Posted on 12/16/2023 9:27:14 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
1/ Within the next several days, barring intervention from Congress, the Biden Regime, in violation of the law, will remove the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, commissioned to celebrate the reconciliation of North and South.
@blueandgray1864 @oilfieldRando
2/ The memorial is considered the masterwork of the renowned Jewish-American sculptor Sir Moses Ezekiel (a former Confederate soldier who was described by his biographer as “adamantly opposed to slavery") who is buried at its base.
3/ Ezekiel, knighted by the King of Italy, was so dedicated to North-South reconciliation that he would later host commanding Union General Ulysses S. Grant at his studio.
4/ Yet in the wake of the George Floyd moral panic, this memorial was scheduled for removal, though its removal is being done in violation of several federal laws and the clear text of the legislation, which excludes graves.
5/ As former Democrat Senator and Navy Secretary Jim Webb said:
“What was it that Union Army veteran McKinley understood about the Confederate soldiers who opposed him on the battlefield that eludes today’s monument smashers and ad hominem destroyers of historical reputations?”
6/ In fact, at the time it was constructed, some major Confederate groups opposed it because they opposed the reconciliation it symbolized.
7/ Webb, a Vietnam Veteran, has spoken about taking groups of North and South Vietnamese to the monument to show how the U.S. reconciled successfully after a bitter civil war
8/ 44 House Republicans have signed a letter opposing the removal but every Republican should be on record as opposing this lawless action
9/ But of course, this is never *really* about the Confederacy or “Confederate Statues”. The same spirit animated the recent removal of the statue of Thomas Jefferson from the New York City Council, where it had stood for 187 years.
“Gadsden supported nullification in 1831. When California was admitted to the Union as a free state in 1850, he advocated secession by South Carolina. Gadsden considered slavery "a social blessing" and abolitionists "the greatest curse of the nation". When the secession proposal failed, Gadsden worked with his cousin Isaac Edward Holmes, a lawyer in San Francisco since 1851, and California state senator Thomas Jefferson Green, in an attempt to divide California into northern and southern portions and proposed that the southern part allow slavery. Gadsden planned to establish a slave-holding colony there based on rice, cotton, and sugar, and wanted to use slave labor to build a railroad and highway that originated in either San Antonio or the Red River valley. The railway or highway would transport people to the California gold fields. Toward this end, on December 31, 1851, Gadsden asked Green to secure from the California state legislature a large land grant located between the 34th and 36th parallels, along the proposed dividing line for the two California states.
A few months later, Gadsden and 1,200 potential settlers from South Carolina and Florida submitted a petition to the California legislature for permanent citizenship and permission to establish a rural district that would be farmed by "not less than Two Thousand of their African Domestics". The petition stimulated some debate, but it finally died in committee.”
The Gadsden Purchase, with the close involvement of Jeff Davis happened two years later.
That fear would have been reinforced by every disturbance on a plantation and every rumor of slave conspiracy. One big difference between the US then and now, is that you might be called upon to participate in a patrol to track down runaways. This meant that one would be continually reminded of the existence of slavery and the fragility of a society that was largely based on slavery. Present-day economists who speculate on the causes of the war haven't had the experience of living in a slaveowning society and don't understand how pervasive fears connected to slavery were.
The earliest US gold rushes were in North Carolina and Georgia. Some of the miners were free Whites. Others (including one who became a very successful mine owner) were free Blacks. Still others were slaves. John C. Calhoun and his son-in-law Thomas Clemson used slaves in their mine, and some of the money went to Clemson University. I don't know the details of how the mines were worked, but apparently, slaves were working in mines, even in the US. It's certainly possible that if slavery had expanded, some slaves would have been working in mining. It's less likely that they'd be doing all the jobs. As was appparently the case in apartheid South Africa, Blacks and Whites would be doing different work.
According to “Financial Failure and Confederate Defeat” by Douglas B. Ball, in 1860 out of total $52.3 million custom collection, southern ports paid $4.0 million (7.6%).
However, it should be considered that because some supplies from overseas were landed in New York and then carried south, southerners as final consumers indirectly paid bigger than 8% portion of tariffs (by no mean 75-80%).
