2002, ISBN 0-7615-3641-8, page 135-126:"

That is so mind-bogglingly false, it deserves a Goebbels' Propaganda Award because, in fact:

1. No Southern state ever paid even one penny of any US tariff.

2. All tariffs were paid by citizens, not by states.
   Those citizens might live in the North, South, East or West, but none were acting as officials of their state governments.

3. Over 90% of import tariffs were paid in major Union ports like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and San Francisco.
   5% was paid at New Orleans, the largest Confederate state port
   1% was paid at all other Confederate ports combined.

4. Suggestions that, somehow, magically -- it was actually Southerners living in Union ports who "paid for" import tariffs -- that's not supported by any evidence or logic, especially when you consider, virtually all imports were bulk raw materials whose customers were manufacturers of woolen, cotton, silk, iron and food products, the vast majority of those in Union states.

5. How then, exactly, do our pro-Confederates claim "the South" paid for import tariffs?
   Well, obviously, you need exports to "pay for" imports, however "Southern products" "paid for" virtually no imports from overseas.

6. By all logic and evidence, nearly 100% of "Southern Products" export income was used to pay directly for "imports" from the North and Western US.

7. Southern "Imports" from the Union consisted mainly of "made in America" commodities:
   • Woolen manufactures
   • Shoes & other leather goods
   • Cotton manufactures
   • Silk products
   • Iron products -- i.e., stoves, farm equipment, railroad
   • Paper
   • Soap and candles
   • Tea
   • Smoked fish
   • Musical instruments
   • Furniture

8. However, in nearly every commodity, Southerners did their own manufacturing as well, including:
   • Flour Mills
   • Carpenters, builders, lumber & cabinet makers
   • Iron workers, including casters & forgers -- i.e., Tredegar (Richmond), Cumberland Furnace (Nashville) and E. Tennessee Iron (Chattanooga).
   • Clothing manufactures from cotton and woolens
   • Hemp products including rope, sacks and paper.
   • Shoes and other leather products

9. Additionally, Southerners "exported" many items to the North, including:
   • Raw cotton
   • Tobacco
   • Sugar
   • Rice
   • Turpentine and other naval stores
   • Hemp products including rope, cloth and paper
   • Livestock

Bottom line: in the years before 1861 there were huge volumes of interstate and inter-regional "exports" and "imports" which thoroughly mixed the earnings of one region with those of the others, such that there's no logical way to claim "The South" (or any other region) "paid for" Federal import tariffs which funded government in Washington, DC.

Finally, before we (thankfully) leave DiLorenzo entirely, we should notice that even he was so embarrassed by the laughable absurdity of this 80% claim that, in later versions of his book, he changed the wording to: Southern states "were paying the Lion's share of all tariffs".
So, it appears that even though DiLorenzo himself is too embarrassed to repeat his absurd 80% claim, our good FRiend FLT-bird is not.

FLT-bird: "The following are what lawyers call "Statements Against Interest"...ie frank admissions by Northern newspapers at the time admitting that the Southern states are providing the overwhelming share of all exports/imports."

In fact, those quotes do no such thing.

FLT-bird quoting: "The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods.
What is our shipping without it?
Literally nothing.
The transportation of cotton and its fabrics employs more than all other trade.
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"

There's no disputing that Southern cotton was important to New Hampshire textile mills, and so a New Hampshire newspaper will say whatever it needs to, to keep commerce flowing.
Of course, this had nothing directly to do with foreign exports or imports.

Further, typical propagandist -- has taken the quote out of context and so reversed its original meaning.
Here is the real point of that quote:

"No—we must not "let the South go."
It is easy and honorable to keep her.
Simply recognize in the neighborhood of states those principles of equity and courtesy which we would scorn to violate in our social relations at home—that is all.
Let New Hampshire treat Virginia as we should treat our neighbors.
Do we vilify them, watch for chances to annoy them, clear up to the line of the law, and sometimes beyond it, and encourage hostile raids against them?
Is that good neighborhood?
Then, let not one state practice it against another."

So, the Manchester, NH, newspaper wants Northerners to make nice with Southerners, a sentiment we all share.

FLT-bird: "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"

Our FRiend x has already dealt with the fact that the Chicago Times was a pro-slavery, pro-South, Copperhead Democrat newspaper, which is here hardly advising "against interest".

Regardless of that, the Chicago Times in this quote exactly confirms my argument for many years that Southern exports accounted for roughly half of US total exports, not 70% or 80% or any other such ridiculous number.

FLT-bird quoting:

"It is not a war for Negro Liberty, but for national despotism.
It is a tariff war, an aristocratic war, a pro-slavery war."
Abolitionist George Basset May 1861 American Missionary Association"

This quote, if accurate (I can't confirm it), would be from Bassett's second pamphlet, "A Discourse on the Wickedness and Folly of the Present War, 24p., August 11, 1861".
Bassett was a rare combination of abolitionist and secessionist.
In 1860 there were several notable pro-secession abolitionists, including William Lloyd Garrison and Horace Greely.
After Fort Sumter in 1861, there were none that I can find beyond this George W. Bassett, and even he seem rather... ah... elusive.

FLT-bird: "Even after the fact, Northerners were saying the same things:

'This question of tariffs and taxation, and not the negro question, keeps our country divided....the men of New York were called upon to keep out the Southern members because if they were admitted they would uphold [ie hold up or obstruct] our commercial greatness.'
Governor of New York Horatio Seymour on not readmitting Southern representatives to Congress 1866"

This alleged proof-text doesn't seem to prove anything except, perhaps, that tariffs were always, politically as controversial as they were necessary.

FLT-bird: "Foreign sources noticed the same thing:

"If it be not slavery, where lies the partition of the interests that has led at last to actual separation of the Southern from the Northern States? …
Every year, for some years back, this or that Southern state had declared that it would submit to this extortion only while it had not the strength for resistance.
With the election of Lincoln and an exclusive Northern party taking over the federal government, the time for withdrawal had arrived …'
– Charles Dickens, as editor of All the Year Round, a British periodical in 1862"

Charles Dickens is often quoted on these CW threads and almost as often it's noted that while Dickens opposed slavery in theory, he also hated Northerners (because they had cheated him of royalties) and admired aristocratic Southerners.
In this particular quote, Dickens ties secession to the election of Republican Lincoln, an action which was also threatened in the election of 1856, and for the same reasons -- "Black Republicans' " threats to slavery.

FLT-bird: "But hey, who ya gonna believe - Observers on all sides at the time as well as economists and tax experts who have studied the period....or a PC Revisionist with his little fantasies about how taxes and the economy really work?"

That "PC Revisionist" posting here under the screen name of FLT-bird?

DiogenesLamp: "Specie is not "trade", trade is "trade", and it was clearly in the South's best interest to get away from Northern laws taxing them at 12 times the per capita taxation of the Northern population."

marktwain: "The above is your claim.
It is not convincing to me.
Specie can clearly pay for imports.
Very little gold or silver was produced in the South."

Right -- gold and silver ("specie") were financial equivalents of other geological products like oil, copper or iron.
Specie were "Western Products" though most buying and selling happened in New York City, without the physical gold ever changing its location.
In 1860, net US specie exports were $58 million.

According to this source, 1860 exports (including specie) totaled $400 million.
Of that:

1. $191 million was raw cotton = 48%
2. $ 11 million was manufactured cotton products, manufactured in New England, though included as "Southern Products" = 3%.

3. $ 19 million was tobacco produced mainly in the Union states of Kentucky, Missouri and Indiana, though included as "Southern Products" = 5%

4. $ 4 million was turpentine related products, produced mainly in North Carolina = 1%

5. $ 3 million was rice produced mainly in South Carolina = <1%.

6. $ 1 million was every other alleged "Southern Product", including hemp and clover seed.

7. $229 million total of "Southern Products" exported in 1860 = 57% of US exports
   minus $11 million of mfg'd cotton (Northern Products)
   minus 12 million of tobacco produced in Union states

   =$206 million = roughly 52% of all US exports in 1860 were "Southern Products".

So, right off the bat, "Southern Products", meaning exports from Confederate states, amounted to 52% of total US exports, not the ridiculous numbers Southern Democrat propagandists (then and now) threw around.

Finally, even suggestions that "Southern Exports" somehow "paid for" 52% Federal import tariffs are pure nonsense, since over 90% of tariffs were paid at non-Southern ports and then shipped to non-Southern customers such as manufacturers of woolen, cotton, silk and food products.

Bottom line is that the 11 Southern states of the Confederacy totaled to roughly 20% of the US free population, and 20% is probably a fair estimate of their total economic contribution to the US GDP in 1860, including Federal tariff revenues.

Everything else is just Southern Democrat political propaganda weaponized against Doughfaced Northerners in 1860 and against unsuspecting Free Republic posters today.

FLT-bird to marktwain: "South Carolina Congressman Robert Barnwell Rhett had estimated that of the $927,000,000 collected in duties between 1791 and 1845, the South had paid $711,200,000, and the North $216,000,000.
South Carolina Senator James Hammond had declared that the South paid about $50,000,000 and the North perhaps $20,000,000 of the $70,000,000 raised annually by duties.
In expenditure of the national revenues, Hammond thought the North got about $50,000,000 a year, and the South only $20,000,000."
When in the Course of Human Events: Charles Adams

"As Adams notes, the South paid an undue proportion of federal revenues derived from tariffs, and these were expended by the federal government more in the North than the South: in 1840, the South paid 84% of the tariffs, rising to 87% in 1860.
They paid 83% of the $13 million federal fishing bounties paid to New England fishermen, and also paid $35 million to Northern shipping interests which had a monopoly on shipping from Southern ports.
The South, in effect, was paying tribute to the North."

All of that is pure nonsense because:

1. It conflates "Southern Exports" with Federal import tariffs.
   In reality, "Southern products" were bought and sold several times on their way to European customers, as were European and other products on their way to American customers.
   So the idea, that somehow Southerners "paid for" Federal tariff revenues, is ridiculous nonsense.
   The truth is most Southerners (or any other producer) were paid for their products when they sold at local markets, or to men called "Factors".
   In fact, nearly all import tariffs were paid by end users of those products, including Northern manufacturers in wool, cotton, silk and iron, plus big city consumers of coffee, tea and wine.

   However, seemingly, Rhett's, Hammond's and others' claims were and remain, highly effective Democrat propaganda.

2. In 1860 about 95% of all "Southern products" -- meaning exports from Confederate states -- consisted of just one item: King Cotton.
   Cotton alone represented roughly 50% of US exports with every other "Southern product" combined adding another 5%.

   Northern, Eastern and Western products, including Union slave-states, also including gold and silver, made up the remaining 45%.

3. There are no facts to support claims that disproportionate Federal spending went "to the North", unless you define "the North" as everywhere north of South Carolina.

   In reality, such data as we have says about 60% of Federal spending on forts, lighthouses and other infrastructure went to states south of the Mason-Dixon line.

FLT-bird: "By the way......since the goods landed in Northern ports mostly shouldn't the lack of tariff revenue from Southern ports have been no problem?
Gosh....its almost as if the ports weren't paying the tariff but instead the OWNERS OF THE GOODS were paying the tariff and the owners of those goods were overwhelmingly Southerners....thus the massive drop in revenue."

Map posted by DiogenesLamp many times
until he finally realized it doesn't support his argument:

Sadly, that's a lot of nonsense to unpackage; we'll start here:

1. As we can see from the map at right, well over 90% of all tariffs were paid from Union ports like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and San Francisco.

2. The 1846 Warehousing Act was proposed by former Texas Sen. Robert Walker, then Southern Democrat Pres. James Polk's (TN) Secretary of Treasury -- along with what became the 1846 Walker Tariff, which was so highly commended by Georgians in their "Reasons for Secession" document.
   Walker's Warehousing Act set up bonded warehouses in ports like New York, which allowed unsold import goods to be stored duty free until they were sold.
   Once sold, duties were paid and those imports were then shipped anywhere in the country.

3. There's no evidence that more than a small fraction of US imports shipped to Southerners, for the primary reason that most imports were raw materials for manufacturers, such as wool, cotton, silk and iron.
   Other imported consumables -- like sugar, coffee, tea and wines -- would obviously ship to major centers of population, such as New York, Philadelphia, etc.

4. This table shows 1860 tariff revenues from the top US imports, while noting where those materials were also produced in the US:

   TOP 1860 US IMPORT TARIFF ITEMS

   Commodity	1860 revenue $	Also US Produced?
   Cotton	6,500,000	in the South
   Brown Sugar	7,430,000	in the South
   Molasses	1,800,000	in the South
   Flax & Hemp	1,728,000	in the South
   Total collected	$17,458,000	Southern products
   **
   Woolens	8,155,000	in the North
   Iron & Iron mfg	4,458,000	in the North
   Total collected	$12,613,000	Northern products
   **
   Silks	5,589,000	only China
   Coffee	3,962,000	only South America
   Tea	1,339,000	only China
   Wines	1,134,000	France
   Total collected	$12,024,000	No US made

5. Finally, "...thus the massive drop in revenue," is more myth than real.
   • In 1861 US cotton exports fell by over 80% -- due to Southern secession and Civil War.

   • However, by 1862, US merchandise imports fell only about half from 1860 levels.

   • Further, from 1860 to 1862, Federal tariff revenues fell by only 12%.
     For comparison -- US tariff revenues fell 1/3 after the Panic of 1857.

   • Compared to their low in 1861, Federal tariff revenues had doubled by 1864 and doubled again by 1866.

FLT-bird: "No, they reached HIGHER than the Tariff of Abominations.
The Morrill Tariff was the highest in US history and stayed in place for over FIFTY YEARS.
This played a large role in reducing the South from the richest region of the country to the poorest in that time.....exactly as Southern political leaders knew it would when they opposed it."

I'm sorry, but -- contrary to what they taught you in propaganda school -- you can repeat and repeat that lie as often as you like, you still can never make it true.

Here is the truth, laid out in graphic form:

1. First, notice there are two lines on this chart, the blue line is the important one, because it represents the total average tariff rate each year.

2. Second, notice both lines reach a peak, nearly 60%, around the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations", then rapidly fall.

3. Notice, after the Tariff of 1857, by 1860 the total blue-line rate fell to it's lowest, so far, on this chart of circa 16%.
   These were roughly the same levels of Pres. Washington's earliest years.

4. During the Civil War the total blue-line rate nearly tripled, but never reached levels of the 1828 Tariff of Abominations.

5. After the Civil War the total blue-line rate quickly fell back to the 1842 Black Tariff levels.
   These levels were thought necessary to Make America Great, Put Americans First and also generate enough revenues to pay down the national war debt.

6. Also, interesting to notice that during the Democrat administrations of the 1890s (Grover Cleveland), total blue-line tariffs were reduced to roughly levels of the Democrat 1846 Walker Tariff.

7. Finally, as to what caused post-Civil War relative Southern poverty -- tariffs were the least of the South's problems and would have been no problem.
   He's what did keep the South relatively backward:

   

   • Climate, especially before widespread air-conditioning kept the Northern industrial revolution bottled in the North.

