Posted on 07/07/2012 11:51:43 AM PDT by nickcarraway
At the height of the holiday shopping season of 1860, a bookseller in Richmond, Va., placed a telling advertisement in The Daily Dispatch promoting a selection of "Elegant Books for Christmas and New Year's Presents." Notably, the list of two dozen "choice books, suitable for Holiday Gifts" included five works by the late Scottish novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott in "various beautiful bindings."
Sir Walter Scott not only dominated gift book lists on the eve of the Civil War but also dominated Southern literary taste throughout the conflict. His highly idealized depiction of the age of chivalry allowed Southern readers and writers to find positive meaning in war's horrors, hardships and innumerable deaths. And his works inspired countless wartime imitators, who drew upon his romantic conception of combat.
In 1814 Scott had begun his ascension to the heights of literary stardom with the publication of the historical romance "Waverley," which was soon followed by other novels in the so-called Waverley series. The works were an immediate and immense success in Great Britain and America. Over the course of many volumes, Scott glamorized the Middle Ages, at once shaping and popularizing what we now consider the classic tale of chivalry. As one enamored 19th-century reader explained, each of Scott's romances focused upon the "manners and habits of the most interesting and chivalrous periods of Scottish [and] British history."
Among Scott's most famous works was "Ivanhoe," published in 1820. The romance, set in the 12th century, presents a tale of intrigue, love and valor. The plot traces the fortunes of young Wilfred of Ivanhoe as he strives, despite his father's opposition, to gain the hand of the beautiful Lady Rowena. In the course of Ivanhoe's adventures, Richard the Lionheart and Robin Hood appear, and Ivanhoe performs many a remarkable feat.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...
You are wrong again.
Tariffs were charged on practically all imports, but the bulk of the tariff revenue came from.........................
SUGAR and CLOTHING.
See for yourself and learn. This data is from the US Department of Commerce for trading year 1860. and shows that the following seven articles brought in 75% of tariff revenues:
sugar/molasses.................16.14%
manufactures wool.............15.11%
manufactures cotton..........13.19%
manufacturessilk...............12.03%
manufactures iron/steel.......8.96%
wines/spirits......................6.15%
cigars/tobacco...................3.23%
Are you beginning to realize that it is obvious that your contentions are just pulled out of thin air?
You have been given data, with references, without interpretation or extrapolation. You are simply wrong.
You said: “A ‘census archive’ whatever that might be at the University of Virginia may contain some valuable information but it won’t be posted by you clowns. Rather, distortions, misrepresentations and/or out right falsehoods are FAR more likely.”
Of course the exact data was provided. Attempting to refute factual data makes you wrong.
You said: “Those per capita income numbers do not agree with those of the census...”
Since you did not read the sources provided, you cannot know that as a fact.
“....or make sense in the light of the other income numbers you posted yourself.”
Show the contradiction.
“Those numbers clearly showed that the per capital income for the TOTAL POPULATION was higher in the North than in the South. As I told you was the case.”
Your contention originally was that “per capita income in the North was higher than the South”
You have been shown on four occasions with two sources of data that you are wrong.
You need to think that one over.
My original statement was ENTIRELY correct and per capita income was higher in the North only one desperate to protect the Slaverocracy’s folly would come up with something so transparent as NOT using the income of the total population.
This is typical of the Cornpone Brigade’s duplicity and a perfect example of why no number or quote it posts can be taken at face value.
The only time you are NOT duplicitous is when you don’t even understand what the numbers say.
Then you post per capita income numbers that are SO wildly wrong as to be hilarious. The ACTUAL per capita income in 1860 was about 600 dollars NOT the thousands you claim.
Per capita income in this country did not reach $2000 until well into the 20th century much less the figure claimed for the South. Whoever posted that apparently misread some other figure.
It ACTUALLY was about $600.
Sugar was a luxury item though it is likely that the North imported more of this.
You don’t seem to grasp the fact that what is a common, inexpensive commodity today was often very expensive in 1860 and not consumed by the common man. Coffee, sugar, wine, rum, silk, cigars all these were luxuries.
If the items you post as the most significant were indeed the most significant they IN NO WAY caused an inordinate drain on the South’s resources.
Slaves were obviously NOT clothed in imported clothes except in Cornpone Brigade fantasies. Nor were the poor whites, those were luxuries as far as the mass of the population North and South was considered.
If “manufactures wool”, “cotton” “silk” “iron” are used in manufacturing clothing and machinery then those were imported as inputs not final consumption. And most went to Northern industry. Most imports went to the North and most of the tariff revenue came from the North.