Most likely South paid no more than proportional (by white population) share of tariffs, and probably less, according to contemporary eyewitnesses:
*“When the valued exports and imports of any of the Southern states are compared, it is found that the former is invariably exceeds the latter, in consequence of the want of a consuming class… It is common theme for the Southern politicians to lament the want of enterprise among the merchants in conduct a foreign import trade… But the truth is, there are few imports required, for every Southern town tells the same tale” North America, its agriculture and climate, by Robert Russell, Edinburgh 1857
“A very large part of our duties are collected on the class of goods for which there is almost no demand at all from the South, either directly or indirectly – woolen and fur goods, for instance; of the goods require for the South not a few have been practically free. The whole slave population of the South consumes almost nothing ... The majority of the population habitually makes use of no foreign production except chicory, which, ground with peas, they call coffee. I have never seen reason to believe that with absolute free trade the cotton States would take a tenth part of the value of our present importations. And as I can judge from observation of the comparative use of foreign goods at the South and at the North, not a tenth part of our duties have been defrayed by the South in the last twenty years” The Cotton Kingdom, Vol. 1, by Frederick Law Olmsted, New York – London, 1861
It sounds very logical, and both authors intensively traveled South in mid-1850. Source
Southerners (with some Northerners and foreigners) had been filling up Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. They were as used to settling new territories as Northerners. Cotton was king, and the sons of plantation owners wanted their own plantations. The Southern elites that wanted secession also wanted to expand into Mexico and the Caribbean. The idea that slavery would have been profitable and widespread in Nebraska may have been an illusion, but talk of slavery expansion was about far more than just Senate seats.
America had fought a war with Mexico and come away with thousands of acres of land. Talk of "Manifest Destiny" was everywhere. We were a nation on the move. The idea that Southern slaveowners didn't want a part of that is hard to believe. There is also the intangible factor, being cut out of anything was perceived by slaveolders as an insult and an injustice, so they would fight for what they saw as their share of the territories, even if slavery wouldn't work there. And as for Senate seats: at the same time as the country was arguing over the Kansas-Nebraska Act, prominent Southerners were hoping to annex Cuba -- preferably by purchase, but by war if necessary. Those new Senate seats could have made such a move possible at some point.
There were four proposed constitutions for Kansas. One would have made Kansas a slave state. One would have excluded both slaves and free blacks. The version that was finally accepted made Kansas a free state and did not exclude African-Americans. Some other states did have constitutions that forbade Blacks from living there. But African-Americans did live their and the populations grew. So yes, there was hostility to people of color in the Midwest, but it wasn't universal or absolute. It was more common in the lower than the upper Midwest.
Timing is tricky to unravel as to Jeff Davis possibly preparing, while in the senate, for future expansion after the late antebellum period. I have found, understandable if he was planning something that bold, no statements by him on that subject.
I did read that Davis was at that time supporting a proposed rail route roughly over the present Southern Pacific route west from El Paso, and that S.A. Douglas opposed and stopped it. I haven't been able to check the Congressional Record to mail it down, but it seems possible.
Thanks for your info...
“As the railroad age evolved, business-oriented Southerners saw that a railroad linking the South with the Pacific Coast would expand trade opportunities. They thought the topography of the southern portion of the original boundary line was too mountainous to allow a direct route. Projected southern railroad routes tended to veer to the north as they proceeded eastward, which would favor connections with northern railroads and ultimately favor northern seaports. Southerners saw that to avoid the mountains, a route with a southeastern terminus might need to swing south into what was still Mexican territory.
The administration of President Pierce, strongly influenced by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, saw an opportunity to acquire land for the railroad, as well as to acquire significant other territory from northern Mexico.[6] In those years, the debate over slavery in the United States entered into many other debates, as the acquisition of new territory opened the question of whether it would be slave or free territory; in this case, the debate over slavery ended progress on construction of a southern transcontinental rail line until the early 1880s, although the preferred land became part of the nation and was used as intended after the Civil War.”