   • Health issues like malaria and yellow fever, which helped prevent Northern industries from moving into the South.

   • Civil War destruction of physical and financial wealth in the South.

   • Statistics!
     The average standard of living of a white family in, say, Alabama in 1890 was not necessarily less than a similar family in, say, Pennsylvania, once you've adjusted for different costs of living.
     But statistics which included impoverished blacks, and did not adjust for costs of living, made it look like Alabamians were much poorer.

   • Falling cotton prices after 1865.

   • Agricultural issues such as boll weevil and exhausted farmland.

Bottom line: after 1865, US tariff rates were the very least of the South's problems.

FLT-bird: "Straight from wikipedia if anybody cares to look:

'The tariff inaugurated a period of continuous protectionism in the United States, and that policy remained until the adoption of the Revenue Act of 1913, or Underwood Tariff.
The schedule of the Morrill Tariff and both of its successors were retained long after the end of the Civil War.'

"Though this is hardly a definitive source, the general thrust here is undeniable.
It is exactly as I said above.
Starting with the Morrill Tariff, Tariff rates remained very high until passage of the 16th amendment allowed the federal government to impose an income tax in 1913."

Well, then, far be it from me to dispute Wikipedia, especially since I use their numbers myself whenever I can. 😂

Not!
We're obviously looking at a "glass half full vs. glass half empty" situation.
The graph I posted above clearly shows what average US tariff rates were since 1820, and it shows total blue-line rates reduced drastically after 1870, even returning to pre-Civil War levels briefly during the 1890s.

FLT-bird: "Nope!
Its completely true and furthermore everyone can see that its completely true.
The Confederate Constitution did not allow a protectionist tariff - only a tariff for revenue which was universally understood to never be more than 10%."

Your words, "universally understood" and "everyone can see" can't mask the fact that you are using the same ad populum argument as "everyone knows".
In reality, such arguments mean what follows is just your own concoction, with no supporting data.

Here, yet again, is the truth of this: This March 15, 1861 act of the Confederate Congress puts average tariff rates at 15%, not 10%.
There was never an act proposed or enacted in the Confederacy which would further reduce average rates to 10%.

FLT-bird: "So you're saying due to having to fight a war of national survival forced on them by the Lincoln administration, the Confederate Government jacked tariff rates up to raise additional revenue???? Shocker!"

Those sound like your words to me.
I'm simply saying that your alleged 10% tariff rate, which supposedly "everyone knows", is pure fantasy.
The reality was 15% at best, or roughly the same rates as the US Tariff of 1857, with the CSA 15% rate passed on March 15, 1861 -- well before any military conflict between USA and CSA.

FLT-bird: "Sorry but the denial is simply an unfactual pack of lies.
The historical records make quite clear that the vast majority of federal subsidies went to the Northern states, not the Southern states."

Naw... the fact is that outside the babblings of some Southern politicians, you have not a single fact to confirm such claims.
What both logic and available data suggest is that Federal spending was balanced out pretty well according to each region's congressional representations, such that any serious claims in one Congress were addressed in the next.

FLT-bird: "Not all Democrats were Southern.
Northern Democrats were often as motivated to support the federal pork going to their districts as Northern Republicans were.
And yes, the vast majority of federal expenditures went to the Northern states."

Now you're just ignoring the facts -- from the beginning in the 1790s, Southerners dominated their Democrat party.
While Northerners frequently switched parties -- from Federalists to Democrats, to National Republicans, to Whigs, to Republicans -- Southern Democrats remained in control of their Democrat party until they walked out in 1861.

And despite your constant repetitions of the claim alleging disproportionate Federal expenses "in the North", you cannot present a single fact to support it.

FLT-bird: "This is so much nonsense.
The push to raise tariff rates was about protectionism much more than about raising revenue for the federal government.
Northern manufacturers stood to benefit directly from high tariff rates."

All US tariffs -- even the first one in 1789 -- were protectionist, including protection for Southern products like tobacco, cotton and rice.
The only question is what exact rates were necessary to fund Federal expenses, and the Southern Democrats' Tariff of 1857 proved itself inadequate for Southern Democrats' profligate Federal spending.

Ergo, the proposed Morrill Tariff in 1860.

FLT-bird: "Notice what Rhett was saying."

It's worth noticing, yet again, what all the "Reasons for Secession" documents said:

"Reasons for Secession" Documents before Fort Sumter -- % of words devoted to each reason *

Reasons for Secession	S. Carolina	Mississippi	Georgia	Texas	Rbt. Rhett	A. Stephens	AVERAGE OF 6
Historical context	41%	20%	23%	21%	20%	20%	24%
Slavery	20%	73%	56%	54%	35%	50%	48%
States' Rights	37%	3%	4%	15%	15%	10%	14%
Lincoln's election	2%	4%	4%	4%	5%	0%	3%
Economic issues**	0	0	15%	0%	25%	20%	10%
Military protection	0	0	0	6%	0%	0%	1%

* Alabama listed only slavery in its "whereas" reasons for secession.
** Economic issues include tariffs, "fishing smacks" and other alleged favoritism to Northerners in Federal spending.

Rhett was concerned about other economic issues, but he was equally concerned about slavery.

FLT-bird: "Slavery was being used as a wedge issue by Northern corporate interests to keep the Midwest from siding with the South.
Their interests otherwise aligned and they would have had no more cause to support high tariffs than the Southern states did.
THAT is the sense in which Rhett meant the slavery issue here."

Again you illustrate how your brain is fried with ideas like "The North" and "The South" when reality then, as now, was far more complex and nuanced.
Consider, for example, Congressional votes on the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations":

1. The TOA was originally supported by SC Democrat Sen. Calhoun, Tennessee Democrat Andrew Jackson and Kentucky Whig Sen. Clay.

2. The TOA was most strongly supported by Mid-Atlantic and Mid-Western manufacturing states -- from New York to Missouri.

3. The TOA was opposed by the majority of New Englanders in Congress (16 for, 23 against) because it taxed their raw materials.
   This opposition was led by NY Democrat Sen. Martin Van Buren.

4. The TOA was most strongly opposed by Deep South and Upper South states (4 for, 64 against)

So, again, the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations" was not "North vs. South", but rather multiple regional interests and principles (i.e., "MAGA") at work in the US political process.

FLT-bird: "None of the other declarations of causes goes on to the length Rhett does in describing Tariffs as a big driver of secession.
Georgia focuses much more on grossly unequal federal expenditures.
Texas does talk about the economics but has complaints that the federal government is failing to secure the border (sound familiar?) and failing to protect them adequately against the Commanche who were as savage in their raids as Hamas AND that this was done maliciously ie because Texas was a Southern state and allowed slavery.
They also talked about the specific attempts by Northern terrorists to foment slave rebellions using the US mail, etc.
So Texas had broader concerns than the other Southern states."

None of that is under dispute here.
Rather, the issue is the centrality of slavery in the various "Reasons for Secession" documents, and the fact remains that, whatever other issues were mentioned, every "Reason for Secession" included slavery and for some (i.e., Mississippi & Alabama) slavery was their only reason.

FLT-bird: "Again, there was no need to mention one specific tariff when the issue had been tariffs in general and grossly unequal federal expenditures.
Of course, the Morrill Tariff passed the House in the Spring of 1860 and was sure to pass the Senate in the Spring of 1861 as everyone knew.
So yes, this latest attempt to jack the tariff rate up very high which everyone knew was coming was very much an issue in 1860."

All of that is pure nonsense because:

1. The proposed Morrill Tariff was defeated in the 36th Congress (1860), by Senate Southern Democrats.
   These same Southern Democrats could have easily defeated Morrill in the 37th Congress (1861-1863), where they would still hold the US Senate majority, except... except... except... for the fact that they had walked out over secession.

2. In other words, secession caused Morrill to pass, and without secession there would be no new Morrill Tariff.
   But, typical of Democrats, you want to reverse cause and effect and blame Morrill for what it was, in fact, the direct result of secession, not the cause.

3. A good-faith effort by Southern Democrats to negotiate what they objected most to in Morrill could easily have produced compromises which would have reduced some of Morrill's increases, increased Federal spending on Southerners' favorite boondoggle projects, plus reduced the wasteful Federal spending which had doubled our national debt under Democrat Pres. Buchanan.

In short, tariffs were always highly negotiable and even in the 37th Congress (1861 to 1863), Southerners in Congress had the upper hand to achieve their aims, if that's what they wanted.

Finally, I should mention again that your claims of what supposedly "everyone knew" are not valid and amount to a confession that whatever follows your words "everyone knew" is just nonsense of your own concoction.

FLT-bird: "Everybody knew the Morrill Tariff passed the House in 1860 and was just one or two votes shy of passing the Senate.
They also knew that the Republicans were staunchly in favor of high tariffs.
The only question was which Senator or two would be picked off first."

What your argument here amounts to is a confession that even Southerners didn't care enough -- about preventing a return to the 1846 Walker Tariff levels -- to have stood strong against it, which is just what I've been saying.
The fact remains that Morrill could not have passed the Senate unchanged in 1861, or later, had Southern Democrats stood strong against it.
Morrill only passed in 1861 after many Southerners walked out of Congress.

FLT-bird: "But the balance between the two sections had been thrown off with the admission of California so now Southerners knew they no longer had the votes in the Senate to protect themselves."

That's just nonsense because, first, even in the 37th Congress (1861-63), Democrats were the Senate majority, which meant Southern Democrats could easily influence Northern Democrats to support matters of their vital interest.

Second, even in the House, in 1860 and 1861 there were enough anti-Republican votes to form a coalition Democrat majority, if that's what Southern Democrats wanted to do.
This coalition anti-Republican majority would have included Southern Democrats, Northern Democrats, American "Know Nothings", Constitutional Unionists, and "Opposition" Southerners.
Of course... that would have required negotiations, diplomacy, and playing nice with others, something not all Southerners were highly skilled at, it seems.

FLT-bird: "the actual historical fact is that even the 16% tariff was considerably higher than the South wanted and Washington DC did not have a revenue problem.
It had a spending problem (sound familiar?).
That spending went overwhelmingly to Northern special interests by way of subsidies."

Sorry, but regardless of how often you repeat such nonsense, it remains fact-free because:

1. There is no serious evidence that "The South" wanted tariffs lower than the 16% average from the Tariff of 1857.

2. Doubling the national debt under Democrat Pres. Buchanan (1857 to 1860) did result from a combination of reduced revenues after the Tariff of 1857 plus increased Federal spending.

3. The increased Federal spending had nothing to do with alleged payments "overwhelmingly to Northern special interests by way of subsidies."
   Instead, the biggest cause, by far, of extra Federal spending was on the US military for such projects as:
   • Building US forts in the South and West, such as Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, SC.

   • US Army military adventures such as the Mormon War in Utah -- 1857 to 1858.
     This adventure was commanded by Gen. Albert Syndey Johnson, from Kentucky.

   • US Navy foreign adventures such as the Paraguay Expedition -- 1858 to 1859.
     This adventure was commanded by Admiral Wlm. Shubrick, from South Carolina.

   • US Army border patrols in Texas to protect against "ruthless Indian savages" and "Mexican banditti".
     The US Army there was commanded by, among others, Col Rbt. Lee, from Virginia.

4. There is no evidence of unfair subsidies of "northern special interests" -- yet again, unless you define "The North" as everywhere north of South Carolina!
   Instead, Federal spending was biased towards The South, defined as slave-states, which received about 60% of Federal dollars on Forts, Lighthouses and other Infrastructure.

FLT-bird: "Buchanan was a Pennsylvanian.
Pennsylvania was staunchly in favor of high tariffs.
It would benefit them greatly."

Buchanan was also a Doughfaced Northern Democrat, which means he was highly solicitous of, and beholden to, the special interests of his Southern Democrat allies.
Had they used Buchanan effectively, they could well have negotiated deals which satisfied their major concerns.
Remember, Buchanan was instrumental in both the Tariff of 1857 and the SCOTUS Dred Scott decision.
Buchanan was the South's man for everything except secession.

FLT-bird: "All of your BS denials fall flat.
They DID go for round two which DID jack tariff rates up higher than they had ever been and they left these rates in place for over FIFTY YEARS! "

All of that is fact-free nonsense, which you are now repeating, even after being told the truth of it.

1. Your alleged "round two" came during the Civil War, and so had nothing to do with events or debates in 1860.

2. US tariffs remained high after the Civil War to generate revenues needed to pay down the national debt from the war.
   However, as I reported before, total tariffs were slowly reduced beginning in 1868, as you can see on this graph.

Have to stop here for now...

FLT-bird quoting:

"South Carolina Senator James Hammond had declared that the South paid about $50,000,000 and the North perhaps $20,000,000 of the $70,000,000 raised annually by duties.
In expenditure of the national revenues, Hammond thought the North got about $50,000,000 a year, and the South only $20,000,000. "
When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Succession Charles Adams"

And yet again, a globo-slaver elite from South Carolina, the 1860 butt-hurt state, still smarting from Pres. Jackson's 1832 Nullification trip to the woodshed.
Hammond was a long-time SC politician, former SC governor, who served in the US Senate from 1857 to 1860.

Turns out, according to his own confessions, that Hammond was not only an original SC globo-slaver, but he was also a globo-homo and pedophile.

Regardless, the fact remains that in 1860, US cotton exports accounted for roughly half of all US exports, while other Confederate state exports (i.e., tobacco) added perhaps another 5%.
Union state exports, including California gold and Nevada silver, accounted for the rest.

Further, Hammond's claim (repeating Calhoun & others), that this meant "the South" "paid for" $50 million of US Federal revenues (71%), is just nonsense.
The truth is that Federal tariff revenues were paid for by whomever purchased US imports and so paid those tariffs -- and those were overwhelmingly Northerners, Easterners and Westerners, not Southerners.
As I noted in post #199 above, US imports went everywhere in the US, only occasionally to the South.
Here again are US major import tariff items -- from most to least, and their (biggest destinations):

1. Woolens (for New England cloth manufacturers)
2. Brown Sugar (for Northern Big Cities)
3. Cotton (for New England cloth manufacturers)
4. Silks (for New York clothing manufacturers)
5. Iron (for Northern industrial manufacturers)
6. Coffee (everyone drank coffee)
7. Molasses (for Northern Big Cities)
8. Flax & Hemp (for ropes & canvas, i.e., on ships)
9. Tea (many also drank tea)
10. Wines (and many drank wine)

Finally, we should note that Hammond died at age 56 on November 13, 1864.
His cause of death was reported as mercury poisoning, mercury being the usual treatment for syphilis in those days.

FLT-bird quoting:

[To a Northern Congressman] "You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue laws, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers.
You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay you to build up your great cities, your railroads, your canals.
You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange, which you hold against us.
You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of Northern Capitalist.
You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights and our institutions."
Rep. John H. Reagan of Texas"

I can't confirm this quote, however Texas Congressman Reagan was rewarded for such sophistry by being appointed the CSA's Postmaster General -- by all accounts did a good job and was eventually returned to Congress (1874) and the US Senate (1887) before passing away in eastern Texas at age 86 in 1905.