Since you reference the 1860 census check its per capita income numbers to show how wildly wrong your later numbers are.
Oh, please it is an almost universal claim by the Cornpone Brigade that the Slavers revolted because of “tyranny”. That is a staple in all their arguments because without tyranny secession was inexcusable.
I never once denied secession dreams outside the South. Most were trivial and without any real basis and have nothing to do with any real tyrannical acts or policies. A tariff was NOT “tyranny”.
In other words, these ideas were merely based on ties to the Slaver system not any noble ideals. There was NOTHING noble about the Slavers or the Secession, nothing.
You said: “The ACTUAL per capita income in 1860 was about 600 dollars NOT the thousands you claim.”
Source for that?
You said: “Per capita income in this country did not reach $2000 until well into the 20th century much less the figure claimed for the South. Whoever posted that apparently misread some other figure.”
You misread the post. That figure was given for semi-professional artisans such as carpenters, blacksmiths, etc.
You said: “It ACTUALLY was about $600.”
Source please.
Again, you were told before that the per capita data came from census data. See the reference.
I am sure that you think that hats, shoes, nails, and pig iron were luxuries too.
Right?
Imported hats and shoes probably were rather luxurious. Common people wore cheap stuff. International trade, as a whole, concentrated on luxurious stuff. Those were the things which could justify the high cost of transportation.
Only after transport costs had been reduced to low levels could one profitably trade in bulk goods.
Nails could be traded because their high weight to volume allowed profits. But the South’s trade woes were not the result of importing nails but an obsolete economic system.
Income had not reached the levels your source claimed until deep within the 20th century.
In 1950 the census showed that the avg. for males was $2,570
and $953 for females. Nothing close to the bogus crap you post. If I had to guess I would say that what was posted was either a huge mistake or someone took, perhaps, a per capita wealth figure not income.
There are no “official” measures of income for that period so we are dealing with estimates of varying quality. However, we can get a rough idea of the figure and $600 would be in the ball park.
If you truly want to know what it was “The Statistical Abstract” is a good source. The online version I looked at only started in 1929 and per capita personal income for that year was $700. This figure dropped and did not hit one this high again until 1941 so I would tend to believe that the 1860 figure was actually lower than $600 particularly in the light of the figures you posted for laborers. IF those figures (a little above $100 for the South and $140+ for the North) are correct I would doubt the per capita as a whole would be much over $300.
No, I was told that the data came from a “census archive” but it does not specify that this was a U.S. Census archive. It is also true that there was no real collection of income data in earlier censuses since the term was not even used until much later. There was data on taxes paid, personal property, real estate value but not income.
But I can tell you with certainty that the per capita income in 1860 was NO WHERE close to those figures. It probably was barely Ten Percent of that.
As I expected nowhere in the Census Archive at U.V. is there any figure such as was claimed wrt per capita income. So, true to form, the near 4Gs for the South and the lower one for the North are NOT based on anything evident. Even a slight use of common sense shows them to be utterly fraudulent.
“Imported hats and shoes probably were rather luxurious.”
Source?
“International trade, as a whole, concentrated on luxurious stuff.”
Source?
“Those were the things which could justify the high cost of transportation.”
And your source for that wild ass statement is what?
Only after transport costs had been reduced to low levels could one profitably trade in bulk goods.
Source?
Nails could be traded because their high weight to volume allowed profits.
Source?
“But the South’s trade woes were not the result of importing nails but an obsolete economic system.”
Source?
And none of what you said was true.
Here is the ‘bogus crap’ data from the web site, with references. If you look into the census data, you will see that the following is statistically correct.
With only 30% of the nation's (free) population, the South had 60% of the “wealthiest men.” The 1860 per capita income in the South was $3,978; in the North it was $2,040.
http://faculty.weber.edu/kmackay/selected_statistics_on_slavery_i.htm
You think it is 'bogus crap' because it is posted from someone that you think is a cornpone and that it is a lie....both contentions you have made several times.
But you fail to do any SIMPLE RESEARCH and therefore you remain totally ignorant of the entire subject.
You ought to go back and finish watching your cartoons.
You apparently really believe that.
The American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the South to the midlands. That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.
Far from stagnating due to its labor pool as many have suggested, the economy of the antebellum South grew quite rapidly. Between 1840 and 1860, per capita income increased more rapidly in the South than in the rest of the nation. By 1860 the south attained a level of per capita income which was high by the standards of the time, surpassing the status of many European countries.
Although primarily a rural land, the South in 1860 had a lively urban population that included merchants and manufacturers centered in 20 cities with over 10,000 population each, the largest of which were Charleston and New Orleans.