Excerpt: “ September 9, 1859 Under the Refuge of Oppression column, here are extracts of a speech by Davis, before the Democratic State Convention, in Mississippi, July 1859. The speech is statement of the positive good and necessity of slavery, and includes a favoring of the acquisition of Cuba. “That the presence of slaves in the island made it more desirable to me, I will not deny.” He favors acquisition by purchase from Spain, “but if all peaceful means should prove unavailing, then, whenever her island is about to become, in the hand of an enemy, dangerous to the United States, or whenever just cause for war shall be given by Spain, I say we should take possession of Cuba……” His speech also includes a fear that the nation is approaching a time when a decision must be made about the Union. He makes reference to a recent speech by Seward, and indicates if a President is elected on a platform such as in that speech, then “let the Union be dissolved”.
Not to imply that king cotton was ever going to be replaced by precious metal mining etc., groups of well-trained slaves might've been worth their weight in gold (sorry).
And so, as per usual, you seem to ignore the actual facts, which tell us there were thousands of slaves in New Mexico, some persisting into the early 1900s.
Instead, you focus on claims that only a handful of these were African slaves, and pretend the others were not actual slaves.
As it happens, I lived in New Mexico, briefly, when I was a young man, traveled over a lot of the state and can confirm it is generally pretty dry.
But there is lots of water there, in the Rio Grande and Peco River watersheds.
Pecos River (left) and Rio Grande (right), northern New Mexico:
Map of New Mexico watersheds:
Its all conjecture on your part as to how big of a concern this actually was to the vast majority of White Southerners. In the states which seceded. only 5.67% of the total White population owned slaves. No doubt the possibility of slave revolts was a concern to those few elites on large plantations. They however were a relatively tiny minority of White Southerners....and contrary to the laughable claims of some, no they did not control everything in the region any more than the top 1% control everything in the US today.
The earliest US gold rushes were in North Carolina and Georgia. Some of the miners were free Whites. Others (including one who became a very successful mine owner) were free Blacks. Still others were slaves. John C. Calhoun and his son-in-law Thomas Clemson used slaves in their mine, and some of the money went to Clemson University. I don't know the details of how the mines were worked, but apparently, slaves were working in mines, even in the US. It's certainly possible that if slavery had expanded, some slaves would have been working in mining. It's less likely that they'd be doing all the jobs. As was appparently the case in apartheid South Africa, Blacks and Whites would be doing different work.
There were slaves employed in various trades including a few at the Tredeggar Iron Works in Richmond and no doubt a few in mining. As a general rule however, you couldn't profitably employ slaves in anything but growing highly lucrative cash crops. Had that not been the case, they would have been employed in other areas - but the historical evidence is that they weren't...and as industrialization spread more and more of them were emancipated.
Yes, there is, on several points, beginning with your alleged "wealth transfers", which worked worked both ways -- in 1789, US tariffs on Northern iron or steel were no higher than tariffs on Southern produced tobacco, hemp (cordage) and indigo (SC blue died cloth).
In later years, tariffs on Southern produced cotton, sugar and rice were just as high as on any northern made iron or wollen products.
Plus, there is plenty of dispute about your point that in 1789 all US shipping was northern built, owned & operated.
In fact, there was major shipbuilding in Southern ports like Charleston, SC, and Baltimore, MD, also in New Orleans at the time of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.
USS Constellation, 1854 built in Norfolk, VA (left)
USS Constellation 1797 built in Baltimore, MD
replica "Pride of Baltimore", Baltimore clipper, built 1847:
So, laws reducing taxes on US shipping were not focused on Northerners, but on any American who built & operated shipping.
Yes, Southern shipbuilding did begin to fade, with the arrival of steam powered boats & ships and their requirements for high-quality iron & steel.
But this had nothing to do with tariff rates favoring the North, plus, Southern shipbuilding never entirely disappeared.
SS Planter, 1860, loaded with 1,000 bales of cotton.
SS Planter was built in Charleston, SC:
And yet there were thousands of slaves in New Mexico, going back to Spanish times.
Why are you blind to them?