Reagan's accusations, although doubtless heartfelt, are pure nonsense, except in that they confirm the centrality of slavery to Confederates' Reasons for Secession.

FLT-bird quoting:

"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.”
Senator Jefferson Davis 1860

Again, I can't confirm the quote or the circumstances, but it does sound like the kind of words that made Jefferson Davis the new Confederacy's president.
It's pure nonsense, yet another Democrat Big Lie, but it certainly helped to inspire Southerners that slavery was under assault by Northerners intent on "cheating" the South with "unjust legislation" for "Northern aggrandizement" to promote New England industry at the expense of Southern industry.

None of these quotes reduce the roll of slavery as a central cause of 1860 and 1861 Declarations of Secession.

FLT-bird quoting:

"On November 19, 1860 Senator Robert Toombs gave a speech to the Georgia convention in which he denounced the "infamous Morrill bill."
The tariff legislation, he argued, was the product of a coalition between abolitionists and protectionists in which "the free-trade abolitionists became protectionists; the non-abolition protectionists became abolitionists."
Toombs described this coalition as "the robber and the incendiary... united in joint raid against the South."

We've dealt with Toombs before and can do so again.
Here are the key points:

1. The first point to notice is that this was November 19, 1860, after the November 6 election, during which opposition to the proposed Morrill Tariff was not mentioned in any of the four party platforms -- Southern Democrats, Northern Democrats, Constitutional Unionists or Republicans.
   Nor did Southern Fire Eaters threaten secession, before the election, over the Morrill Tariff.

2. Southern Democrats killed the Morrill Tariff in the 36th Congress (1860) and could have easily killed it again in the 37th Congress (1861-1863) had they not resigned due to secession.
   So, the Morrill Tariff was not a serious threat to the South in 1860 or 1861 -- nor did the vast majority of Southerners treat it as such.

   Former Mississippi Democrat Sen. Robert Walker:

   

3. Toombs' arguments here against the Morrill Tariff are just typical Democrat BS nonsense.
   In fact, all Morrill seriously needed to do was reduce the Federal debt by increasing tariff rates from the 16% of the 1857 Tariff back to the 25% of the 1846 Walker Tariff -- the Walker Tariff was named after former Mississippi Democrat Sen. Robert Walker, who proposed it, under Southern Democrat Pres. Polk and so it passed without serious Democrat opposition.

4. Regardless, notice that yet again Toombs paired the tariff with slavery as threats against Georgia.
   This is the same pattern we've seen with others, notably Rhett.

5. Finally, we should notice that Georgia's official "Reasons for Secession" document does list tariffs, but pairs them with slavery and also commends the 1846 Walker Tariff as the example setter of a good tariff.
   After the 1860 elections, Southern Democrats would still retain power in Congress to at least insure there was no significant difference between the 1846 Walker Tariff and the 1861 Morrill Tariff.

FLT-bird: "Gosh......looks like a live political issue to me both long before 1860 and right through 1860."

Of course, tariffs were always at issue in Washington -- tariffs were "politics as usual" -- but outside of South Carolina in 1832, tariffs were never the source of threats of Southern secession.

FLT-bird: "The North had a sectional party that in its party platform called for high tariffs.
The South was dominated by a political party that supported low tariffs.
Each of those parties saw little opposition in their regions."

Sure, but calls for lower tariffs -- or complaints about high tariffs -- were not mentioned in any of the 1860 party platforms.
Nor did any Southern politician ever threaten secession over the Morrill Tariff -- at least not that has ever been presented in these threads.

FLT-bird: "There had been other tariffs in the past and for all they knew could be others in the future.
The Morrill Tariff was but the latest attempt.
It was jacking tariff rates up and the grossly unequal federal government expenditures they complained of - not just one particular attempt to jack those tariff rates up one time."

Sure, but tariffs were always "politics as usual", where specific rates could go up or down with each new Congress and political alignment.
With the sole exception of one state, South Carolina, and one episode, the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations", tariffs were never weaponized to threaten secession or war against the United States.

FLT-bird: "As we've already discussed the Morrill Tariff proposed doubling tariff rates and everyone knew they would not stop there.
That was just the first bite of the apple.
Also, we need to remember that even the 16 tariff was considerably higher than the Southern States wanted as evidenced by them setting 10% as the maximum tariff rate allowable under the Confederate Constitution."

Sorry, but now you're just repeating your talking points.
The truth is the original 1860 Morrill proposal increased average rates from 16% to around 26%, and that was defeated by Southern Democrats in Congress.
So, there was no "first bite of the apple", much less a "second bit" -- all that is just nonsense.

Finally, we've covered this before -- your alleged 10% CSA tariff is a total fantasy because nobody in the CSA congress ever proposed it, and that congress never enacted such a rate.
The actual rates in March 1861 (the only rates ever effectively enforced) were about the same as the US Tariff of 1857 or 15%.

FLT-bird: "Oh, and of course only 4 states issued declarations of causes, not 7."

Yes, before the Battle of Fort Sumter, four states issued official "Reasons for Secession" documents -- SC, MS, GA & TX -- plus two individuals wrote highly influential statements -- Rhett and Stephens -- plus one state, Alabama, included a reason in its Declaration of Secession, and that reason was, of course, slavery.

FLT-bird: "Southern political leaders thought the tariffs and subsidies of Northern "infant industries" would be TEMPORARY.
They did not think they were signing up to have their and their children's pockets picked for generations. "

Here's how you can know those words are 100% nonsense -- the first US tariff was enacted in 1789:

"The Tariff Act of 1789 was the first major piece of legislation passed in the United States after the ratification of the United States Constitution.
It had two purposes: to protect manufacturing industries developing in the nation and to raise revenue for the federal government.
It was sponsored by Congressman James Madison, passed by the 1st United States Congress, and signed into law by President George Washington.
The act levied a 50¢ per ton duty on goods imported by foreign ships; American-owned vessels were charged 6¢ per ton...

Charges up to fifty percent were imposed on selected manufactured and agricultural goods, including "steel, ships, cordage, tobacco, salt, indigo [and] cloth."

In 1789, tobacco was the US number one export, and notice it is protected by the highest possible tariff, 50%.

So all of the essential features of tariffs in, for example, 1860 were also present in the very first tariff under Pres. Washington, as submitted to Congress by Congressman James Madison.

This is a good place to stop for now...

FKT-bird: "FIFY"

In this case obviously standing for "Falsified It For You". 😂

FKT-bird: "Your claim that only adult head of household White men were slaveholders is what is really not supported by any data.
We know of numerous examples of women being slave owners like Lee's and Grant's wives who inherited them from their families."

It turns out that you're right about women slaveholders -- I did not expect what I found when I looked into it.
In the 1860 census (and before) slaveholders were listed on slave schedules by county, and their slaves were listed by number (not by name) with information on the slaves' age, sex and race (black or mulatto).
In the samples I looked at a significant percentage of the slaveholders were women -- at least 10%, perhaps even 20%.
Further, in this book, Stephanie Jones-Rogers reports that during the 18th century in South Carolina, up to 40% of slave bills of sale included a woman as either buyer or seller.

However, what you are not correct about is your suggestion that women (or children) slaveholders significantly reduce the number of slaveholding families from 316,632 in the 11 Confederate states.
The reason is because there are no examples I could find of a Mr. & Mrs. Slaveholder listed on the slave-schedules, or of parent & children slaveholders.
In other words, there was only ever one slaveholder listed per family, though quite often that one was a woman.

This means that all the logic of circa 300,000 Confederate states' slaveholder families at 5.5 members per family results in approximately 1,650,000 Confederates belonging to slaveholding families, which is roughly 30% of 5.5 million free Confederates.
Of course, this number varied from around 50% in some counties of the Deep South to fewer than 1% in other counties, notably Appalachia.

FKT-bird: "You are simply ASSUMING that only the male head of household could possible be a slaveowner - in defiance of numerous examples - so you can maximize the number of slave owning families.
You couldn't be more transparent."

Yes, it turns out you are right to say a good percentage of slaveholders listed in 1860 slave-schedules were women -- between 10% and 20% in the samples I looked at.
However, I never saw even one example where both a husband and wife (or children) were both listed as slaveholders.
Therefore, it's entirely fair to say that the 316,632 Confederate slaveholders named in the 1860 census represent at least 300,000 slaveholder families.

FKT-bird: "Again, you are wrong.
Half of the 5.63% of the White population who were slaveowners fell into the more than 5 category.
So 2.8%, not 1%."

You missed my point -- it's this:

1. Of 316,632 named Confederate state slaveholders on the 1860 census, you say the median number of slaves was about 5, meaning half owned more than five, half fewer.
   Your number makes sense and I have no reason to dispute it.

2. If the average of those owning fewer than 5 slaves was half = 2.5 slaves then approximately 160,000 slaveholders owned 400,000 slaves or just over 10% of all slaves.

3. We also know the top 1% of slaveholders = 3,166 Confederate slaveholders, owned roughly 25% of all slaves, or about 900,000 slaves.

4. If we are going to find multiple slaveholders in one family, i.e., Mr. & Mrs. Slaveholder and their children each listed separately on census slave-schedules, then it would be amongst those 1%, logically.

In my samplings I didn't find any, but logically, they might well exist amongst the top 1% of slaveholding families.

FKT-bird: "Of course this only holds if the false assumption that only the male head of household could possibly own slaves and we know this to be false."

We now know that a significant percentage of slaveholders named in the 1860 census slave-schedules were women -- 10% to 20% in my samples.
However, I found no examples of a Mr. & Mrs. Slaveholder listed separately, or of children listed with their parents as slaveholders.
This means the number of named slaveholders -- 316,632 -- must also fairly represent the number of slaveholder families in Confederate states, which is roughly 30% of all families.

quoting BJK: "In Southern regions where slavery was weakest, there anti-slavery Unionism was strongest."

FKT-bird: "Not uniformly and this often had as much to do with social class and....the mountain folk were rather clannish.
They always had been and still are today.
Many of them weren't necessarily pro union though there were some.
More of them just wanted to be left alone and particularly did not want to be conscripted."

Agreed, generally, however, we should also notice that these anti-slavery Confederate regions produced significant numbers of white Union troops, including:

1. 21,000 from Eastern Tennessee
2. 3,000 from Western North Carolina
3. 20,000 from Western Virginia
4. 2,000 from Texas
5. 8,000 from Arkansas
6. 2,000 from Alabama

FKT-bird: "As I said, McPherson didn't provide any evidence backing up his guesstimate."

What you mean, truthfully, is that you never read McPherson and so you don't know what evidence he provided.
You are simply arguing from ignorance.

FKT-bird: "ROTFLMAO!!!! at the claim that almost all Confederate army officers were slaveholders.
Total BS.
You know how you became a captain and the head of a company in both armies North and South?
You got elected by the troops!
YES!
My G-G-Grandfather was one of those captains who was elected by his men.
I know from the 1860 US Census he was not a slaveowner nor were any of his 5 brothers who also served in the Confederate Army....nor his wife's two brothers who also served in the Confederate army nor my G-G-Uncle from the namebearing line who also served in the Confederate army. Not a single slaveowner among them.
Multiple officers.
Several other army officers were likewise not slave owners.
This is more of your PC Revisionist propaganda and lies."

Well, first, all promotions to higher ranks were made top-down, and of general grade Confederate officers the only non-slaveholder I know of was Patrick Cleburne, commander of Cleburne's Division in the Army of Tennessee.
He is famous for proposing enlisting Confederate slaves in exchange for their freedom.
He was passed over for promotion and killed at Franklin while attempting to carry out John Bell Hood's insane orders (attack! attack! attack!)

Second, you are obviously familiar with census slave-schedules, and may remember that they list slaveholders by county and so you could easily count the numbers of slaveholders in your ancestors' counties.
This would give you an idea of the percentages of slaveholder families and correspondingly, whether those counties more or less enthusiastically supported the Confederate war efforts.

FKT-bird: "And yet.....and yet....all your BS denials can't hide the fact that numerous Southern Political leaders had been complaining bitterly about the tariffs and grossly unequal federal expenditures for decades and the two largest newspapers from the original 7 seceding states made it quite clear that what was really driving all of this was the Tariff issue."

So, first of all, that "complaining bitterly" following the 1828 Tariff of Abominations and the 1832 Nullification Crisis resulted in four drastic reductions in tariffs:

1. The Tariff of 1832 (under Southern Democrat Pres. Jackson)
2. The Tariff of 1833 (under Southern Democrat Pres. Jackson)
3. The Walker Tariff of 1846 (under Southern Democrat Pres. Polk)
4. The Tariff of 1857 (under Northern Doughfaced Democrat Pres. Buchanan)

These reduced average tariffs from over 50% in 1830 to around 16% in 1860, their lowest since the early years of Pres. Washington's administration.

The predictable result was national debt doubled under Doughfaced Democrat Pres. Buchanan and that is why he signed the Morrill Tariff when it finally did pass.

Second, you only quote one newspaper, not two, from before the election, and that was, naturally, the Charleston Mercury, from the 1832 Nullification state, still nursing its wounds and plotting its revenge.
It clearly tells us that the globo-slaver elites of South Carolina were as rebellious as ever -- however, there was no way the vast majority of loyal Southern citizens could be convinced to declare secession and wage war against the United States over minor adjustments in tariff rates.

That's why Southern Fire Eaters made their propaganda all about slavery, slavery, slavery.

FKT-bird: "Slavery was a non issue in secession.
It was merely the pretext which allowed Southern states to argue truthfully that the Northern states had violated the compact."

The truth is that there was not even one in one hundred Southern citizens who would consider declaring secession and war against the United States over the Morrill plan to return tariffs to their 1846 Walker Tariff rates -- rates that were commended in Georgia's official "Reasons for Secession" document.

That's why Fire Eaters and Southern propagandists made it all about slavery, slavery, slavery.

FKT-bird #170: "Southerners saw the effects of the tariff when they got less money from Wholesalers for their cash crops."

quoting BJK: "That is such a bald-faced lie I can't even believe you'd claim it -- have you no intellectual honesty at all??"

FKT-bird: "Nope!
Its 100% true and your denial is the bald faced lie.
Talk about lack of intellectual honesty!"

Here's the truth:

1. You cannot provide either historical factual or logical connections between import tariff rates and prices paid for Southern cash crops -- so your claim here is just nonsense.

2. "Wholesaler" is not the correct term for that period.
   A "Factor" was very often the person who bought cash crops (like raw cotton) from producers, then transported and sold them to manufacturers.

FKT-bird: "Where a tariff is paid is IRRELEVANT.
WHO PAYS IT is what matters.
Southerners, being the exporters and importers, were the ones paying - not Northern ports.
As for Wholesale prices being depressed by high tariffs...OF COURSE THEY WERE.
Its basic economics.
If your imports are heavily tariffed, you are not going to make as much from the whole export/import venture. "

Sorry, but all of that is fact-free word-salad babbling nonsense, and you should well know better.
The truth is simple and straightforward:

1. During this period, 90% of imports came through Northern ports, especially New York, where they went into bonded warehouses, unsold.

