x:
"Cotton prices were going to slump because of all the other countries and colonies getting into cotton production.
China, India, Egypt, Brazil, Mexico, Central Asia, Turkey all got into the act."DiogenesLamp: "As a consequence of the blockade.
If there had been no blockade, none of those markets would have developed at the pace they did."
In 1860 the South had effectively cornered the global cotton market by being it's lowest cost, most reliable producer.
So long as that remained the case, buyers in Europe & New England were not going to aggressively seek out other sources.
Why would they?
But in 1861 everything changed, beginning not with the Union blockade, which originally had little effect, but rather with Confederates' self-imposed embargo on exports of cotton.
Confederates' wanted to weaponize "King Cotton" to get European recognition and military aid.
It didn't work.
It only encouraged cotton buyers to seek alternate sources and reduce the South to just one non-essential supplier amongst many.
The cotton embargo was a huge Confederate mistake.
x: "There would be slave revolts because emancipation didn't come."
DiogenesLamp: "Four score and seven years, and suddenly it would happen?
I rather doubt it. "
American slaves were not big on revolts, suggesting that in general they were treated rather well.
One reason may be that large numbers in several states (i.e., Maryland, Delaware, Louisiana) were being granted their freedom and, indeed, the opportunity to own slaves (i.e., their family) of their own.
American slaves did, however, often jump at the chance to escape (i.e., underground railroad) and/or enlist in the Union army to fight for their freedom.
DiogenesLamp: "With 200 million in trade disappearing from New York, (plus the federal subsidies for manufacturing) the Northern supply system would have been affected.
You are not contemplating the consequences of a serious transfer in capital from one region to another."
So now we're into economics and the first thing to remember is 1860 US total assets of circa $20 billion produced annual GDP of $4.4 billion, of which DiogenesLamp's $200 million here represented less than 5%.
Indeed, DL's $200 million would be normal seasonal fluctuations in market values or production:
US GDP growth per year:
- 1856 = $72 million
- 1857 = $131 million
- 1858 = -$90 million (panic of 1857)
- 1859 = $330 million
- 1860 = -$35 million
- 1861 = $225 million
Average for six years = $110 million growth in GDP per year.
Point is: while DL's $200 million meant a lot more in 1860 than it does today, it was still just a small percent of the US overall economic picture.
Second, what did DL's $200 million actually represent?
Answer: roughly the value of Deep South Cotton exports in 1860, which were about 50% of total US exports.
In 1860 about half of the US cotton crop shipped directly from New Orleans, not New York.
In 1860 cotton ($191 million) was the #1 US export, and "specie" ($68 million), meaning California gold & Nevada silver, was #2.
Total 1860 exports were $400 million.
So how do our pro-Confederates claim 75% or 80%, or even 90% of US 1860 exports were "Southern Products"?
Answer: by exaggerating Southern exports and minimizing total exports.
For example, they say, "you can't count specie as northern exports", but remember, the point here is to establish how much of US import tariffs were paid for by exports of "Southern products".
Specie was certainly not a "Southern product" and yet it was the #2 US export in 1860 at $66 million.
They also claim as "Southern products" exports which could be and were produced outside Confederate states.
The biggest example here is tobacco, the US #3 export (behind cotton & specie) at $19 million.
In 1861, when all Confederate exports were eliminated US tobacco exports fell less than 15%, meaning tobacco was not really a "Southern product".
Indeed, the real definition of "Southern products" are those whose exports almost disappeared from Union accounting in 1861.
- Cotton exports (#1 "Southern Product") fell over 80%, clearly a "Southern product".
- tobacco exports (#2 "SP") fell only 14%, clearly not just a "Southern product".
- rice exports (#3) fell only 46% suggesting production outside the Confederacy.
- rosin & turpentine, (#4) fell only 40% suggesting more than half of that produced outside the Confederacy.
- clover seed (#5) exports rose from $600,000 to $1,113,000 showing it was in no way a "Southern product".