But why would you want to distinguish one type of slave from another -- for legal purposes isn't a slave a slave regardless of race or anything else?
The claim is made that slavery was not profitable in New Mexico territory, and yet there were still thousands of slaves there, some of which persisted into the early 1900s.
Profitable? Not profitable? What does it matter when there were thousands and had been for centuries?
Contrary to your claims, yes they were.
According to “Financial Failure and Confederate Defeat” by Douglas B. Ball, in 1860 out of total $52.3 million custom collection, southern ports paid $4.0 million (7.6%).
However, it should be considered that because some supplies from overseas were landed in New York and then carried south, southerners as final consumers indirectly paid bigger than 8% portion of tariffs (by no mean 75-80%).
Most likely South paid no more than proportional (by white population) share of tariffs, and probably less, according to contemporary eyewitnesses:
*“When the valued exports and imports of any of the Southern states are compared, it is found that the former is invariably exceeds the latter, in consequence of the want of a consuming class… It is common theme for the Southern politicians to lament the want of enterprise among the merchants in conduct a foreign import trade… But the truth is, there are few imports required, for every Southern town tells the same tale” North America, its agriculture and climate, by Robert Russell, Edinburgh 1857
“A very large part of our duties are collected on the class of goods for which there is almost no demand at all from the South, either directly or indirectly – woolen and fur goods, for instance; of the goods require for the South not a few have been practically free. The whole slave population of the South consumes almost nothing ... The majority of the population habitually makes use of no foreign production except chicory, which, ground with peas, they call coffee. I have never seen reason to believe that with absolute free trade the cotton States would take a tenth part of the value of our present importations. And as I can judge from observation of the comparative use of foreign goods at the South and at the North, not a tenth part of our duties have been defrayed by the South in the last twenty years” The Cotton Kingdom, Vol. 1, by Frederick Law Olmsted, New York – London, 1861
It sounds very logical, and both authors intensively traveled South in mid-1850. Source
The problem with this is it presumes the end customer pays the tariff. It ignores costs that have to be eaten by the importer....who was overwhelmingly the same Southerners who exported.
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.
"What were the causes of the Southern independence movement in 1860? . . . Northern commercial and manufacturing interests had forced through Congress taxes that oppressed Southern planters and made Northern manufacturers rich . . . the South paid about three-quarters of all federal taxes, most of which were spent in the North." - Charles Adams, "For Good and Evil. The impact of taxes on the course of civilization," 1993, Madison Books, Lanham, USA, pp. 325-327
"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
"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
[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
"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
And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures.
The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three fourths of them are expended at the North. This cause, with others, connected with the operation of the General Government, has made the cities of the South provincial. Their growth is paralyzed; they are mere suburbs of Northern cities. The agricultural productions of the South are the basis of the foreign commerce of the United States; yet Southern cities do not carry it on. Our foreign trade, is almost annihilated. Robert Barnwell Rhett
"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
"They [the South] know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty to seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interests. These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union. They, the North, are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto. They are mad as hornets because the prize slips them just as they are ready to grasp it. These are the reasons why these people [the North] do not wish the South to secede from the Union." The New Orleans Daily Crescent 21 January 1861
"The people of the Southern States, whose almost exclusive occupation was agriculture, early perceived a tendency in the Northern States to render the common government subservient to their own purposes by imposing burdens on commerce as a protection to their manufacturing and shipping interests. Long and angry controversies grew out of these attempts, often successful, to benefit one section of the country at the expense of the other. And the danger of disruption arising from this cause was enhanced by the fact that the Northern population was increasing, by immigration and other causes, in a greater ratio than the population of the South. By degrees, as the Northern States gained preponderance in the National Congress, self-interest taught their people to yield ready assent to any plausible advocacy of their right as a majority to govern the minority without control." Jefferson Davis Address to the Confederate Congress April 29, 1861
Northern newspapers were not shy about admitting the South was the North's cash cow.