2. When those imports sold, then tariffs were paid, and products shipped from these warehouses to customers anywhere in the US.

3. There is neither evidence nor logic suggesting that disproportionate percentages of imports shipped from, say, New York to Southern customers.

   

4. The major import US items and their customers were:
   • Woolens (for New England cloth manufacturers)
   • Brown Sugar (for Northern Big Cities)
   • Cotton (for New England cloth manufacturers)
   • Silks (for New York clothing manufacturers)
   • Iron (for Northern industrial manufacturers)
   • Coffee (everyone drank coffee)
   • Molasses (for Northern Big Cities)
   • Flax & Hemp (for ropes & canvas, i.e., on ships)
   • Tea (many also drank tea)
   • Wines (and many drank wine)

   None of these imports then shipped primarily to Southern customers.

   Of course, tariffs make imports more expensive, but nobody was forced to buy such products, nor did Southerners pay a disproportionate share of tariffs.

FKT-bird: "That's money out of your pocket.
You therefore are not going to be able to pay as much for the commodity you are exporting.
Also since their export sales are reduced due to the tariff, the English and French are not going to have as much money and will not be able to buy as much imports.
So as the Southern exporter, not only are your profits reduced, the sales of your commodity are reduced as well."

Regardless of your logic (or lack of) the facts remain that US cotton production & exports exploded between 1800 and 1860, with customers in Europe and elsewhere consuming every pound produced at prices which remained relatively stable over decades -- see the chart at right ------>

Overall prosperity in the US South was among the highest regions in the world, this growing prosperity reflected in the ever-increasing prices for slaves.

FKT-bird: "How can you not?....and how can you just sit there and lie about it?"

I would be lying if I said your words on this matter are factual and make good sense, which is why I've not said that.

FKT-bird: "And yet they saw their sales decline in the 1820s when tariff rates were about as high as the Morrill Tariff would go."

First, you can see yourself, what were the prices and production from 1800 to 1860.
The facts don't support your claims.

Second, the original Morrill rates simply returned tariffs to their 1846 Walker rates of circa 26%.
Even with later increases made necessary by the Civil War, tariffs never reached levels of the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations".

FKT-bird: "You forgot agricultural equipment which was a major item.
All of those goods could be and were manufactured by the English and French.
The English in particular had a massive textile industry.
The price of all those goods went up considerably as tariff rates were jacked up."

All such tariffs were intended to protect American manufacturers.
As Republican Pres. Trump said at that time, they Made America Great and Put Americans First.

FKT-bird: "Who was the low cost producer that was undercutting the South on price for those items?
Gee, that would be....errr.......nobody!
It wasn't the South that was clamoring for higher tariffs.
Quite the opposite."

The South already had 25% tariffs on its own exports, and yet despite those, cotton (#3) and sugar (#2) were still among the largest US import items.

FKT-bird: "Its true many Southern Politicians had supported high tariffs initially not understanding the effects they would have.
Once they saw it in the 1820s they very quickly changed their minds and wanted them repealed.
It was of course Northern manufacturers who loved those sky high tariffs."

And yet again, the Big Lie -- that it was all about "North vs. South" -- when in reality, most New Englanders opposed the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations" and many Southerners supported it.
So, it wasn't about "where you lived" but rather it was about "what you did" for a living.
And the key point to remember here is that protective tariffs on Southern products like cotton and sugar were already as high as northern manufacturers wanted put on their products too.

FKT-bird: "Repeating your my BS is not going to make it any less false.
The national debt was not caused by low tariffs.
It was caused by excessive government spending - excessive demands by Northern Southern Democrat special interests for subsidies.
What the government needed to do was cut those subsidies."

F.I.F.Y.

quoting BroJoeK: "Tariffs were not a political issue in the South or anywhere else in 1860."

FKT-bird: "This is a bold faced lie as I have shown many times."

Naw, all you've shown is that globo-slaver elites in Charleston, SC, were still butt-hurting in 1860 over being taken to the woodshed by Southern Democrat Pres. Jackson in 1832, but the fact remains that none of the four political parties in 1860 made lower tariffs a party platform issue.

Nor did any Southern Fire Eater or politician in 1860 ever threaten to secede over tariffs.
Threats of secession were always about slavery and "Black Republicans".

FKT-bird quoting:

"The north has adopted a system of revenue and disbursements, in which an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed on the South, and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the north ...
The South as the great exporting portion of the Union has, in reality, paid vastly more than her due proportion of the revenue,"
John C Calhoun Speech on the Slavery Question," March 4, 1850"

Well, first of all, Calhoun is lying here, what he says is simply not true, unless, unless, unless you define "the North" as everywhere North of South Carolina!
But, if you define "the South" normally, as South of the Mason Dixon line, then Calhoun is just lying.

Second, what's important to understand here is that outside of South Carolina's globo-slaver elites, nobody cared enough about tariffs to threaten secession over minor adjustments.

That is why Southern Fire Eaters -- like Yancey, Wigfall, Rhett, etc. -- shifted tactics from lying about tariffs to lying about slavery.

Jefferson complains because Massachusetts and Connecticut
didn't vote for his friend James Monroe in 1816:

FKT-bird quoting:

"Northerners are the fount of most troubles in the new Union.
Connecticut and Massachusetts exhaust our strength and substance and its inhabitants are marked by such a perversity of character they have divided themselves from the rest of America"
- Thomas Jefferson in an 1820 letter"

Assuming this quote is accurate, Jefferson is simply complaining about the two states which did not vote for the Democrat candidate in 1816.
In 1820 those states did vote for the Democrat, and since 1800 many Northerners voted for Jefferson and his friends:

1. In 1800, Northerners from Pennsylvania and New York supported Jefferson, that's how he got elected president.
   
2. In 1804, every Northern state except Connecticut voted for Jefferson.
   
3. In 1808, Northerns from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Vermont voted for Virginian, James Madison.
   
4. In 1812, despite Washington, DC's war against New England, Northerners from Pennsylvania and Vermont voted for Madison.
   
5. In 1816, Northerners from every state except Massachusetts and Connecticut voted for Virginian James Monroe.

6. In 1820, every Northern state voted for Pres. Monroe.

So, Jefferson in 1820 seems to be complaining that not every Northern state voted for Southern Democrats in every single election.

FKT-bird quoting:

"Before... the revolution [the South] was the seat of wealth, as well as hospitality....
Wealth has fled from the South, and settled in regions north of the Potomac: and this in the face of the fact, that the South, in four staples alone, has exported produce, since the Revolution, to the value of eight hundred millions of dollars; and the North has exported comparatively nothing.
Such an export would indicate unparalleled wealth, but what is the fact? ...
Under Federal legislation, the exports of the South have been the basis of the Federal revenue.....
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, cited at page 49 of The South Was Right!, by James Ronald Kennedy & Walter Donald Kennedy"

So, there's quite a bit to unpackage here, including:

1. This Benton quote is from 1828, while Missouri Sen. Benton was a close ally of Andrew Jackson.
   Jackson supported the Tariff of Abominations, arguing that it would Make America Great and Put Americans First.
   So, Benton's opposition is almost as hard to understand as John C. Calhoun's original support for the Tariff of Abominations.

2. None of Benton's argument is factually true.
   In fact, the North always had substantial exports, including salted fish, manufactured textiles, iron manufactures, wheat, grain, leather goods and furs.

3. Benton claims that "Under Federal legislation, the exports of the South have been the basis of the Federal revenue".
   This is the kind of nonsense Democrats specialize in -- it's how they make their livings, inventing lies just as clever as they are damaging.
   The truth is that while Southern exports certainly contributed to US economic prosperity, and therefore Federal tariff revenues, those exports were no more the "basis" of it than any other economic production.

4. Benton next claims, regarding Virginia, Carolinas and Georgia's exports: "...of this great sum, annually furnished by them, nothing or next to nothing is returned to them, in the shape of Government expenditures."
   This is pure nonsense since, even in 1828, Federal spending was highly skewed toward slave-states, including 60% of all spending on forts, lighthouses and other infrastructure.

   But Benton here suggests that it's not even good enough that most Federal spending is in The South, but it needs to be in the four specific states of Virginia, Carolinas and Georgia.
   That's so ridiculous, I don't think even Benton believed it.
   So I suspect there was something going on between Benton and Calhoun regarding the Tariff of 1828, which passed Congress with strong support from Benton's state of Missouri and Benton's political ally, Andrew Jackson.

This is another good place to stop.

FLR-bird: "Nope! its the reality.
The denial of it is the lie."

FRiend, you are here peddling Lost Cause propaganda, which by definition is a pack of lies.
Of course, any propaganda will include the occasional fact and truth, but only where those coincidentally support the overall fake narrative.
So, I'm happy to acknowledge occasional facts appearing in Lost Cause narratives, but by definition, those are not "Lost Cause", they are simply elements of history.

FLR-bird: "Its true that the Wealthy owned a grossly disproportionate share of the slaves.
Of that 5.63% of all White Southerners who owned slaves, half owned 5 or fewer."

Your 5.63% number comes from the 1860 census which reported 316,632 named slaveholders in the 11 Deep South and Upper South states, out of their 5,482,222 total free population.
Your suggestion -- that large numbers of these slaveholders were other than adult white men -- is not supported by any data, and all logic dictates that the adult male "head of household" was listed on the census as the named slaveholder regardless of whom the family itself may have considered "owned" each slave.

Further, where you could find multiple slaveholders listed on the census for one family -- if anywhere -- is among the 1% of slaveholders who owned circa 25% of all slaves, meaning statistically it's insignificant.

And we do have a number for the average household size in 1860 -- it was 5.5 members, meaning circa 300,000 slaveholder families represented 1,650,000 people, or 30% of all whites in Confederate states.
However, the distribution of slaves and slaveholders was highly uneven, ranging from over 50% in some counties to fewer than 1% in others.

FLR-bird: "The percentage of White families which owned slaves was relatively small and this was more true in the Upper South where industrialization was more advanced and where for the most part the land was less suited to growing cash crops like cotton and tobacco."

Any map of the time shows where slavery was concentrated (up to 50%) and where it was weakest (less than 1%).
In Southern regions where slavery was weakest, there anti-slavery Unionism was strongest.

FLR-bird on McPherson's estimate of 1/3 slaveholder families: "Yeah I've seen his claims here and don't find them credible.
He doesn't provide much evidence for his guesstimate."

Here is the truth of this matter -- McPherson could easily have estimated 20% or 25% or 40% and all of those numbers are correct for some Confederate Army units from some Confederate regions, but the "overall" estimate depends 100% on how you decide to calculate it.
Regardless, one thing we can be certain of -- almost 100% of Confederate army officers and political leaders were slaveholders, regardless of how many of their troops did, or did not, come from slaveholding families.

FLR-bird: "Gosh, how did these parties do in the Deep South?
Oh that's right!
They were complete non entities.
The Southern Democrats utterly dominated the South - most especially the Deep South and they were not at all shy in their complaints about the Tariff or about the totally unequal federal government expenditures.
They had not been shy about complaining about it bitterly for years and years."

1860 Presidential Election, green = Southern Democrats

And yet... and yet... all your endless nonsense notwithstanding, the 1860 Southern Democrat Party platform said... {wait for it...}... not one word about tariffs!!

Tariffs were a non-issue in the 1860 campaign.

FLR-bird: "This is 100% pure unadulterated BS.
Southerners saw the effects of the tariff when they got less money from Wholesalers for their cash crops."

That is such a bald-faced lie I can't even believe you'd claim it -- have you no intellectual honesty at all??

Import Tariffs -- over 90% paid in Northern ports like New York, Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco -- had nothing whatever, zero, zip, nada, zilch, to do with wholesale prices paid to cotton farmers in Mississippi, or anywhere else.

How can you conceivably not understand that??

FLR-bird: "They saw the effects of the tariff when they saw sales of their cash crops decline in foreign markets. "

And yet the value of Southern exports grew exponentially from, say, 1820 to 1860.
In 1860 the American South was among the most prosperous regions on earth.

FLR-bird: "They saw the effects of the tariff when the price of the manufactured goods they needed to buy went up considerably."

And still, you're talking nonsense because the top items "imported" by Southerners "from the North" were:

1. Clothing made from Southern Cotton

2. Woolen goods made from Northern Wool.

3. Shoes and other leather goods made from Western Leather.

Imported luxury goods like silk, linen, musical instruments and furniture were only purchased by the wealthiest of slaveholders, not average Southerners.

Yes, cast iron stoves, railroad iron, bar, sheet and iron nails -- all those were slightly more expensive due to tariffs on iron imports.
But those tariffs were the same as tariffs on Southern exports of cotton, tobacco and sugar, so surely, what was good for the goose should be good for the entire flock, right?

FLR-bird: "They knew full well exactly what caused all of this - high tariffs.
That's what caused the Nullification Crisis after all."

The 1832 Nullification Crisis was caused by the 1828 Tariff of Abominations which had been supported by many Southerners including, most famously, Democrat Pres. Andrew Jackson.

The 1832 Nullification Crisis resulted in drastic tariff reductions in 1832, 1833, 1846 and 1857.
As a result of the 1857 Tariff reductions, the US national debt doubled under Democrat Pres. Buchanan, which led to Morrill's proposal to increase tariffs back to their 1846 Walker levels.

Tariffs were not a political issue in the South or anywhere else in 1860.

FLR-bird: "More complete and utter BS.
It was a political issue in the 1820s.
It was a political issue during the Nullification Crisis.
It had been an ongoing political issue ever since then.
Multiple Southern politicians said quite openly that the ruinously high tariffs were ample ground for them to secede.
They had been saying similar things for a long time."

Sure, Southern Democrat Fire Eaters (Yancey, Wigfall, Rhett, etc.) grasping at every straw they could find to justify secession and war against the USA -- however, even they well understood that Tariffs were a non-issue among the vast majority of Southern voters, which is why they stayed focused on slavery, slavery, slavery.

Tariffs were a non-issue in the 1860 election.

FLR-bird: "They didn't say "Morrill" Tariff specifically but they said "they drain our substance via sectional partisan legislation" (Texas)..."

Well, first of all, you've misquoted, the actual words are:

"They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance."

Those words are vague enough to mean anything, or nothing at all -- they don't mention either tariffs or duties, much less the Morrill Tariff specifically -- plus, they are flatly untrue, since in 1860 few regions on earth were more prosperous than the American South.

FLR-bird: "they complained bitterly about tariffs and the grossly unequal federal expenditures which benefitted the North at the South's expense (Georgia)"

No, in fact, the Georgia "Reasons for Secession" commended the Walker Tariff of 1846, which are just the rates Morrill was intending to restore.

"After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed.
It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people.
The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy."

FLR-bird: "...or they complained bitterly about both the Tariff and the grossly unequal federal expenditures which benefitted the North at the South's expense (Rhett's address attached to and sent out with South Carolina's declaration of Causes)."