- Hops (#6) exports rose from $32,000 to $2,006,000 an 86 fold increase, telling us hops were totally mislabeled as "Southern Products".
So here is the bottom line: in 1861 when all Confederate exports were deleted from Union accounting, then total US exports did fall drastically, but not by 90%, nor 80%, nor 75%, nor even 50%.
In 1861 total US exports fell by 35% and that was the true contribution of "Southern products" to export earnings which paid for import tariffs to the Federal treasury.
At the same time, Union GDP rose $225 million in 1861, the very amount which DiogenesLamp claims was going to somehow transform, say, Charleston, SC, into Confederates' New-New York.
So all claims that "the South" was somehow paying up to 90% of Federal government revenues are totally bogus, regardless of how often our pro-Confederate Lost Causers repeat them.
So how do our pro-Confederates claim 75% or 80%, or even 90% of US 1860 exports were “Southern Products”?
Answer: by exaggerating Southern exports and minimizing total exports.
The focus is not on 1860 in particular but on US exports for decades prior to 1860. Southern Cash Crops had been BY FAR the biggest exports. Midwestern Grain was only starting to become an important factor. Northeastern manufacturers imported practically nothing at all.
The biggest example here is tobacco, the US #3 export (behind cotton & specie) at $19 million.
In 1861, when all Confederate exports were eliminated US tobacco exports fell less than 15%, meaning tobacco was not really a “Southern product”.
What were the main tobacco producing areas of the US? It was Virginia #1, North Carolina #2 and Kentucky #3. What Northern states do you think had the right climate for tobacco? Show us Tobacco exports by state.
It seems strange you claim Southern Exports weren’t really very important when Northern and Foreign newspapers were saying this:
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?”
“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
“[T]he 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
“This question of tariffs and taxation, and not the negro question, keeps our country divided....the men of New York were called upon to keep out the Southern members because if they were admitted they would uphold [ie hold up or obstruct] our commercial greatness.” Governor of New York Horatio Seymour on not readmitting Southern representatives to Congress 1866
“If I do that, what would become of my revenue? I might as well shut up housekeeping at once!” ~ Lincoln, in response to the suggestion by the Virginian Commissioners to abandon the custom house of Fort Sumter. (Housekeeping is a euphemism for federal spending.)
“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.
…To Northern manufacturers a free-trade South spelled ruin. Imports would be diverted from Baltimore, New York, and Boston where they faced the Morrill Tariff to Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans where they would enter duty-free. Western states would use tariff-free Southern ports to bring in goods from Europe. So would many Northerners. On the very eve of war, March 18, 1861, the Boston Transcript wrote: If the Southern Confederation is allowed to carry out a policy by which only a nominal duty is laid upon the imports, no doubt the business of the chief Northern cities will be seriously injured thereby. The difference is so great between the tariff of the Union and that of the Confederated States, that the entire Northwest must find it to their advantage to purchase their imported goods at New Orleans rather than New York. In addition to this, the manufacturing interest of the country will suffer from the increased importations resulting from low duties….The…[government] would be false to all its obligations, if this state of things were not provided against.
” 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
“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)
“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 or 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 [the North] do not wish the South to secede from the Union.” The New Orleans Daily Crescent 21 January 1861
[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
Similarly, the economic editor of the NY Times, who had maintained for months that secession would not injure Northern commerce or prosperity, changed his mind on 22 March 1861: “At once shut down every Southern port, destroy its commerce and bring utter ruin on the Confederate States.”
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....”
When asked “why not let the South go in Peace?” He answered “I can’t let them go. Who would pay for the government?” Abraham Lincoln 1861
On May 1, 1833, President Andrew Jackson wrote, “the tariff was only a pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question.” Jon Meecham (2009), American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, New York: Random House, p. 247; Correspondence of Andrew Jackson, Vol. V, p. 72.
