Remember tariffs were such an important issue that South Carolina almost seceded over one in the 1830s. And they were just as important in the 1860s as well. Robert Rhett, for example railed against them in the South Carolina legislature and the convention adopted to accompany its secession ordinance in 1860. He said that
"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."
Charles Dickens published an article saying
"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... [T]he quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel."
So it appears that you believe that people can only exercise their right to choose their own form of government after somebody attacks them? Sad logic there.
If the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter was an act of war, then what was not-so-honest-Abe Lincoln's breach of his promise in sending arms and reinforcements after he promised to relieve the garrison?
Also, I love how you skirted the whole issue about the Marxists. Remember this discussion started in regards to the republican party. You claim the republican party of the 1860s was conservative, yet it wasn't. The famous republican Greeley was a socialist and had Marx writing articles for his paper. Lincoln got congratulation letters from Marx on his election. Communists simply flocked to the Republican party and Lincoln promoted many to high positions. Let me just mention a few....
Carl Schurz: A participant in the 1848 socialists revolutions in Europe, fled to America after the revolutions failed. Was appointed by Lincoln (who knew his revolutionary history, as minister to Spain. Came back the next year and served in the Union army and was promoted to Major General.
George Harney: A communist journalist who propagandized for Marx and Engels. Was a big supporter of the republican party and started a paper called the Red Republican.
Franz Sigel: Played a large part in the socialist revolutions in Germany in 1848, was made minister of war of the short lived socialist government, upon the revolution's failure fled to America. Served in the Union Army as a Corp commander.
Louis Blenker: Another Forty-Eighter who fled to America and served as a General in the Union army. Was such a big fan of the war that he organized an infantry regiment (8th New York).
August Willich: Known as the "Reddest of the Red", this fellow was another Forty-Eighter and friend of Marx. Fleeing after the revolutions failed he went to America. When the war started, he raised a regiment (9th Ohio) and became a general.
Alexander Schimmelfennig: Another Forty-Eighter who fled to America. Was appointed a Brigadier General during the war.
Frederick Salomon: Another Forty-Eighter who became a General.
Charles Salomon: Another Forty-Eighter who became a General.
Joseph Weydemeyer: A forty-Eighter and close friend of Marx and Engels. Published the Communist Manifesto in America, organized the New York Communist Club, founded the Proletarian League, , and published a German language paper Die Revolution. Was a strong supporter of Lincoln and the republican party and volunteered his services when the war broke out. Was made a general.
Peter Osterhaus: Another Forty-Eighter who became a General and served with Sherman during his slash and burn jaunt through Georgia.
Max Weber: Another Forty-Eighter who became a general in the Union army.
Julius Stahel: Another Forty-Eighter who became a general in the Union army. Frederick Hassaurek: A Forty-Eighter and a strong supporter of the Republican party. Stumped for Fremont, the republican nominee in the 1856 election. Was a strong supporter of Lincoln.
Alexander Asboth: Another Forty-Eighter who became a Union general. After the war he was awarded a ministerial post.
Albin Schoepf: Another Forty-Eighter who became a Union general and later became the camp commandant of a cruel prison camp.
This is just a sampling. There were many others.
Many historians have noted Lincoln's political alliance with the Forty-eighters. Historian Carl Wittke, in an article published in 1959 noted that "Lincoln was fully aware of the political influence of the Forty-Eighters in the campaighn of 1860."
Think about it logically. If Marx and his followers supported the republican party and Lincoln as president, then the republican party could not be a conservative small-government party. Communists don't flock to parties that are all about small-government. They flock to liberal big-government parties. Which is just what the republican party was.
DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis:
"Remember tariffs were such an important issue that South Carolina almost seceded over one in the 1830s.
And they were just as important in the 1860s as well." Sure, but that is very instructive, because it was the 1828 "tariff of abominations" proposed by, and enacted under Southerner President Andrew Jackson and Vice President from South Carolina, John C. Calhoun.
It raised tariffs to the highest rates they ever were, or would be again, generally supported by Northerners and opposed by Southerners.
However, more New Englanders voted against it than for, and some Southern representatives did vote for it.