There's no doubt, of the seven documents which provided Reasons for Secession before Fort Sumter (SC, GA, MS, TX, AL, Rhett & Stephens), Rhett (from 1832 Nullifier South Carolina) put more words into his complaints about tariffs than any other.
However, even Rhett paired his economic complaints together with slavery:

1. "It cannot be believed that our ancestors would have assented to any union whatever with the people of the North if the feelings and opinions now existing among them had existed when the Constitution was framed.
   There was then no tariff -- no negro fanaticism."

   Here Rhett is simply wrong because our Founders well intended both tariffs and "negro fanaticism", meaning abolition wherever possible.

2. "To build up their sectional predominance in the Union, the Constitution must be first abolished by constructions; but that being done, the consolidation of the North to rule the South, by the tariff and Slavery issues, was in the obvious course of things."

   Again, notice that even Rhett, from tariff nullifying South Carolina, pairs tariffs and slavery as equal issues.
   No other "Reasons for Secession" gives such prominence to complaints over tariffs.

   And even Rhett does not mention the Morrill Tariff, for the perhaps obvious reason that as of December 14, 1860, the Morrill Tariff was dead in Congress -- Morrill was not an issue in the 1860 campaign nor at the time of South Carolina's declaration of secession.

FLR-bird: "No, that is false.
Everybody knew the first round of the Morrill Tariff would not be the last.
They "only" proposed to double tariff rates but once they pushed that through, they weren't going to stop."

Sorry, but now you are just babbling fact-free nonsense, since your "everybody knew" is nothing more than your own mythologizing fantasy.

The actual historical fact is that the Tariff of 1857 had reduced the previous 1846 Walker Tariff to levels lower than any since our first tariffs in 1790, and the predictable results were to double the national debt between 1857 and 1860.
That is exactly why Democrat Pres. Buchanan did not veto Morrill after Southern Democrat withdrawals from Congress finally let it pass on March 2, 1861.

All of your nonsense about a "round two" happened during the Civil War, when there were no revenues from Confederate ports and there was a war to be paid for -- not anticipated in 1860.

Finally, the original increase from Morrill in 1862 was to ~26% from the 1857 rate of 16% and compared to the 1846 Walker average rate of 25%.
Even at the peak of the Civil War, Morrill rates did not reach those of the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations".

FLR-bird: "They'd keep pushing until the Tariff rates were pushed to the stratosphere as indeed they were going to an incredible 53% where they stayed until passage of the 16th amendment in 1913.
The Walker Tariff was 25%."

No, overall tariff rates were reduced below 30% in 1873, where they remained in the high 20%s until 1888 when tariffs fell below 25% and then to 20% in 1911.

The number one reason for the high tariff rates was to generate surplus revenues used to pay down the Civil War national debt -- which over those years was reduced from 33% of GDP in 1865 to 8% of GDP in 1910.

Today's national debt is north of 122% of GDP.

FLR-bird: "Southerners agreed to the Walker Tariff because that was as low as they could get the tariff rates and they knew it.
It was still far far higher than would have been appropriate to meet their needs.
Free to set their own tariff rates in the Confederate Constitution they set their maximum at 10%."

That is a total myth.
The truth is that Confederates simply adopted the US 1857 Tariff rates with some minor adjustments, in February 1861.
Then on March 15:

"March 15, 1861.
"The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, That an ad valorem duty of fifteen per cent. shall be imposed on the following named articles imported from abroad into the Confederate States of America, in lieu of the duties now imposed by law, to wit: Coal, cheese, iron in blooms, pigs, bars, bolts and slabs, and on all iron in a less manufactured state; also on railroad rails, spikes, fishing plates, and chairs used in the construction of railroads; paper of all sorts and all manufactures of; wood, unmanufactured, of all sorts."

Then on May 21, 1861 Confederates published a new schedule of tariffs which ranged from zero to over 25% and which we discussed at great length here, in 2019

Those final Confederate tariffs were supposed to take effect on August 31, 1861, but in fact were never really paid, since by then the Union blockade had all but eliminated normal tariff revenue producing imports.
During the Civil War, Confederate blockade runners were not known for paying normal tariffs.

FLR-bird: "LOL!
Pure BS.
The Tariff was raised because corporate interests had been screaming for it for commercial reasons.
A higher tariff meant they could raise price and still gain market share.
Similarly, who were the ones who had their greedy hands out grasping for ever more federal pork paid for mostly by Southerners?
Why that would be Northerners yet again.
It was they who got all kinds of subsidies for their fishing fleets, for mining, for public works like the Erie Canal and the Sewer system for NYC and especially for Railroads."

Sorry, but all of that is fact-free nonsense unconnected to any historical records or reality.

The actual historical facts are simple -- when Southern Democrats had majorities in 1857, they reduced the 1846 Walker tariff from ~25% to 16%.
However, they did not correspondingly reduce profligate Federal spending (Democrats never do) and so the US national debt doubled from 1857 to 1860.
This created a perceived need for higher tariffs and Morrill's proposal was to, basically, return rates to the 25% Walker 1846 levels which Southern Democrats had previously proposed and approved.

That's why Democrat Pres. Buchanan did not veto the new Morrill Tariff when it finally passed Congress on March 2, 1861.

And this is a good place to stop for now...

FLT-bird: "Most Southerners who did not own slaves were FAR more concerned about tariffs than they were about slaves!!!!"

That is a total Lost Cause lie, and here's why:

1. First, how many slaveholders were there?
   In 1860, 15 slaveholding states with roughly 8 million whites (plus 4 million slaves), about half were males and half of those adults (the median age in 1860 was 19), of whom about half were relatively prosperous -- so, in 1860 the entire South included about one million prosperous adult white men.

   According to the 1860 census, ~400,000 were slaveholders, meaning circa 40% of prosperous white men.
   But slaveholders and slaves were far from evenly distributed over the South, about half of all slaveholders lived in the seven Deep South states, meaning, of ~300,000 prosperous adult white men in the Deep South, nearly 200,000 owned slaves.

   Further, everybody in those days had very large families and communities of close friends -- meaning everyone was closely related or associated with slaveholders.
   So, nearly anyone who didn't themselves hold slaves was closely related to others who did.

   That meant only in relatively "backward" regions -- i.e., Appalachia, northern Alabama, central & northern Texas -- where few or no slaves were held, could communities be found to actually oppose slavery, secession and civil war against "the North".

   

2. Slaveholders in the Confederate Army:

   "Historian Joseph Glatthaar’s statistical analysis of the 1861 volunteers in what would become the Army of Northern Virginia reveals that one in 10 owned a slave and that one in four lived with parents who were slave-owners.
   Both exceeded ratios in the general population, in which one in 20 owned a slave and one in five lived in a slaveholding household.
   “Thus,” Glatthaar notes, “volunteers in 1861 were 42 percent more likely to own slaves themselves or to live with family members who owned slaves than the general population.”
   In short, Confederate volunteers actually owned more slaves than the general population."

   It's important to remember that these percentages varied widely among different regions of the South.
   Historian James McPherson estimates 1/3 of Confederate soldiers came from slaveholding families, and doubtless that's true of some regions, not true of others.

3. How important were tariffs in the 1860 presidential election?
   • The 1860 Southern Democrat Party (Breckenridge) platform said not one word about tariffs.

   • The 1860 Northern Democrat Party (Douglas) platform said not one word about tariffs.

   • The 1860 Constitutional Union Party (Bell) platform said not one word about tariffs.

   • The 1860 Republican Party (Donald Trump) platform said this about tariffs:

     "12. That, while providing revenue for the support of the general government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these imports as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country; and we commend that policy of national exchanges, which secures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerative prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor, and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence -- in other words, MAKE AMERICA GREAT and PUT AMERICANS FIRST -- DJT"

4. 95% of Southerners never saw a tariff and never paid a tariff, so tariffs were irrelevant to their lives except in a vague sense of everybody grumbles about high prices.
   But this was not a political issue in 1860, nor did any Southern politician threaten secession over tariffs.

5. Not a single 1860 or 1861 "Reasons for Secession" document mentioned the Morrill Tariff specifically, or even high tariffs generally as their reason for secession.

FLT-bird: "This is just false.
Yeah they were negotiable and were part of politics but one region had a significantly larger population and thus was able to push through tariff rates that even at their lowest were still much higher than the other region would have preferred they be at their very highest.
The Tariff of Abominations had already caused massive economic harm in the Southern states and had provoked the Nullification Crisis - then the most serious internal power struggle in the nation's history.
A generation later, the same northern corporate interests were on the verge of pushing through a tariff that would have reproduced the Tariff of Abominations.
Though Tariffs were part of normal politics, they had been the source of absolutely bitter political fights for over a generation by 1860."

Some of that is fake history, beginning here: the 1860 proposed Morrill Tariff did not restore 1828 Tariff of Abominations rates, but rather those of the much lower 1846 Walker Tariff.
These Walker rates had been approved by Southerners in 1846, were even commended in Georgia's "Reasons for Secession" document of January 1861, and as predicted at the time (1846), produced an economic boom throughout the country.

The problem in 1860 was (as always) Democrat government overspending, which doubled the national debt in just the four years of the Buchanan administration.
The Democrat government needed more revenues to pay its bills, and that was the origin of the Morrill Tariff.

After the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations", Congress reduced tariffs four different times:

1. 1832 Tariff -- from >50% to ~40%
2. 1833 Tariff -- from 40% to ~20%

3. 1842 "Black Tariff" -- increased from 20% to 32%

4. 1846 Walker Tariff -- from 32% to 25%
5. 1857 Tariff -- from 25% to ~16%

6. 1860 Proposed Morrill -- from 16% to ~26%

So, the entire Lost Causer claim that anything remotely resembling a majority of Southerners could be persuaded to declare secession and civil war against the United States over minor fluctuations in tariff rates is just absurd, ridiculous and 100% counter-factual.

FLT-bird: "The Morrill tariff would immediately DOUBLE tariff rates.
So much for being "watered down". "

No, Morrill didn't double average rates, but those did rise from the record low 1857 levels of ~16% to around the Tariff of 1846 rates -- 26% -- which were about half of 1828 "Tariff of Abomination" rates, over 50%.
Remember, Morrill was defeated in 1860 and only passed in 1861 because Southern Democrats walked out of Congress, thus letting Republicans call the shots on tariffs.
Had Democrats remained in Congress in 1861 they could have again defeated Morrill, or at least modified it more to their liking.

FLT-bird: "This passed the House in the May of 1860 and was certain to pass the Senate - as everybody well knew.
All that was needed was the usual log rolling to pick off one or two senators and it would pass. "

Morrill could not even pass the House in 1860, had Democrats remained solid in opposition, but they weren't -- a huge number even abstained from voting.
In the Senate, even in 1861, Morrill could only pass after Southern Democrats left Congress.

FLT-bird: "The "record low" Walker Tariff was 16%.
In the Confederate Constitution the maximum tariff allowed was a revenue tariff which was universally understood to mean no more than 10%.
So even this "record low" tariff was still significantly higher than the Southern states wanted."

First of all, the 1846 Walker Tariff reduced the "Black Tariff" of 1842 from 32% to 25%.
The Tariff of 1857 further reduced rates to ~16%, contributing to a doubling of the US national debt during the four years of the Buchanan administration.
That's why the Morrill Tariff was proposed to restore the old Walker Tariff rates of 1846.

Second, your 10% rate is pure fantasy that had never been achieved, was never even proposed, not even in the Confederate Congress.
Third, no politician in the 1860 election ever threatened to secede over tariffs -- that's a fact.

Finally, here are the average total tariff rates per presidential administration (source 1), (source 2):

1. Washington: 21% (Tariff of 1792)
2. John Adams: 24%
3. Jefferson 32%
4. Madison: 31%
5. Monroe: 35% (Tariff of 1816)
6. J.Q. Adams: 47% (Tariff of 1824)
7. Jackson (1): 48% ("Tariff of Abominations")
8. Jackson (2): 23% (Tariff of 1833)
9. Van Buren: 19%
10. Harrison/Tyler: 22% ("Black Tariff" effective 1844)
11. Polk: 26% (1846 Walker Tariff)
12. Taylor/Fillmore: 24%
13. Pierce: 26%
14. Buchanan: 17% (Tariff of 1857)
15. Lincoln (1): 25% (Morrill Tariff)
16. Lincoln/Johnson (2): 43%

FLT-bird quoting unnamed: "Robert Barnwell Rhett similarly railed against the then-pending Morrill Tariff before the South Carolina convention.
Rhett included a lengthy attack on tariffs in the Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States, which the convention adopted on December 25, 1860 to accompany its secession ordinance."

In fact, Rhett did not mention the Morrill Tariff, in his Address to the Slaveholding States, and only spoke vaguely and falsely about tariffs -- by claiming that only Northerners supported them and only Southerners opposed them.
The truth is that both support for and opposition to protective tariffs was national and depended highly on how people made their livings.
The actual rates then were the results of complicated political negotiations and varied depending on elections.
In 1860 tariffs were the lowest they had been since the early years of Pres. Washington's administration.

And one fact which no Southern politician ever mentioned was that every Southern export -- cotton (25%), tobacco (40%), sugar (30%), rice, etc. -- was also highly protected by US import tariffs.

FLT-bird: "On November 19, 1860 Senator Robert Toombs gave a speech to the Georgia convention in which he denounced the "infamous Morrill bill." "

Sure, after the November election, when Toombs was campaigning for secession, and as a result, Georgia was the only state to mention tariffs in its "Reasons for Secession" document.
However, even Georgia did not mention the Morrill Tariff and, indeed, pointed to the Tariff of 1846 as their example of a "good tariff".
Ironically, it was the 1846 Tariff levels that Morrill was attempting to restore!!!

FLT-bird: "As we've gone over before, violation of the compact over slavery was something the Southern states COULD legitimately claim.
The Northern states really had violated the Fugitive Slave Clause of the US Constitution.
The Tariffs and federal expenditures - no matter how unfair they were and no matter how much Southerners hated them - were not unconstitutional."

Of course, I understand your point here, however, the Compromise of 1850 took responsibility for enforcing Fugitive Slave Laws away from states and made that a Federal authority.
In November 1860 there had been no complaints by Southerners against the Federal enforcement of Fugitive Slave Laws, nor could there be so long as Democrats were in charge, which they had been almost continuously since the election of 1800.

FLT-bird quoting: "The real causes of dissatisfaction in the South with the North, are in the unjust taxation and expenditure of the taxes by the Government of the United States, and in the revolution the North has effected in this government from a confederated republic, to a national sectional despotism."
Charleston Mercury 2 days before the November 1860 election"

I agree with you that a very small number of South Carolina's richest globo-slaver elites had believed this ever since the Nullification Crisis of 1832.
However, there was no possible way that a handful of South Carolina's wealthiest citizens could convince millions of loyal Southern citizens to declare secession and war on the United States over something as minor as small adjustments in the tariff rates.
So, whatever the SC elites believed and wanted, the masses of Southern citizens had to be convinced that their vital interests -- their way of life, their "peculiar institutions" -- were being assaulted by "evil Northerners".

And that would require a massive campaign of propaganda, lies and deceptions the likes which this country had never seen before, and didn't see again until very recent years.