By 1860, the South had more than $96,000,000 invested in about 20,000 factories. Nearly 110,000 factory workers were turning out products worth approximately $155,000,000 annually. Many of the laborers toiled in the plants only a portion of their time, for many of the factories still operated on the old domestic or putting-out system.
The professional classes of the South were not unlike anywhere else, except that their prosperity depended upon the success of the planters. The doctors, lawyers, journalists, and career-military officers - economically and socially tied into the planter economy. By 1850, non-slaveholding white farmers were increasing more rapidly as a group than were slaveholders.
The Southern economy had changed greatly in the decade of the 1850’s. Southern banking had grown extensively. At the end of 1859, the amount of money on hand in Southern banks was 20% higher than in Northeastern banks.
The growth in personal wealth in the South in the 1850’s was extensive. From the 1850 census, and state census records in 1858, the value of land and personal property had increased by 57%, while the same measure in the Northeast showed an increase of only 11%.
The typical southern state farm in 1860 had a valuation of $7,101. In the northern states this figure was $3,311.
Other industries that the South had historically ignored were receiving investment. Southern shipbuilding had grown to the point that there were in 1859 145 ship-building locations in the South that turned out 43,000 ship tons constructed that year. Southern shipyards were turning out both steam and sail powered vessels for the coastal and river trade.
The harbor in Charleston was being dredged in order to accommodate deep draft vessels used in transatlantic trade. Neither shipbuilding nor dredging was underwritten by any US Treasury money.
In 1853, the Southern states had 26% of the total railroad mileage in the country for 23% of the US population.
By 1859 according to the Boston Railway Times, there were 27,000 miles of railroads in the United States and that the Southern states percentage had grown to one third of the total of miles built. In addition to this fact, the railroads in the South had been constructed with private monies instead of Federal subsidies, were paid for, and had been cheaper to construct.
Connecting rail lines enabled a complete journey from practically any major Southern city on the Atlantic coast all the way to Monroe, Louisiana. A north/south journey followed connecting rail lines from New Orleans to Memphis and beyond the Ohio River.
In the deep west of the South, connecting rail lines reached from the east coast almost all the way to Little Rock, Arkansas with only a few miles over land in a rural unconstructed segment between the eastern end of the Little Rock line and the western end of the line crossing the Mississippi river.
Of all the CSA states, only Texas was unreachable by rail from the east coast in 1860. Texas had its own rail system stretching from the Sabine River border with Louisiana to Columbus, half way between Houston and San Antonio. Plans had been underway to connect the Sabine end to New Orleans and with it any point on the east coast since the 1850’s but engineering was difficult because the connection had to cross the swamps of western Louisiana.
This railroad capacity, plus the new shipbuilding abilities, meant that the South was becoming highly competitive in the transportation business. Thus the value of shipping from Southern harbors increased.
All the profitable branches of commercialism that thrived on the movement of Southern goods—freighting, brokering, selling, banking, insurance, storage—found in the Northeast, were receiving increased competition from businessmen in the South.
A rapidly growing group of people in the South were the “free blacks”. “Free”, in reference to Southern black Americans who were not slaves. They had been freed by former masters legally, had bought their way out of slavery from masters who allowed it, or had been born to manumitted slaves.
Most of the 250,000 free blacks lived in Virginia and Maryland, but clusters could also be found in Louisiana, particularly around New Orleans, in North Carolina, Tennessee, and in the border states of Kentucky and Missouri. Free Southern blacks in most communities held unskilled jobs, working usually as farm hands or day laborers. Some were trained as artisans and followed trades such as carpentry or shoemaking.
A few became wealthy, like Thomy Lafon, a New Orleans tycoon who amassed a fortune of over $500,000.
The “Charleston Mercury” reported in its Sunday, September 8, 1861, edition that free blacks in Charleston, South Carolina, had contributed $450 to the Confederate war effort.
Some free blacks became slaveholders themselves. Carter G. Woodson, a pioneer black historian, reported that 4,071 free blacks held 13,446 slaves in 1830. The largest concentration of black slaveholders were around New Orleans (753 owners with 2,351 slaves) Richmond, and in Maryland.
The final class in the South was the black slave. The slave existed in a closed system. Some masters allowed their slaves to purchase their freedom but the vast majority were the unconditional property of their masters. The master defined the slave's role, provided them with a clear and simple script, judged their performance, and rewarded or punished them according to its quality. In this closed system the slave had only limited contacts with free society. The masters provided the food, clothing, and shelter for their slaves.
