Posted on 08/05/2010 6:01:30 AM PDT by Michael Zak
[by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine, CA), re-published with his permission]
For years I have admired Congressman Ron Paul’s principled stance on spending and the Constitution. That said, he really damaged himself when he blamed President Lincoln for the Civil War, saying, “Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war… [President Abraham Lincoln] did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic.”
This is historical revisionism of the worst order, and it must be addressed.
For Congressman Paul’s benefit – and for his supporters who may not know – seven states illegally declared their “independence” from the United States before Lincoln was sworn in as President. After South Carolina fired the first shot at Fort Sumter, four additional states declared independence...
(Excerpt) Read more at grandoldpartisan.typepad.com ...
See: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dirwin/docs/ham.pdf
QUOTE: "Although Hamilton’s proposals for bounties (subsidies) failed to receive support, virtually every tariff recommendation was adopted by Congress in early 1792. These tariffs were not highly protectionist because Hamilton feared discouraging imports, which were the critical tax base on which he planned to fund the public debt."
"Protectionist" tariffs generally taxed well into the double digits as their goal was to discourage importation all together. Think of a sales tax that was 60% or 100% or in some cases even 300%. Most tariffs before 1816, by contrast, were less than 10% and to call them "protectionist" in the same sense as the ones Jefferson protested in the 1820's, you demonstrate conclusively that you do not have a clue what you are talking about.
"So then you agree that your statement about no blacks being allowed to vote in the north was incorrect."
Did you or did you not make that statement? If you admit that you did, then you misrepresented my words and now you've been caught. If you do not admit that you did, you've still been caught and you are a liar as well.
Will you admit that Jefferson would not think that the South’s “grievances” would rise to the level of secession?
Will you admit that you were wrong about the government not enacting Tariffs until 1816?
And I agree with his position on Tarriffs!!!
If you see no difference between the mild 1789 tariffs of a couple percent and the double and triple digit tariff rates of 1828, then obviously you do not.
Jefferson's point - and it's as important today as it was back then - is that a reasonable amount of revenue taxation is constitutionally permissible, but exorbitant taxation for a whole slew of redistributive and interventionist purposes is not. The early U.S. tariffs were low and, for the most part, reasonable. The tariffs of the 1820's were extreme and redistributive. And if you don't think Jefferson would have found exorbitant taxation to be a just cause for political separation, I suggest you read a little document he wrote circa 1776.
Will you admit that Jefferson would not think that the South’s “grievances” would rise to the level of secession?
Jefferson wasn't alive in 1861 so I don't know what he would have said (though I do find it interesting his grandson, along with the children and grandchildren of most of the Virginia statesmen of his era) served in the Confederate government.
Jefferson was however alive for the first part of the tariff disputes of the 1820's that produced the nullification crisis. He made his position on those disputes very clear, and it was on the side of the nullifiers.
Will you admit that you were wrong about the government not enacting Tariffs until 1816?
Your imprecise wording is again your own worst enemy, Teufel. Please show me where I ever said the government did "not enact Tariffs until 1816." I know of no such instance, though I invite you to challenge that. Assuming you cannot though, I will have to again conclude you are misrepresenting my words - the second time that has happened today, leading me to also wonder about your honesty.
As to the Tariff of 1789, if you cannot see the difference between a 5% revenue tariff and a 65% protectionist tariff, then I suppose you also cannot see the difference between a 15% uniform flat income tax and a progressive income tax where the highest bracket reaches 90%.
In point of fact, Jefferson wrote the initial drafts of the Northwest Ordinance which forbade slavery in the territories North of the Ohio river.
Of course you always couch your wording in qualifiers. It depends upon the meaning of is, right? He was President during 1804 when the first secession crisis started and was not for the New England states seceding. We know that. Or perhaps you think he was for their secession?
Thanks for that info Ditto....
Of course you always couch your wording in qualifiers.
If it is factually incorrect to describe something in absolute terms, then yes I will use a qualifier and appropriately so. There's nothing even remotely unclear about it, and in fact it gives my statements a level of precision that yours frequently lack (which is also why you tend to get into so much trouble). As to the meaning of "is," there is nothing remotely appropriate about that analogy. My use of qualifiers where appropriate has been plain and explicit for anyone to read. Don't blame me for your own inability to do just that.
In fact in the post you sent me of Jefferson's quote (386), it does not even mention tariffs.
Actually it does.
"Under the power to regulate commerce, they assume indefinitely that also over agriculture and manufactures, and call it regulation to take the earnings of one of these branches of industry, and that too the most depressed, and put them into the pockets of the other, the most flourishing of all."
And since you are probably too dense to realize that he is obviously referring there to the taxation of imports, I'll go ahead and direct your attention to the text of the resolution in the Virginia legislature (adopted March 4, 1826 at Jefferson's own direction) that was the subject of that letter.
"Be it therefore Resolved, That the imposition of taxes and duties, by the Congress of the United States, for the purpose of protecting and encouraging domestic manufactures, is an unconstitutional exercise of power, and is highly oppressive and partial in its operation."
Actually it doesn't. Show me in his quote you posted where it says "tariff"?
Funny. I remember calling this one. "And since you are probably too dense to realize that he is obviously referring there to the taxation of imports." Thanks for validating my earlier observation.
And a tariff is a tax by the way. In the 1820's most of the federal government's revenue came from tariffs, ergo when Jefferson wrote about redistributionist federal taxes he was referring to the tariff system.
And I was counting on your obtuseness. That’s why I put the definition of a tariff in my post.
Just not quite long enough to realize that taxes and tariffs were synonymous in the 1820's.
You pull a quote out about his not liking the confiscation of property from one to benefit another
Which is otherwise known as...wait for it...taxation. And you can put that on your learn-to-spell list for next week.
Are you intentionally being obtuse and contrary?
The South had almost no manufacturing base, as theirs was an agricultural economy, and that’s why they had to import machinery, forged goods, and furniture; the imports — before the tariffs — were cheaper than similar goods produced in the North.
There existed a long-standing mutual economic relationship between England and the South, and in order to ensure that the British market for Southern cotton remained open, Southern planters and others had to maintain relatively sizable importation of goods from Britain. Hence, the Southern economy was an import-oriented one. The tariffs made the cost of those imports prohibitive, and threatened the trade relationship between the South and Europe (especially Britain), and thus the very economic life of the South.
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