That tariff proved so unpopular, it was soon reduced substantially, and tariffs then rose and fell over the years, depending on how the political winds were blowing.
In 1860, at 15% overall, tariffs had seldom been lower, and Morrill proposed to raise them, to 25%.
But there was no way that increase could pass Congress, given Southern Democrat opposition, until, until...
Until the Southern Democrats walked out of Congress after declaring their secession.
In other words, the Morrill Tariff had nothing to do with their original reasons for secession, which were 100% in defense of slavery.
Yes, later some people began thinking maybe slavery wasn't such a great cause, and so they started looking around for some other excuse to justify secession, and in that, tariffs came to mind.
But the fact remains that in 1860, tariffs were the same as in 1792, and could not be raised given united Southern opposition.
Only when the South abandoned Congress could it be passed.
Again: no tariff, or any other tax, is mentioned in any official "Reason for secession" document.
DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "So it appears that you believe that people can only exercise their right to choose their own form of government after somebody attacks them? Sad logic there."
Rubbish.
My opinion on this precisely corresponds to those of our Founders, particularly as articulated by James Madison:
"...the compact being among individuals as imbodied into States, no State can at pleasure release itself therefrom, and set up for itself.
The compact can only be dissolved by the consent of the other parties, or by usurpations or abuses of power justly having that effect.
It will hardly be contended that there is anything in the terms or nature of the compact, authorizing a party to dissolve it at pleasure."
In short: secession was not authorized "at pleasure", but only with mutual consent, or a material breech of compact.
But no such consent or breech happened in November 1860, when the Slave Power began organizing to declare secession.
That means, they seceded "at pleasure", which was not according to our Founders original intent.
Regardless, their declarations of secession did not cause Civil War, nor did their forming a new Confederacy.
Indeed, had the Confederacy been determined to preserve the peace, it might well have succeeded.
But they didn't want peace, they wanted war, similar to the American Revolution against Britain.
So, unlike our Founders, who continued to work for peace until the Brits officially declared war, the Slave Power worked to provoke war, then started war (Ft. Sumter), then formally declared war (May 6, 1861), and sent its forces into every Union state & territory they could reach.
DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "If the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter was an act of war, then what was not-so-honest-Abe Lincoln's breach of his promise in sending arms and reinforcements after he promised to relieve the garrison?"
You obviously don't know the details of those days.
In fact, Lincoln promised nobody anything regarding Fort Sumter, and did officially notify the South Carolina governor of his intention to resupply US troops in Fort Sumter.
But long before that resupply mission, the South Carolina governor had continuously urged Confederate President Davis to launch a military assault, which Davis finally agreed to on learning of the resupply mission.
For a detailed, day-by-day explanation of events, I recommend:
William Cooper, "We Have the War Upon Us"
and Russell McClintock, "Lincoln and the Decision for War"
DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "Also, I love how you skirted the whole issue about the Marxists.
Remember this discussion started in regards to the republican party.
You claim the republican party of the 1860s was conservative, yet it wasn't."
But I "skirted" nothing, because there is no "issue" about Marxists, period, and your claims with their vague guilt-by-remote-association are ludicrous.
In fact, neither Lincoln nor any high Republican official was a socialists, much less "communist."
Of course, Unionists welcomed former 1848 revolutionaries who were willing to risk their lives in defense of the United States, but I can't think of a single US law which was changed in order to accommodate European "socialist" views.
Yes, Lincoln did favor the Transcontinental Railroad, but then, so did Senator Jefferson Davis, though of course they disagreed on the best route.
Does that make them both "socialists"?
No, because such infrastructure projects have been part of the US republic from the very beginning.
DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "Think about it logically.
If Marx and his followers supported the republican party and Lincoln as president, then the republican party could not be a conservative small-government party.
Communists don't flock to parties that are all about small-government.
They flock to liberal big-government parties.
Which is just what the republican party was."
More nonsense.
In fact, Republicans were the party of "free labor", opposed to slavery, and that was the reason Europe's revolutionaries supported them.
And it wasn't only the revolutionaries -- in Britain & France, despite some sympathy for the South, and its cotton, the vast majority of ordinary citizens were repulsed by slavery, and so supported the Union.