This is a good place to stop for now...

1860 political cartoon:

FLT-bird: "No.
As a result of Lincoln's election and the certainty that the Morrill Tariff would pass, the states of the Deep South decided to leave.
Then the North offered slavery effectively forever by express constitutional amendment.
Then the original 7 seceding states turned it down.
Then Lincoln decided to start a war to prevent his cash cows from leaving.
Then the states of the Upper South seceded."

OK, one more time, let's review:

Southern Democrat Fire Eaters
weren't worried about tariffs!!

1. F-B: "As a result of Lincoln's election and the certainty that the Morrill Tariff would pass, the states of the Deep South decided to leave."

   Lincoln's election was certainly the trigger, but the Morrill Tariff had nothing to do with it, for at least these reasons:

   • US tariff rates were historically 100% negotiable "politics as usual", with relatively minor adjustments having never caused threats of secession, nor did they in 1860.

   • The original Morrill proposal was defeated in Congress in 1860 and could again be defeated, or watered down enough to become acceptable, even in 1861.

   • The original Morrill proposal simply returned then record-low tariffs to levels previously approved by Southern Democrats in the 1846 Walker Tariff
     Here are examples (Source: Hays Importer Guides, Hunts Merchant Magazine 44, no. 4 (April 1861), The Shipping and Commerical List and New York Price Current, 47-48 (January 2, 1861-July30 1862) ):

     Comparing US tariff rates in 1846, 1857 and 1860 Morrill proposed:
     

     Commodity	1846 Tariff	1857 Tariff	Morrill
     Cotton	25	19	25
     Brown Sugar	30%	24%	26%
     Tobacco	40	30	25
     Woolens	30%	24%	37%
     Coal	30%	24%	18%
     Iron pig	30	24	29
     Iron mfg	30	24	30
     Wines	40	30	40
     Average tariffs:	30%	24%	29%

     
     
   • During the election campaign of 1860, no Southerner threatened secession if Morrill passed and, after the November election, no "Reasons for Secession" document named the Morrill Tariff as a cause of secession.

   However, during the campaign, many Southern Fire Eaters did threaten secession over slavery if Lincoln's "Black Republicans" were elected.
   After the November election, every "Reasons for Secession" document listed slavery as a major reason, some (i.e., Mississippi) as their only reason.

2. F-B: "Then the North offered slavery effectively forever by express constitutional amendment.
   Then the original 7 seceding states turned it down."

   Noooo... there was no "offer" in December 1860, when it might have mattered, and so nothing could be "turned down".
   Instead, in December 1860 Kentucky Sen. John Crittenden worked closely with Mississippi Sen. Jefferson Davis (future CSA Pres.) and Georgia Sen. Robert Tombs (future CSA Sec. of State) to develop the "Crittenden Compromise" proposals, which Davis and Tombs believed could prevent further secessions, including Davis's state of Mississippi (which did secede on January 9) and Tombs's state of Georgia (seceded January 19).
   Crittenden's Compromise took elements from Sen. Davis's February 9, 1860 proposals, along with others to recommend six new amendments and four new laws, all intended to protect slavery and prevent states other than South Carolina from declaring secession.

   Crittenden's Compromise was presented to Congress on December 18, 1860 and was defeated by Republicans on December 31, 1860.
   Nine days later -- January 9, 1861 -- Sen. Davis's Mississippi declared secession, and why? Over the Morrill Tariff?
   No, that's foolish -- Mississippians were not in the least ashamed to explain their own reasons:

   "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.
   Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.
   These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.
   These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.
   That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation.
   There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

   That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

   The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory..."

   So, any suggestions that Southerners' overwhelming concerns to protect slavery, even if that required secession, any suggestions these were merely a ruse and smokescreen to hide their true motives, which concerned very minor and 100% negotiable returns to previously approved 1846 Walker Tariff rates, such suggestions are pure 100% unadulterated anti-historical nonsense.

   

3. F-B: "Then Lincoln decided to start a war to prevent his cash cows from leaving.
   Then the states of the Upper South seceded."

   In fact, Civil War began with CSA Pres. Jefferson Davis ordering a military assault on Union troops in Union Fort Sumter, Davis's order coming precisely because he knew that would cause states of the Upper South to secede.

FLT-bird re Dred Scott: "Contrary to your BS, the matter was already decided.
The Supreme Court had already ruled.
Temper tantrums by lower courts were null and void."

Here might be a good time to remember Pres. Jackson's response to the SCOTUS 1832 Worcester v. Georgia ruling:

"John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it."

Likewise, Crazy Roger's Dred Scott ravings caused huge outrage in the North, and some gloating in the South, but no actual laws were changed as a result.
Instead, proposals were made in Congress -- i.e., Sen. Davis's proposals of February 2, 1860 -- and in national election party platforms, notably Southern Democrats (Breckenridge) in 1860.

Crazy Roger Taney did not settle the issues with his Dred Scott ravings, but he did start the political processes working to impose them in US laws.

FLT-bird re the CSA constitution's "right of sojourn": "It just expressly spelled out in the Constitution what was already settled law in the US."

Crazy Roger's 1857 Dred Scott rantings notwithstanding, an alleged slaveholder's "right of sojourn" with slaves into free states and territories was still the opposite of "settled law".
But Southerners like Mississippi's Democrat Sen. Jefferson Davis and Georgia's Democrat Sen. Robert Tombs were working hard to make it settled.

In December 1860 their work resulted in the Crittenden Compromise proposals, which Senate Republicans defeated on December 31, 1861, causing Mississippi, Georgia and other Deep South states to immediately secede.

FLT-bird: "I've never said they did not accept the idea of the Corwin Amendment in the Confederate Constitution.
I said they did not accept the Corwin Amendment offered by the North in exchange for giving up their independence."

So, you do agree that Corwin was a great idea from the Southern perspective and that's why Confederates copied and pasted it into their 1861 Montgomery CSA constitution?
You may also agree that Corwin helped keep Border Slave States of Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware in the Union, even after the Battle of Fort Sumter, right?

And I think we can agree that Corwin was not a strong enough incentive to keep Upper South states of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennesse and Arkansas in the Union after Fort Sumter, right?

Plus, obviously, Corwin had no effect on proceedings in Montgomery, Alabama in February and March of 1861, other than likely encouraging the CSA's Constitutional Convention to add their version of Corwin, plus additional protections for slavery that Republicans had rejected in December 1860, when it might have mattered, do we agree?

So, what exactly do we disagree on here?

FLT-bird: "The fact remains that the Corwin Amendment came out before the Confederate Constitution AND the original 7 seceding states rejected it in exchange for giving up their independence when offered it by the North."

No, and we've covered this already, because:

1. There were not one but two CSA constitutions, both basically "cut and paste" versions of the 1787 US Constitution, with relatively minor modifications.

2. The first provisional constitution took just three days to write, from February 5 to 8, 1861.

3. The second permanent constitution took 12 days to add some minor items such as Crittenden and Corwin-like protections for slavery -- from February 28 to March 11, 1861.

4. Whether by coincidence or cooperation, February 28 was also the date for Corwin's introduction in the US Congress, which then hurried to pass it in time for Democrat Pres. Buchanan's signature on March 4.

5. So, by the time of Lincoln's alleged "offer" to seceded states of Corwin, beginning with his letter of transmittal on March 16, Corwin-like language was already firmly installed in the brand-new CSA Montgomery constitution.
   So there was no action Confederate states needed to take regarding Corwin.

FLT-bird: "Nah.
They turned it down because slavery was not their main concern.
Their real concern was gaining their independence so they'd be free of the grasp of imperial Washington and so they could set their own economic policy for their own benefit rather than be taxed for others' benefit."

Of course that's right, once the slavery issued was firmly dealt with, via Corwin-like language in their new CSA constitution, then everything else normal to governing a country became more immediate and pressing.

But, first and foremost, as spelled out in their earliest "Reasons for Secession" documents, Confederates had to deal with the "Black Republicans" threats against slavery.

Here are all of those original "Reasons for Secession" documents analyzed for what was most important:

"Reasons for Secession" Documents before Fort Sumter -- % of words devoted to each reason*

Reasons for Secession	S. Carolina	Mississippi	Georgia	Texas	Rbt. Rhett	A. Stephens	AVERAGE OF 6
Historical context	41%	20%	23%	21%	20%	20%	24%
Slavery	20%	73%	56%	54%	35%	50%	48%
States' Rights	37%	3%	4%	15%	15%	10%	14%
Lincoln's election	2%	4%	4%	4%	5%	0%	3%
Economic issues**	0	0	15%	0%	25%	20%	10%
Military protection	0	0	0	6%	0%	0%	1%

* Alabama listed only slavery in its "whereas" reasons for secession.
** Economic issues include tariffs, "fishing smacks" and other alleged favoritism to Northerners in Federal spending.

FLT-bird on Dred Scott and a "right of sojourn": "Nope.
That is pure fiction.
Firstly, Taney did not decide the case himself.
The entire SCOTUS decided the case.
The ruling was that a slave owner had the right of transit with his property and could not be excluded from the territories.
Nowhere in the ruling did it say that states that had abolished slavery or which did not have slavery must now accept slavery if somebody brought their slaves in from out of state.
That's just your insane little fantasy."

Sadly, there's a lot of fantasy in your own words here:

1. F-B: "Firstly, Taney did not decide the case himself.
   The entire SCOTUS decided the case."

   There are many legal terms involved here, but let's stick to the five(+) basic words:

   1. "Opinion" or "decision" refers to the entire document, in Dred Scott's case it ran to some 248 pages which included:

   2. "Ruling" or "holding" refers to the court's decisions and outcome of the case, which set precedents lower courts must follow.

   3. "Judicial Dicta" and "Obiter Dicta" refer to judicial explanations which may also have the force of precedent, depending on circumstances.
      In the Dred Scott case, Chief Justice Taney's majority opinion -- rulings and dicta -- took 48 pages.

   4. "Concurrences" -- five of the six Democrat concurrences also wrote their own opinions on how they arrived at the same rulings as Chief Justice Taney.

   5. "Dissents" -- both Republican dissenters wrote their own opinions.
      All told, the Dred Scott concurrences and dissents ran to roughly 200 pages.

   Crazy Roger's majority opinion rulings included:

   • Dred Scott, a slave who had resided in a free state and territory, was not thereby entitled to his freedom.

   • African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States.

   • The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which had declared free all territories west of Missouri and north of latitude 36°30′, was unconstitutional.

Direct quotes from Crazy Roger himself include:

"We think ... that they [black people] are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word "citizens" in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.
On the contrary, they were at that time [of America's founding] considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them."
— Dred Scott, 60 U.S. at 404–05."

Crazy Roger "then extensively reviewed laws from the original American states that involved the status of black Americans at the time of the Constitution's drafting in 1787".[17]
Crazy "concluded that these laws showed that a

'perpetual and impassable barrier was intended to be erected between the white race and the one which they had reduced to slavery'.[42]

Crazy Roger "therefore ruled that black people were not American citizens and could not sue as citizens in federal courts.[17]
This meant that U.S. states lacked the power to alter the legal status of black people by granting them state citizenship:[40]"

'It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted.
... They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order ... and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.'
— Dred Scott, 60 U.S. at 407."

"This holding normally would have ended the decision, since it disposed of Dred Scott's case, but Taney did not confine his ruling to the matter immediately before the Court.[17]
He went on to assess the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise itself, writing that the Compromise's legal provisions intended to free slaves who were living north of the 36°N 30' latitude line in the western territories.
In the Court's judgment, this constituted the government depriving owners of slave property without due process of law, which is forbidden under the Fifth Amendment.[43]
Taney also reasoned that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights implicitly precluded any possibility of constitutional rights for black African slaves and their descendants.[40]"

"Now, ... the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution.
... Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of the [36°N 30' latitude] line therein mentioned is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void...."
— Dred Scott, 60 U.S. at 451–52."

I'd say, if this is not stark raving Democrat insanity, then there is no such thing.

FLT-bird: "Dred Scott's lawyers argued that because he had resided in Wisconsin and Illinois he therefore should be emancipated but he was a resident of Missouri at the time where slavery was legal.
Had he still been an Illinois or Wisconsin resident, THAT would be a different set of facts and almost certainly a different ruling by the SCOTUS."

Obviously, living six years in the free state of Illinois made Dred Scott an Illinois resident, not Missouri.
Then four more years in the free territory of Wisconsin made Scott a Wisconsin resident, not Missouri.
However, the issue of Scott's residency is bogus, and a red herring anyway, since it had nothing to do with Crazy Roger's insane Dred Scott rulings.
Crazy Roger didn't give a d*mn about Dred Scott's state of residency, Crazy only cared about one thing -- Scott was an African slave and therefore could only ever be "property", never a full US citizen.

Truly, my term "Crazy Roger" is far too mild and respectful for such an obvious raving lunatic.
And people who defend such lunacies are beyond the reach of words to describe.

FLT-bird: "The way the SCOTUS ruled in this case is consistent with many other cases in which there is a similar fact pattern."

Sorry, but that is just fact-free Lost Cause propaganda, because Crazy Roger's ruling had nothing to do with Dred Scott's residency or lack of residency.
Rather, Crazy's ruling was 100% based on Dred Scott's race and origin as an African slave.

FLT-bird: "Nope.
You didn't understand the ruling.
They ruled that since he was in Missouri where slavery was legal, he couldn't make his case that he should be free. Obviously he should have sued when a resident of Wisconsin or Illinois.
The Supreme Court did rule that Blacks could not be citizens.
That was a majority opinion in most of the country at the time including in Illinois and Wisconsin."

I'm sorry, but again, you've been reading Lost Cause propaganda and it has rotted your brain, you must stop that.
Here is the truth of it, in a brief nutshell:

"In essence, Taney’s opinion was that the status of slavery followed a person, regardless of their location, and that living in a free state or territory did not grant a slave freedom."

This is also the "logic" behind Crazy Roger's voiding the 1820 Missouri Compromise.

FLT-bird: "What I grasp is that you not only don't know history, you also don't know the law and furthermore, you are incapable of discussing this without grade school level namecalling of anybody you disagree with."

Obviously, you are here looking in a mirror and pointing at yourself, since your understanding of Dred Scott is totally distorted to meet the needs of pro-Confederate Lost Cause propaganda.

FLT-bird: "The truth is you don't know what the hell you're talking about - as usual.
The ruling of the SCOTUS did not "remove all limitations on the lengths of time slaveholders could remain in free states"."

This is it!! This is your problem -- you've been reading a pack of lies and so totally misunderstand what Dred Scott was all about.
FRiend, there is just no way to help you understand until you give up on those G.D. lies.

FLT-bird: "And yet, 3 of the 4 states that issued declarations of causes for secession talked extensively about tariffs (general not just the current one working its way through congress at the time)"

Not one mentioned the proposed Morrill Tariff, which at that time simply returned rates to their levels of the 1846 Walker Tariffs approved under a Southern Democrat Congress and signed by Southern Democrat Pres. Polk.

In 1860 tariffs were a political annoyance, invisible to over 90% of Southern citizens, and to be hammered out and compromised on in Congress, as always.