The predicament in which both the government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws, is now thoroughly understood the world over....If the manufacturer at Manchester (England) can send his goods into the Western States through New Orleans at less cost than through New York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage....if the importations of the country are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel. The produce of the West, instead of coming to our own port by millions of tons to be transported abroad by the same ships through which we received our importations, will seek other routes and other outlets. With the loss of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many hundred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior? They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers. Once at New Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country duty free. The process is perfectly simple. The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North. We now see whither our tending, and the policy we must adopt. With us it is no longer an abstract question of Constitutional construction, or of the reserved or delegated power of the State or Federal Government, but of material existence and moral position both at home and abroad. We were divided and confused till our pockets were touched." New York Times March 30, 1861
"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
That either revenue from these duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the ports must be closed to importations from abroad. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed, the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up. We shall have no money to carry on the government, the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe....allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten percent which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York. The Railways would be supplied from the southern ports." New York Evening Post March 12, 1861 article "What Shall be Done for a Revenue?"
"But what am I to do in the meantime with those men at Montgomery [meaning the Confederate constitutional convention]? Am I to let them go on... [a]nd open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry, with their ten-percent tariff. What, then, would become of my tariff?" ~ Lincoln to Colonel John B. Baldwin, deputized by the Virginian Commissioners to determine whether Lincoln would use force, April 4, 1861.
"Slavery is not the cause of the rebellion ....Slavery is the pretext on which the leaders of the rebellion rely, 'to fire the Southern Heart' and through which the greatest degree of unanimity can be produced....Mr. Calhoun, after finding that the South could not be brought into sufficient unanimity by a clamor about the tariff, selected slavery as the better subject for agitation North American Review (Boston October 1862)
[demanding a blockade of Southern ports, because, if not] "a series of customs houses will be required on the vast inland border from the Atlantic to West Texas. Worse still, with no protective tariff, European goods will under-price Northern goods in Southern markets. Cotton for Northern mills will be charged an export tax. This will cripple the clothing industries and make British mills prosper. Finally, the great inland waterways, the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio Rivers, will be subject to Southern tolls." The Philadelphia Press 18 March 1861
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
On 18 March 1861, the Boston Transcript noted that while the Southern states had claimed to secede over the slavery issue, now "the mask has been thrown off and it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding states are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centres of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports....by a revenue system verging on free trade...."
[the North relied on money from tariffs] “so even if the Southern states be allowed to depart in peace, the first question will be revenue. Now if the South have free trade, how can you collect revenues in eastern cities? Freight from New Orleans, to St. Louis, Chicago, Louisville, Cincinnati and even Pittsburgh, would be about the same as by rail from New York and imported at New Orleans having no duties to pay, would undersell the East if they had to pay duties. Therefore if the South make good their confederation and their plan, The Northern Confederacy must do likewise or blockade. Then comes the question of foreign nations. So look on it in any view, I see no result but war and consequent change in the form of government. William Tecumseh Sherman in a letter to his brother Senator John Sherman 1861.
“Let the South adopt the free-trade system and the North’s commerce must be reduced to less than half of what it now is.” Daily Chicago Times Dec 10 1860
In the North, enforcement of the Morrill Tariff contributed to support for the Union cause among industrialists and merchant interests. Speaking of this class, the abolitionist Orestes Brownson derisively remarked that "the Morrill Tariff moved them more than the fall of Sumter."
"Down here they think they are going to have fine times. New Orleans a free port, whereby she can import Goods without limit or duties, and Sell to the up River Countries. But Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore will never consent that N. Orleans should be a Free Port, and they Subject to Duties." William T. Sherman
"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
In a speech delivered in the Virginia Convention of 1788, Patrick Henry had predicted that the South would eventually find itself economically subjugated to the North once the latter had secured to itself a majority in the new federal Government: "This government subjects every thing to the Northern majority. Is there not, then, a settled purpose to check the Southern interest?... How can the Southern members prevent the adoption of the most oppressive mode of taxation in the Southern States, as there is a majority in favor of the Northern States?" Henry's prediction was not long in being realized. As early as 1789, the first impost bill was introduced in Congress which protected the New England fishing industry and its production of molasses, and exhibited, in the opinion of William Grayson, "a great disposition... for the advancement of commerce and manufactures in preference to agriculture." Thus, when the Union under the Constitution was but two months old, many Southerners felt that their States were already being obliged to serve the North as "the milch cow out of whom the substance would be extracted."