Many slaves worked under the “task” system. This system provided the slave with a set of tasks to be completed within a given period of time. Should those tasks be completed before the given period of time had elapsed, the slave could then spend time in leisure, hire themselves out (with the foreknowledge of the master), or could work producing goods that could be sold, with the slave retaining all of the profits made from the sale. It was under the task system that some slaves were made able to buy their freedom.
With regard to housing, in the North there were 1.13 families per dwelling. In the West, the housing ratio was 1.02, and the South was 1.01. Therefore, the Southern family had at least the same or better accommodations.
In 1860, Virginia had twenty-three colleges enrolling 2,824 students, as against New York's seventeen colleges listing 2,970 students; and Georgia's thirty-two colleges with 3,302 students nominally overshadowed the eight Massachusetts colleges with 1,733 registrants.
In terms of crime, in the decade of 1850, in the North 1 in 310 blacks were in jail. In the South, 1 in 10,000. Of the white population, in the North 1 in 3000 were in jail. In the South, there were 1 in 5000 in jail.
Net worth of southerners was higher than their counterparts in the North and West.
Personal wealth in ownership of farm implements, machinery, and animals was greater in the South.
When the 1860 Census was completed it was noted that one measure of the census was “True Value of Personal Property” which was the per capita value of owned property. According to this measure of accumulation of personal wealth, the leading and most wealthy states among all of the United States were Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana.
The larger cotton plantations were of such a size and complexity that they were comparable to New England's factories. Lumber and grist mills were typically a part of these plantation's operations. Some had their own cotton gins. Large sugar plantations processed the cane once it was harvested. Some men owned several plantations and, therefore, found hired managers essential.
Slave owners constituted the wealthiest class in the nation. The average slave owner was more than five times as wealthy as the average Northerner; more than ten times as wealthy as the average non-slave holding Southerner.
According to the census, with only 30% of the nation’s (free) population, the South had 60% of the “wealthiest men.” The 1860 individual per capita income in the South was $3,978; in the North it was $2,040.
Former Census Office Director, James DeBow had said in the 1850’s that,
“The proportion (of valuable property ownership) which the slaveholders of the South bear to the entire population is greater than that of the owners of land or houses, agricultural stock, State, Bank or other corporation securities…In the States which are among the largest slaveholding, South Carolina, and Georgia, the land proprietors outnumber nearly two to one, in relative proportion, the owners of the same property in Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.”
Citizens of the South thus tended to invest in crop raw materials, farm animals, machinery for farming, slaves to aid in the work, and tracts of real estate.
Of the more than 8 million whites in the American South in 1860, those who owned slaves numbered 383,637. Of those, 2,292 were large planters who held more than 100 slaves.
Indentured slaves, either through the actions of their owners, or their ability to earn money beyond their regular work schedules, eventually earned their freedom. More than a quarter of a million blacks were free in the South during the years preceding the Civil War.
This meant that there were actually more free blacks in the South than there were in the North during these years.
No, it is bogus crap because there was NO WAY personal income was anywhere close to those numbers. They are pulled out of NO WHERE not the census archive you claim.
Rather than waste my time during your research for you I prefer to look at the nonsense you post and tell you what it means since you obviously don’t know.
In your desperation to defend and justify the Slavers you post sources which are in direct conflict and you don’t even realise it.
Do you really believe laborers earned $100 while the average income was almost $4,000? I showed you where you could find a basis for a legitimate estimate which also shows that it was impossible for the figures you believe to be true.
Watching “SpongeBob” is infinitely more rewarding than watching your crap swirl down the toilet.
My knowledge of history and economics is sufficient to make the true statements I make, I don’t care if you don’t believe them. You would not accept the vague references you produce either.
I have nothing to gain by lying about the South being born and raised in South Arkansas myself. In fact, I am one of the few here who even heard of “Pea Ridge”.
Anyone who has ever studied International Economics understand the vital role transportation costs plays in international trade. I made no comments not entirely supported by theory and fact.
However, anyone interested could read “Cities and Economic Development” by Paul Bairoch, “International Economics” by Kindleberger or any of a host of others. Even the most elementary can explain the relation between luxury items, transportation costs and trade.
Slavery was completely hemmed in: geographically, politically and morally. Lincoln understood very well that by not allowing it into the new states it was finished. So did the Slavers which is why they panicked and tried to destroy the Union rather than try and work out a means of equitably emancipating the slaves. They did not count on running into a political genius who would not allow the Union to be destroyed. It is not an accident that Lincoln is only exceeded by Shakespeare in eloquent and insightful phrases.
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