In 1860 slavery was the vital issue that every Southern Fire Eater and many normal Southern citizens believed was worth secession and war to defend.

"Both parties deprecated war but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.
And the war came."
A. Lincoln, March 4, 1865

FLT-bird on Crittenden Compromise items: "Discussions started in late 1860 right after the election and everyone knew secession was coming."

No, however, specific proposals from Mississippi Democrat Sen. Davis -- which had been rejected by Congress in February, 1860 -- were in December dusted off and reconsidered, and again mostly rejected, in the Crittenden Compromise of December 1860.
As a result of these rejections, Mississippi led other Deep South states into secession.

FLT-bird: "Slave owners had the right of transit already as per the Dred Scott decision.
There was nothing to decide, as the Supreme Court had already ruled."

Contrary to your claims here, the issue in 1860 was far from settled, which is why:

1. Northern courts totally ignored Crazy Roger's insane rantings, except to condemn them and reaffirm their own anti-slavery laws.

2. Mississippi Sen. Davis's February 1860 proposal -- that Congress act to guarantee a "right of any citizen of the United States to take his slaver property into the common Territories" -- clearly implied the SCOTUS Dred Scott ravings did not settle the matter.

3. In December 1860, in Congress the Crittenden Committee looked at many proposed "compromises" to stop secessions, including the "right to sojourn", many such rejected by Republicans.

4. In March 1861 the CSA constitution again asserted a slaveholder's "right of sojourn" with his slaves, thus revealing the issue was far from settled, even in the new Confederacy.

FLT-bird: "The idea of a constitutional amendment expressly protecting slavery was one that occurred to lots of people - not just Davis as you would have it.
Had Southern states really been concerned about the continuation of slavery, they could have simply accepted the Corwin amendment - yet they did not."

Contrary to your repeated claims, the Montgomery Constitutional Convention totally accepted and embraced the idea of Corwin and so inserted it into their own CSA constitution.
Any suggestion otherwise is just crazy.

FLT-bird quoting BROJOEK: "Confederates loved Corwin and copied and pasted it into their Montgomery constitution"

FLT-bird: "The Corwin Amendment came out before the Confederate Constitution.
Your timeline is backwards."

Read what you quoted me as saying again.
The fact remains -- all your denials notwithstanding -- that Confederates loved and embraced Corwin so much they copied and pasted it directly into their own Montgomery CSA constitution.

FLT-bird: "Lest anyone think it was, explicit protection of slavery in the US Constitution was a bargaining chip the North was quite happy to offer.
The original 7 seceding states turned it down."

Naw... Confederates didn't "turn it down" because that was never even a question for them.
They did fully accept, embrace and then copy and paste the Corwin idea into their own Montgomery CSA constitution, along with several other pro-slavery provisions which Republicans had rejected in December 1860.

FLT-bird: "This was not contrary to the majority opinion of the US Supreme Court in the Dred Scott ruling.
All a slave owner could do was transit with his slaves.
He could not reside in a state that had abolished slavery.
He could not employ his slaves in an enterprise there."

Those are all lies.
The truth is that Crazy Roger Taney (why do you think I call him "Crazy Roger"??) abolished all such restrictions on the alleged "right to sojourn" in free states and territories!!!

Crazy Roger claimed there were no limits on a slaveholder's rights to take his "property" into other states and stay there as long as he wanted.

Consider the case of Dred Scott, the man, a slave taken from the slave-state of Missouri to the free-state of Illinois and lived there for six years!!, from 1830 to 1836, and then was taken to the free-territory of Wisconsin for another four years!!, from 1836 to 1840.
So Dred Scott had lived in free-states or territories for 10 years and yet Crazy Roger still claimed that was not long enough to declare the man, Dred Scott (or his family), freed.

Indeed, the lunatic Crazy Roger Taney and his insane Democrat fellow SCOTUS justices declared that not only could Dred Scott never be freed by living in free states & territories, but also, that even if Dred Scott were voluntarily freed, as an African-American, the man could never become a US citizen with all the rights and privileges of other US citizens, i.e., voting, juries, military service, etc.

How is you do not yet grasp the depths of depravity in Crazy Roger Taney's Dred Scott opinions??

FLT-bird: "And yet, and yet, that was the majority opinion of the US Supreme Court.
Not litigated or decided by the Dred Scott case was how long a slave owner could have to transit with his slaves.
States could enact laws governing that and declare that any state on its territory longer than a reasonable period for transit were thereby deemed to be legally emancipated."

Again, those are lies.
The truth is that Crazy Roger's Dred Scott ravings effectively declared all such laws unconstitutional and invalid, and removed all limitations on the lengths of time slaveholders could "sojourn" with their "property" in free-states & territories.

See my link above for actual Crazy Roger quotes.

FLT-bird: "There is eyewitness testimony from numerous sources that Lincoln worked directly with Republicans in Congress to draft the Corwin Amendment, get it introduced in Congress and get it passed both by Congress as well as by multiple Northern states."

None of which you've presented here for closer inspection.

FLT-bird: "No matter how much you or anybody else does not like it, that was the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States and as such was the law of the land.
Your incessant childish namecalling changes nothing."

Nooo... "Crazy Roger" is not "name-calling", it is a factual description of a raving lunatic, as were his fellow Democrat SCOTUS justices, as are Democrats today.
Indeed, the very word, "Democratic" from the beginning in the 1790s meant, "stark raving Jacobin lunatics" of the French Revolution.
So, while Thomas Jefferson called himself a small-r republican, his Federalist opponents called his party the Democratic-republicans, by which they meant "lunatics".
And, of course, Jeffersonians were perfectly happy with the designation and so kept the name "Democratics".

So, Democrats always were, and remain insane, none more so than Crazy Roger Taney.

FLT-bird: "That might've affected politics.
Then again, most people were far more concerned about the Morrill Tariff which was working its way through Congress at this time."

And yet nobody in any document of the time mentioned the Morrill Tariff as a reason for secession.
What every such document did mention, some of them exclusively, was slavery.

FLT-bird: "Wrong.
Rhode Island and Connecticut passed bills banning slavery in 1843 and 1848, respectively, and New Hampshire passed a final abolition bill in 1857.
Vermont was not admitted as a state until 1791.
Massachusetts had abolished slavery in 1783-84."

Again, you're just lying.
The truth is that all of those states, plus the entirety of the Old Northwest Territories had begun to abolish slavery before the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

1. 1777 Vermont
2. 1780 Pennsylvania
3. 1783 Massachusetts
4. 1783 New Hampshire
5. 1784 Conncecticut
6. 1784 Rhode Island
7. 1787 Old Northwest Territories, which became Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and about 1/3 of Minnesota.

Further, by the time of the 1787 Convention, over half of the delegates did not own slaves.

So, bottom line: your repeated claims -- that our Founders didn't care about slavery and weren't working to abolish it -- those claims are simply untrue.

FLT-bird: "Oh, and discussions that would culminate in the Corwin Amendment started in late 1860."

Naw, the US had debated slavery related issues since 1776.

The specific proposal which eventually ended up as Corwin began with Mississippi's Democrat Sen. Jefferson Davis's February 2, 1860 proposals in Congress.
Some of Davis' proposals found their way into the 1860 Southern Democrat (Breckenridge) party platform, and then all of them reemerged in the December 1860 debates over Crittenden's Compromise proposals.

In the end, Sen. Davis's insistence -- that Congress had no authority to abolish slavery within states -- made its way into both the new CSA Constitution and the proposed US Corwin Amendment.
Davis's other proposals regarding slavery in territories and an alleged slaveholders' "right of soujourn" were rejected by Republicans in December 1860, hence secession of Mississippi (#2 to secede) and other Deep South states.

FLT-bird: "Correct! And the Corwin Amendment was rejected by the original 7 seceding states."

Naw... the Corwin Amendment was eagerly accepted and adopted by the Montgomery, Alabama Constitutional Convention into their new CSA constitution, along with Jefferson Davis's other proposals to Congress from February 2, 1860.
Confederates loved Corwin and copied and pasted it into their Montgomery constitution:

Article I Section 9(4) "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

FLT-bird regarding CSA constitution's use of words like "slave": "They were simply more honest shameless."

Fixed it.

FLT-bird: "The Southern Slaveholders who wrote the 1787 Constitution did not think they would need any such provision and could not imagine that it would even be an issue.
The sovereign states did not delegate any such power to the newly proposed federal government and they never thought anybody would even suggest the federal government could directly interfere in states like that."

So far as I can tell, that was exactly Abraham Lincoln's opinion in 1860.
Lincoln then saw no need for an amendment along lines of Sen. Davis's February 1860 proposal, eventually adopted in Corwin in March 1861.
As far as Lincoln was concerned, such an amendment was unnecessary, but, if it helped keep the Union together, he did not oppose it.

FLT-bird on alleged slaveholders' "right of sojourn": "That was the law in the US at the time as per the majority opinion of the US Supreme Court.
The US Constitution was silent on the issue though all of the 13 original states had slavery."

Just as the 1787 US Constitution granted no authority to Federal government to abolish slavery in states, it also granted Federal government no authority to limit states from restricting and abolishing slavery themselves -- suggestions to the contrary from Crazy Roger Taney's 1857 Dred Scott ruling notwithstanding.

FLT-bird: "The ban on the foreign slave trade was quite meaningful and was something the US Constitution did not do."

And yet... and yet... the fact remains that the Confederacy's largest source for imported slaves would be the USA, and those imports were not outlawed.
Therefore, the CSA's constitutional provision is meaningless eyewash.

FLT-bird: "That is a gross mischaracterization.
They had a right of transit.
They could not stay for any extended period of time with their slaves.
They could not settle there with their slaves.
They had a right to pass through.
That is all that the majority of the US Supreme Court ruled they had and that is all they had under the Confederate Constitution."

And yet... and yet... Crazy Roger placed no time limit on his new-found "slaveholders' right of sojourn".
Dred Scott himself had lived for many years in free states and territories, and yet... and yet... in Crazy Rogers' eyes that was not enough to make poor Dred Scott a free man, much less a full US citizen.
Why is that, you might ask?

Answer: because Crazy Roger was a raging Democrat lunatic, and for no other conceivable reason.

FLT-bird: "Its also worth noticing that Republicans introduced it, many Republicans voted for it, Lincoln supported it and used his influence to get it ratified in multiple Northern states."

Your constant references to alleged historian Doris Kerns Goodwin notwithstanding, there is no actual evidence for Lincoln's direct involvement with Corwin either in Congress or in states.

FLT-bird: "All you've got here is namecalling.
The majority unanimous ravings of Southern Democrat lunatics of the US Supreme Court issued their ruling and as such it was the highly disputed law of the land."

Fixed it.
You can easily credit Crazy Roger with electing Republican majorities to Congress and Lincoln as president, in response to Crazy's Dred Scott opinion.

Crazy Roger's insane SCOTUS:

FLT-bird: "Slavery and owning slaves weren't seen as being any big deal in 1787 and certainly not the moral issue people would see it as today.
Given all these people were slave owners and all of the original 13 states had slavery its hardly a stretch to think they would have agreed that a US Citizen could go into any US territory with his property - that includes his slaves."

Believe me, I do understand why you want to minimize Crazy Roger's raging insanities, and make him appear like any other normal human being, and therefore you ignore his worst lunacies and focus on just what might possibly be defended.
And the reasons are obvious -- in 1857 Crazy Roger was not alone in his opinions and they were shared widely by slaveholders and slavery defenders throughout the South.

They were all just as crazy as Roger was.
Do I need to list out for you all the craziness Democrats like Crazy Roger inflicted on the USA in 1857?

FLT-bird on 1787 Founders: "It was a hope in some vague murky future that slavery would wither away. "

Nooooo... it was far more than a "vague hope" because our Founders were willing to take legal actions to restrict and abolish slavery wherever possible, a prime example being abolition of slavery in the Old Northwest Territories in 1787.
In 1787 the Old Northwest Territories were an area 50% larger than the eventual borders of the six Southern States combined.

Further, by 1787, abolition was already the law in Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Pennsylvania -- a total of 65% of all Northern state area.
So, if we add the 65% of Northern States area plus the Northwest Territories, then we see that in 1787, almost exactly half of the entirety of US square miles were under laws abolishing slavery -- that was vastly more than a "vague hope".

Bottom line: in 1787 our Founders held abolition as far more than a "vague hope" for the future.
They had already acted to legally abolish slavery in half of all US land area.

FLT-bird: "There is no evidence that the drafters of the Corwin Amendment were influenced by the Confederate Constitution.
The Corwin Amendment came first after all."

So, as we get deeper into the historical weeds here, the first thing to understand is that there were actually two new CSA constitutions:

1. Provisional Constitution, started February 5, 1861, adopted on February 8, 1861 -- three days to "copy and paste" a provisional constitution.

2. Permanent Constitution, started on February 28, 1861, adopted on March 11, 1861 -- 12 days to add some minor changes to the provisional constitution.

How did these two differ?
Regarding slavery, there were more specific guarantees of slavery spelled out in the March 11 permanent constitution than had been in the February 8 provisional version.
The key additions were:

Mississippi Sen. Jefferson Davis:

1. Article I Section 9(4) "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."[13]

2. Article IV Section 2(1) "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired."[31]

3. Article IV Section 3(3): "In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states."[32]

These new additions exactly match proposals made by Mississippi's Democrat Senator Davis in Congress on February 2, 1860, (1860, not 1861).

So, these ideas were well known in Washington, and only the first of them was accepted by Crittenden in December 1860 and later by Corwin in March 1861.
In other words: in December 1860, when Congress debated proposals to save the Union, all three of Sen. Davis' February 1860 proposals were on the table, but only the first was accepted by Republicans in the Crittenden Compromise and later in the proposed Corwin Amendment.

Had Republicans been willing to accept all three of Davis' February 1860 slavery proposals, according to Davis himself, Mississippi would have no need to secede in 1861.

To be clear, these "compromises" all involved slavery, none of them had anything to do with those other issues our Lost Causers love to point at -- especially tariffs, or Federal infrastructure spending, or "bounties" for "fishing smacks", or the depredations of "Indian Savages" and "Mexican banditti".

FLT-bird: "You claim the Confederate Constitution was "all but completed" yet you have no evidence for this.
The Corwin Amendment came out first.
That article you cite in the Confederate Constitution was just the Corwin Amendment...and as you have said before, the Corwin Amendment was just an explicit spelling out of what already existed.
The US Federal government could not bad slavery in a state.
Nothing in the US Constitution gave it the power to do so."

I'm saying only what's obviously true -- that since 90% of the new CSA constitution was just a "copy and paste" of the 1787 US Constitution, it took only three days to write the first provisional constitution, then eight more days to convert that to the permanent CSA constitution adopted on March 11.
This is the historical timeline in Montgomery, Alabama:

• February 4, 1861 -- The Provisional Congress of the Confederate States first met in Montgomery, Alabama.

• February 5, 1861 -- The CSA Constitutional Convention first met in Montgomery, Alabama.
  