In a pamphlet published in 1850, Muscoe Russell Garnett of Virginia wrote: The whole amount of duties collected from the year 1791, to June 30, 1845, after deducting the drawbacks on foreign merchandise exported, was $927,050,097. Of this sum the slaveholding States paid $711,200,000, and the free States only $215,850,097. Had the same amount been paid by the two sections in the constitutional ratio of their federal population, the South would have paid only $394,707,917, and the North $532,342,180. Therefore, the slaveholding States paid $316,492,083 more than their just share, and the free States as much less.
From the days of the illustrious Henry onwards, the South had generally stood in the way of the Northern goal to make such an unjust system of taxation permanent. According to John Taylor of Virginia, a high protective tariff system, like that which existed in Great Britain, was "undoubtedly the best which has ever appeared for extracting money from the people; and commercial restrictions, both upon foreign and domestick commerce, are its most effectual means for accomplishing this object. No equal mode of enriching the party of government, and impoverishing the party of people, has ever been discovered." Nevertheless, the North clung tenaciously to its protectionist policy and managed to push through the tariff legislation of 1828 which provoked South Carolina to resistance to the general Government and nearly to secession from the Union during the Administration of Andrew Jackson. It should be noted that, by 1828, the public debt was near to extinction and, at the current rate of taxation on imported goods, a twelve to thirteen million dollar annual surplus would have been created in the Treasury. Thus, the excuse for a high tariff system as a source of Government revenue was a flimsy one at best; the so-called "Tariff of Abomination" really served no other purpose than to "rob and plunder nearly one half of the Union, for the benefit of the residue." James Spence of London explained the effects of such a high tariff on the Southern economy:
This system of protecting Northern manufactures, has an injurious influence, beyond the effect immediately apparent. It is doubly injurious to the Southern States, in raising what they have to buy, and lowering what they have to sell. They are the exporters of the Union, and require that other countries shall take their productions. But other countries will have difficulty in taking them, unless permitted to pay for them in the commodities which are their only means of payment. They are willing to receive cotton, and to pay for it in iron, earthenware, woollens. But if by extravagant duties, these be prohibited from entering the Union, or greatly restricted, the effect must needs be, to restrict the power to buy the products of the South. Our imports of Southern productions, have nearly reached thirty millions sterling a year. Suppose the North to succeed in the object of its desire, and to exclude our manufactures altogether, with what are we to pay? It is plainly impossible for any country to export largely, unless it be willing also, to import largely. Should the Union be restored, and its commerce be conducted under the present tariff, the balance of trade against us must become so great, as either to derange our monetary system, or compel us to restrict our purchases from those, who practically exclude other payment than gold. With the rate of exchange constantly depressed, the South would receive an actual money payment, much below the current value of its products. We should be driven to other markets for our supplies, and thus the exclusion of our manufactures by the North, would result in a compulsory exclusion, on our part, of the products of the South.
This is a consideration of no importance to the Northern manufacturer, whose only thought is the immediate profit he may obtain, by shutting out competition. It may be, however, of very extreme importance to others — to those who have products they are anxious to sell to us, who are desirous to receive in payment, the very goods we wish to dispose of, and yet are debarred from this. Is there not something of the nature of commercial slavery, in the fetters of a system that prevents it? If we consider the terms of the compact, and the gigantic magnitude of Southern trade, it becomes amazing, that even the attempt should be made, to deal with it in such a manner as this.
George McDuffie of South Carolina stated in the House of Representatives, "If the union of these states shall ever be severed, and their liberties subverted, historians who record these disasters will have to ascribe them to measures of this description. I do sincerely believe that neither this government, nor any free government, can exist for a quarter of a century under such a system of legislation." While the Northern manufacturer enjoyed free trade with the South, the Southern planter was not allowed to enjoy free trade with those countries to which he could market his goods at the most benefit to himself. Furthermore, while the six cotton States — South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas — had less than one-eighth of the representation in Congress, they furnished two-thirds of the exports of the country, much of which was exchanged for imported necessities. Thus, McDuffie noted that because the import tariff effectively hindered Southern commerce, the relation which the Cotton States bore to the protected manufacturing States of the North was now the same as that which the colonies had once borne to Great Britain; under the current system, they had merely changed masters.