• February 8, 1861 -- The CSA Congress adopted a provisional constitution.

• February 9, 1861 -- The CSA Constitutional Convention elected Jefferson Davis Provisional President and Alexander H. Stephens the Provisional Vice President.

• February 11 -- Stephens took office.
• February 18 -- Davis took office, First Inaugural Address.

• February 28 -- CSA permanent Constitutional Convention started.
  
• March 11, 1861, the permanent CSA Constitution adopted.[1]

Again, point is, there were two CSA constitutions -- the provisional adopted on February 8 and the permanent on March 11.
Both were mostly "cut and paste" versions of the 1787 US Constitution, but there were differences, including more explicit language protecting slavery in the permanent CSA constitution than had been in the previous provisional constitution.
This new pro-slavery language came from Mississippi Sen. Davis' February 2, 1860 proposals in Congress.

There is no reason for us to think the delegates in Montgomery kept their proceedings secret or that their provisional and permanent constitutions were not fully known by others (i.e., northerners), at the time.

FLT-bird: "The Founding Fathers were certainly embarrassed by how hypocritical it was in light of the rhetoric in the Declaration of Independence.
Yet they were perfectly willing to protect slavery in the US Constitution.
The only difference in the Confederate Constitution was it was more honest.
They actually said the word "slave".
They otherwise protected it no more than the Founding Fathers had in the US Constitution."

One difference is 1860 Confederates were unashamed of what our 1787 Founders considered shameful.

There were three other differences worth mentioning, only one of which was addressed by either Crittenden or Corwin:

Kentucky Sen. Crittenden:

1. The 1861 CSA constitution explicitly guarantees no "law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

   This is the key guaranteed proposed by Sen. Davis in February 1860 and addressed by both Crittenden in December 1860 and Corwin in March 1861.
   However, no such guarantee was even imagined by our Founders in 1787.

2. The 1861 CSA constitution explicitly guarantees slaveholders, "...the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired."

   This is Crazy Roger's 1857 Dred Scott ruling, and also Sen. Davis' February 1860 proposal, but it's nowhere to be found in our Founders' 1787 Constitution, and was rejected by Republicans in December 1860.

3. The 1861 CSA constitution explicitly guarantees slavery in Confederate territories: "In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states."

   This also is Crazy Roger's 1857 Dred Scott ruling, also in Sen. Davis' February 1860 proposals, also nowhere to be found in our Founders' 1787 US Constitution, and also rejected by Republicans in December 1860.

FLT-bird: "It was that slaves could still be traded between those US States that still allowed slavery and Confederate states.
In other words, they left the situation exactly as it had been prior to secession."

The CSA constitutional ban on slave importations was utterly meaningless if it did not include their biggest, indeed only, source of imported slaves, the USA.

FLT-bird: "If anyone thought the federal government could force a state to abolish slavery, Lincoln sure answered that one.
He expressly said the federal government had no such power and he said it repeatedly."

And yet.. and yet... that is precisely the issue addressed by Mississippi Sen. Davis in February 1860, by Crittenden in December 1860, by the new CSA constitution in February 1861 and by Corwin in March 1861.
So, obviously, the matter was not as firmly settled as you'd like us all to believe today.

FLT-bird: "This only pertained to a right of transit as existed in the US prior to secession.
A Confederate state could not bar transit.
It could certainly abolish slavery if it wished.
A proposal that states that had already banned slavery not be admitted to the CSA was voted down in Montgomery during the Confederate constitutional convention."

Again, using Crazy Roger "logic", slaveholders were now constitutionally guaranteed an unlimited "right of sojourn" in any Confederate state, with their slaves, thus rendering any state abolition laws effectively mute.

FLT-bird on Corwin: "What you refuse to acknowledge is that Republicans introduced it to each house of Congress.
It could only have passed Congress with the necessary 2/3rds supermajority with substantial Republican support..."

Sure, but the majority of Republicans opposed Corwin, while Democrats voted unanimously for it, and that is worth noticing, imho.

FLT-bird on Dred Scott: "Your constant namecalling aside, what this decision proves is that it was a majority opinion of the SCOTUS and as such was binding law in the US.
Full Stop."

Right, the unanimous concurrences of five lunatic Southern Democrat justices, joined by two Doughfaced Northern Democrats and opposed by two Northern Republican justices.
So there's no doubt that the other Democrats were just as crazy as Crazy Roger Taney.
Democrats have always been crazy.
Crazy is not a failure of Democrats, it's their basic feature.

FLT-bird: "You said none would agree to the ruling.
It is incumbent upon you to provide evidence - not incumbent upon me to provide counter evidence.
You made the claim after all."

I've said exactly what is factual -- that there's no evidence any 1787 Founder supported any of Crazy Roger's 1857 Dred Scott rulings.
And there are tons of evidence to the contrary, beginning with my quote from their 1776 Declaration of Independence, you the part about "all men are created equal".

FLT-bird: "Yet many of those same Founding Fathers were themselves slaveowner and they incorporated protections for slavery in the US Constitution.
That strongly suggests they would have agreed with the majority opinion of the SCOTUS in Dred Scott."

Every Founder at some point expressed a desire for, or acquiescence in, efforts to restrict or abolish slavery, where that was possible.
This strongly suggests they would have opposed Crazy Roger's lunatic Dred Scott opinions.

FLT-bird: "Wrong. The Corwin Amendment was introduced on March 2 and was ratified by the Senate on March 4.
The Confederate Constitution was not introduced until March 11.
The Corwin Amendment preceded the Confederate Constitution."

Sorry, but your own timeline is wrong, as I have now spelled out in detail, twice, above.

FLT-bird: "There is no doubt the Founding Fathers were embarrassed by the existence of slavery which ran directly contrary to their lofty rhetoric expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
I don't think anyone would dispute that."

Then you have not really paid attention to jeffersondem's arguments here.
Jeffersondem insists, against all evidence to the contrary, that our Founders "enshrined" bondage in their "pro-slavery" Constitution.

So I suspect jeffersondem will be dismayed to learn from you that our Founders were embarrassed by an institution which ran directly contrary to their own lofty rhetoric.
Who would ever suspect that?

And I think DiogenesLamp shares jeffersondem's views on this.

Both will be highly disappointed to learn that you've now joined the opposition, at least on this topic.

😉

FLT-bird: "Hmm.
I don't see the words "at pleasure".
I do see consent of the governed and whenever the people of a state decide that the government becomes destructive of these ends (meaning consent) it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.
So the power to decide what is "destructive of these ends" rests with the people of each state according to the Declaration of Independence.
"at pleasure" is a term you have invented which is nowhere to be found in the Declaration of Independence."

Madison's term, "at pleasure" is not in the DOI because there was nothing "at pleasure" about it!
Instead, our Founders used much stronger words:

1. "When... it becomes necessary..." -- "necessary", is not "at pleasure".

2. "...declare the causes which impel them to the separation." -- "impel", is not "at pleasure".

3. "...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends..." -- "destructive", not "inconvenient" or "unpleasant", to be discarded "at pleasure".

4. "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes..." -- "light and transient causes", are synonymous with "at pleasure", and should not be used to change governments.

5. "... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government..." -- "abuses and usurpations", "reduce them under absolute Despotism", these are the opposites of "at pleasure" reasons.

6. "... such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government..." -- again, "necessity" is the opposite of "at pleasure".

7. "...history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States..." -- "injuries and usurpations", "absolute Tyranny", these are the opposites of "at pleasure" secessions.

8. "...In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
   A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people." -- "Oppressions", "repeated injuries" and "define a Tyrant" are opposites of "at pleasure".

9. "...We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends" -- yet again, "necessity" is the opposite of "at pleasure".

By the way, we have discussed Madison's views on "at pleasure" disunion, so we might well also mention Jefferson's views on secession (which he calls "scission"), expressed in a June 4 1798 letter to John Taylor:

"...perhaps this party division is necessary to induce each to watch & debate to the people the proceedings of the other. but if on a temporary superiority of the one party, the other is to resort to a scission of the union, no federal government can ever exist."

FLT-bird: "Also it is laughable to claim the 1860-61 secessionists were not inheritors of the 1776 secessionists original intentions.
Of course they were.
They were the children and grandchildren of those 1776 secessionists."

But you clearly don't yet grasp the essential fact about 1860 Fire Eater secessionists, which is that they were Democrats, and Democrats, by definition are devotees to, indeed worshippers of, the Big Lie, and in 1861, one Democrat Big Lie was that they accurately represented our Founders' original intentions.

But the truth is that Democrats didn't then, don't now and never reliably have.
And the reason is as obvious as it is simple -- the first Democrats' original supporters were anti-Federalists who opposed ratification of the US Constitution in 1788.
Their successors have also opposed it, by whatever means they believed necessary, ever since.

FLT-bird: "The Confederate Constitution adopted on March 11, 9 days after the Corwin Amendment..."

February 7, 1861, secessionists in Montgomery, Alabama
began work on their new Confederate constitution.

February 7, and since for 90% of it, all they did was copy and paste the 1787 US Constitution, we have to believe that most of the serious work was completed in a day or two.
Then, it took a few weeks to discuss and print the final version for adoption on March 11.

Since December 1860, the US Congress had been dealing with many different proposals for "compromise" laws & amendments, hoping to stop further secessions.
On February 28, long after the new Confederate constitution was all but completed, Congressman Corwin proposed an amendment to the US Constitution which matched rather well the Confederate:

CSA Article I Section 9(4) "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

FLT-bird: "...does explicitly use the word "slavery" while the US constitution tap dances around it while referring to it several times.
So what?"

It well illustrates my point, since even in 1861 the US Congress' proposed Corwin Amendment simply repeated a circumlocution from our 1787 Constitution:

proposed Corwin: "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."

Our Founders in 1787 well understood that slavery was wrong and disgraceful, should not be mentioned directly in their Constitution and so must be addressed through circumlocutions and euphemisms.
Such squeamishness was completely gone in secessionists' 1861 Montgomery constitution.

FLT-bird: "The US Constitution allowed for the importation of slaves for another 20 years after ratification.
The Confederate Constitution was stricter in its ban on the slave trade."

The 1861 Confederate Constitution allowed for a major exception, which is not found in the 1787 US Constitution.
I would not call that "stricter".

FLT-bird quoting BJK: "Unlike the 1861 Confederate constitution, the US 1787 Constitution does not prohibit outlawing slavery."

FLT-bird: "This only applied to the Confederate Government not to the state governments.
Once again, this was an explicit spelling out of the situation that existed in the US prior to secession.
The US Federal government also had no power provided to it in the US Constitution to force a state to abolish slavery."

So you claim here, but the Corwin Amendment was intended to directly address your point, thus rather strongly implying the absence of such a guarantee in our Founders' original 1787 Constitution -- at least as perceived by Southern slaveholders.

FLT-bird quoting BJK: "Now, to a normal person reading this, it seems pretty clear that the Confederate constitution outlaws abolishing slavery..."

FLT-bird: "Oh that seems far from clear.
The Confederate Constitution applied to the central government, not to the states.
That was the same understanding everyone had about the US Constitution.
It only contained restrictions on the power of the federal government."

There are several more points to be made here:

1. You are unwilling to draw this same distinction between Federal and state authority regarding the proposed Corwin Amendment, which you insist would have ended abolition forever in the USA.

2. This suggests the distinction between Federal and state authorities was not so well established in Confederate minds as you'd have us believe here.

3. But more important, the CSA constitution itself directly restricts states authority over slavery in Article IV -- Sections 2(1) and 3(3), such that, using Crazy Roger Taney's logic, it would be impossible for any Confederate state to pass laws even restricting slavery, much less abolishing it.

4. This means your implied claims, that the 1861 CSA Constitution was effectively "slavery neutral" for states, are pure undiluted hogwash.

FLT-bird: "Here are some other facts: Republicans introduced the Corwin Amendment to each house of Congress.
Plenty of Republicans voted for the passage of it - which it did pass with the necessary 2/3rds supermajority.
It could not have passed without substantial Republican support."

The key fact which you refuse to acknowledge, is that a majority of Republicans in Congress opposed Corwin, while 100% of Democrats supported it, and Democrat Pres. Buchanan signed it!
That should cause you to pause and reflect, but since it doesn't comply with your Lost Cause propaganda, you simply ignore the most important fact.

FLT-bird on Dred Scott: "The fact remains that this was the majority opinion of the SCOTUS, not just the opinion of Chief Justice Taney."

Sure, and as we've reviewed before, 100% of the seven concurrences (including Crazy Roger himself) were Democrats, and five of those seven were Southern Democrats, while the other two concurrences were Northern Doughfaced Democrats -- Nelson from NY and Grier from PA.
The two dissenters were Republicans -- Curtis from MA and McLean from Ohio.

So Dred Scott's concurrences in no way prove that Crazy Roger was sane, rather they prove that all Democrats were (and many remain) equally insane.

FLT-bird: "The fact also remains that there is no way you can show that no Founding Father would have agreed with the SCOTUS' opinion in Dred Scott.
None of the Founders said anything about the issue - unless you can provide us a quote from each of the Founding Fathers showing otherwise."

Of course we do have many quotes from Founders on related subjects, beginning with this one from Jefferson, Franklin and Adams:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

And there are many similar quotes from virtually every Founder, all of them strongly suggesting that Crazy Roger Taney, and all Southern Democrats, if not all Democrats, had, by 1857 turned into stark raving lunatics.

FLT-bird: "And as the SCOTUS ruled in Dred Scott, the US Federal government could not outlaw slavery in US territories either.
So, any such law was in fact unconstitutional in the US.
You are free to disagree with the SCOTUS but that was the law of the land.
Furthermore, there is no way you can prove that was not the Founding Fathers' intent."

No Northerner accepted Crazy Roger's Dred Scott opinions as legitimate, for one reason, as Lincoln said in 1858:

"We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State."

It's a major factor in turning previously Democrat states of Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois to Republicans in 1860.

As for proving our Founders' intentions, I have proved those with one quote from the DOI above, and could add many more similar, if you still don't "get" it.

FLT-bird: "The Confederate Constitution did not treat slavery differently than how the US Constitution did prior to secession."

Only if you agree with the US 1787 Constitution, as grossly distorted by Crazy Roger Taney's 1857 lunatic opinions.

jeffersondem: "You may have a point about slaveowner Benjamin Franklin but I don't think slaveowner Charles Pinckney would have shied away from acknowledging slavery existed."

We're not talking about whether slavery existed, but rather about the question: why didn't our Founders use words like "slave" in their 1787 Constitution?
Why did they replace "slave" with euphemisms or indirect language?

The obvious answer is, our Founders well understood that slavery was both wrong and disgraceful, and so could not be called by its real name in their most polite of documents, the 1787 US Constitution.

As for Charles Pinckney, he was directly involved in the Constitution's Fugitive Slave Clause, and so obviously participated in obscuring direct references to slaves, which are there called a "Person held to service or labor".

So, it looks to me like even SC's Charles Pinckney understood the 1787 American squeamishness about words like "slave", "slavery" or "enslaved".

A squeamishness which was totally abandoned in the South by 1860.