The legislation of this Union has impoverished them [the Southern States] by taxation and by a diversion of the proceeds of our labor and trade to enriching Northern Cities and States. These results are not only sufficient reasons why we would prosper better out of the union but are of themselves sufficient causes of our secession. Upon the mere score of commercial prosperity, we should insist upon disunion. Let Charleston be relieved from her present constrained vassalage in trade to the North, and be made a free port and my life on it, she will at once expand into a great and controlling city.
In a letter to the Carolina Times in 1857, Representative Laurence Keitt wrote, "I believe that the safety of the South is only in herself." James H. Hammond likewise stated in 1858, "I have no hesitation in saying that the Plantation States should discard any government that makes a protective tariff its policy."
"Secession, southerners argued, would 'liberate' the South and produce the kind of balanced economy that was proving so successful in the North and so unachievable in the South." (John A. Garraty and Robert McCaughey, The American Nation: A History of the United States to 1877, Volume One, Sixth Edition, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1987, pp. 418-419, emphasis in original)
Many in the foreign press realized just as much as the Southern and Northern press realized it.
"For the contest on the part of the North is now undisguisedly for empire. The question of slavery is thrown to the winds. There is hardly any concession in its favor that the South could ask which the North would refuse provided only that the seceding states re-enter the Union.....Away with the pretence on the North to dignify its cause with the name of freedom to the slave!" London Quarterly Review 1862
“The contest is really for empire on the side of the North, and for independence on that of the South, and in this respect we recognize an exact analogy between the North and the Government of George III, and the South and the Thirteen Revolted Provinces. These opinions…are the general opinions of the English nation.” London Times, November 7, 1861
" 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 … The conflict is between semi-independent communities [in which] every feeling and interest [in the South] calls for political partition, and every pocket interest [in the North] calls for union. So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle. Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many other evils … the quarrel between North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel." – Charles Dickens, as editor of All the Year Round, a British periodical in 1862
"The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states." --Charles Dickens, 1862
Seems strange that all these contemporary politicians, newspapers, commentators and later tax experts all say the South paid the overwhelming majority of the tariff while most federal expenditures were in the North if it weren't so.
Southerners (with some Northerners and foreigners) had been filling up Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. They were as used to settling new territories as Northerners. Cotton was king, and the sons of plantation owners wanted their own plantations. The Southern elites that wanted secession also wanted to expand into Mexico and the Caribbean. The idea that slavery would have been profitable and widespread in Nebraska may have been an illusion, but talk of slavery expansion was about far more than just Senate seats.
America had fought a war with Mexico and come away with thousands of acres of land. Talk of "Manifest Destiny" was everywhere. We were a nation on the move. The idea that Southern slaveowners didn't want a part of that is hard to believe. There is also the intangible factor, being cut out of anything was perceived by slaveolders as an insult and an injustice, so they would fight for what they saw as their share of the territories, even if slavery wouldn't work there. And as for Senate seats: at the same time as the country was arguing over the Kansas-Nebraska Act, prominent Southerners were hoping to annex Cuba -- preferably by purchase, but by war if necessary. Those new Senate seats could have made such a move possible at some point.
I don't doubt that some Southerners just like the rest of America was shall we say "acquisitive". Yet the CSA did not annex those territories nor did the seceding states make any claim to the Western territories when they seceded. It seems awfully strange that they wouldn't make any claims if their desire for expansion rather than just additional senate seats for the internal power struggle were their real motivation.
There were four proposed constitutions for Kansas. One would have made Kansas a slave state. One would have excluded both slaves and free blacks. The version that was finally accepted made Kansas a free state and did not exclude African-Americans. Some other states did have constitutions that forbade Blacks from living there. But African-Americans did live their and the populations grew. So yes, there was hostility to people of color in the Midwest, but it wasn't universal or absolute. It was more common in the lower than the upper Midwest.
The Black Codes were on the books first in the Midwest and the majority of Whites did not want Blacks living amongst them. The Black Codes were designed to prevent Blacks from settling in those states and western territories.
"Our people hate the Negro with a perfect if not a supreme hatred,' said Congressman George Julian of Indiana. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois conceded that 'there is a very great aversion in the West--I know it to be so in my State--against having free negroes come among us. Our people want nothing to do with the negro." The same could be said of many soldiers. . . ." (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 275)
As usual, you ignore the facts. When the US took that territory from Mexico it inherited some enslaved natives. But the fact remains that only about a dozen African slaves were brought in. If Southerners were trying to create some slave empire they were doing an awfully poor job of it. Why do you suppose so few were brought in? It was because by and large not suited to growing the kind of lucrative cash crops that slavery was suited for. ie there wasn't enough economic value there to be worthwhile.
And yet Southerners only brought about a dozen slaves into the territory. Why do you suppose that was? Why not flood the place with slaves if they thought they could make some money out of it?
OK. Let me rephrase that. There isn't a dispute that a lot of wealth was transferred from the South to the North by serious historians.
Plus, there is plenty of dispute about your point that in 1789 all US shipping was northern built, owned & operated. In fact, there was major shipbuilding in Southern ports like Charleston, SC, and Baltimore, MD, also in New Orleans at the time of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.
Except I didn't say "all". I said MOST shipbuilding was done in the Northeast. That's because it was.
So, laws reducing taxes on US shipping were not focused on Northerners, but on any American who built & operated shipping.
It wasn't the laws reducing taxes such as they were on shipping. It was the Navigation Acts requiring trade to be carried out by US built ships. MOST shipbuilding was done in the Northeast. So such measures disproportionally benefitted the Northeast.
Au Contraire. The Corwin Amendment shows clearly that the North was not fighting to abolish slavery nor was it threatened within the US. And if the North was not fighting to abolish it, the South was not fighting to preserve it. THE big issue was not slavery.
As for "Manifest Destiny" aka the desire to expand and acquire new territory, that was present North and South in this period. There is no way of knowing what would have happened had the Southern states been left to pursue their own course. Of course, as Lincoln pointed out, with no Fugitive Slave Clause in the US constitution to protect them (once they were independent), slavery would have been brought to a rapid end by the number of slaves - and especially the young, strong, fit most economically productive slaves - who could have gained their freedom by simply crossing the 1500 miles CSA-USA border.
The answer is, there higher revenues collected from tariff protected Southern products than there were revenues from protected Northern products.
Tariff protected Southern products included:
Tariff protected Northern products included:
Here is a table with the amounts of each:
TABLE SHOWING TOP 1860 US IMPORT TARIFF ITEMS
| Commodity | 1860 revenue $ | Produced in |
|---|---|---|
| Cotton | 6,500,000 | the South |
| Brown Sugar | 7,430,000 | the South |
| Molasses | 1,800,000 | the South |
| Flax & Hemp | 1,728,000 | the South |
| Total collected | $17,458,000 | Southern products |
| ** | ||
| Woolens | 8,155,000 | the North |
| Iron & Iron mfg | 4,458,000 | the North |
| Total collected | $12,613,000 | Northern products |
| ** | ||
| Silks | 5,589,000 | China |
| Coffee | 3,962,000 | South America |
| Tea | 1,339,000 | China |
| Wines | 1,134,000 | France |
| Total collected | $12,024,000 | No US made |
Bottom line: in 1860 the Federal government collected more money from protective tariffs on Southern products ($17.5 million) than it did on Northern products ($12.6 million).
Talk about a lot of nonsense! The Bottom line is about 3/4s of all the tariffs were paid by Southerners who were the primary exporters and importers. A far greater share of the revenue raised was spent in the North than in the South. I have demonstrated this via newspapers from the North, the South and the foreign press at the time, via comments from Northern and Southern political leaders at the time and via the analysis of a tax expert who wrote several books on the subject.
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