The Morrill Tariff passed the U.S. House of Representatives on May 10, 1860, before Lincoln’s election and before any state had seceded. It passed the U.S. Senate on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration. (Abe vigorously lobbied for the bill, telling a Pittsburgh, Pa. audience two weeks before his inauguration that no other issue — none — was more important.)
So the Negro [in the North] is free, but he cannot share the rights, pleasures, labors, griefs, or even the tomb of him whose equal he has been declared; there is nowhere where he can meet him, neither in life nor in death. In the South, where slavery “it was not the anti-human immoral aspect of the institution which brought all the weight of national power against it, it was the antitariff, antibank, anticapitalist, antinational [ie the radical re
[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
“Any reasonable creature may know, if willing, that the North hates the Negro and until it was convenient to make a pretence that sympathy with him was the cause of the war, it hated the abolitionists and derided them up and down dale. As to secession being rebellion, it is distinctly possible by state papers that Washington considered it no such thing. Massachusetts now loudest against it, has itself asserted its right to secede again and again.” Charles Dickens.
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.”
“The sole object of this war is to restore the union. Should I be convinced it has any other object, or that the government designs using its soldiers to execute the wishes of the Abolitionists, I pledge to you my honor as a man and a soldier I would resign my commission and carry my sword to the other side.” Ulysses S Grant In a letter to the Chicago Tribune, 1862.
“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
In 1860 the South had effectively cornered the global cotton market by being it's lowest cost, most reliable producer. So long as that remained the case, buyers in Europe & New England were not going to aggressively seek out other sources. Why would they?But in 1861 everything changed, beginning not with the Union blockade, which originally had little effect, but rather with Confederates' self-imposed embargo on exports of cotton. Confederates' wanted to weaponize "King Cotton" to get European recognition and military aid. It didn't work. It only encouraged cotton buyers to seek alternate sources and reduce the South to just one non-essential supplier amongst many.
The cotton embargo was a huge Confederate mistake.
Agree with you so far. Still, none of this would have happened but for the Union going to war with the South.
American slaves were not big on revolts, suggesting that in general they were treated rather well. One reason may be that large numbers in several states (i.e., Maryland, Delaware, Louisiana) were being granted their freedom and, indeed, the opportunity to own slaves (i.e., their family) of their own. American slaves did, however, often jump at the chance to escape (i.e., underground railroad) and/or enlist in the Union army to fight for their freedom.
Again, nothing to disagree with here.
So now we're into economics and the first thing to remember is 1860 US total assets of circa $20 billion produced annual GDP of $4.4 billion, of which DiogenesLamp's $200 million here represented less than 5%. Indeed, DL's $200 million would be normal seasonal fluctuations in market values or production:
You can't count the entire GDP as relevant in this discussion. California and the West coast was virtually it's own independent economy, and had very little to do with Trade in New York city. (Or tax/tariff revenue for Washington DC.) Likewise, much of what happened in the interior would not initially have been effected much with or without Southern independence, and the shift of European trade to the South.
That "5%" you cite, represented about 70-80% of New York's entire Trade business. The point here is that the significance of the money depends entirely on who is gaining it and who is losing it, and in this case, Lincoln's wealthy backers were the ones who would be losing it, and the Southern cities were going to be the ones gaining it.
You are trying to present the European trade as insignificant because you want to minimize the evidence that the loss of 230 million dollars per year was a sufficient reason to go to war. I have also constantly informed you that it wasn't just the European trade, but also the capitalization of Southern industries that would eventually compete directly with Northern Wealthy businessmen owned industries, so the threat over time would grow ever greater if the South was allowed to acquire that capitalization.
The railroads (for which Lincoln had very strong and close relationships as a corporate railroad lawyer) would have been threatened by imported steel and rail engine systems imported from Europe. A lot of people who had established financial power basis would be threatened by low tariff trade direct to the South and outside of their power base in the Northern states.
Over time, GDP of the North would have declined, and GDP of the South would have increased, with export/import capital fueling the economic buildup.
Without the European trade, New York, (which was making about 1.2 billion per year at that time) would have started seeing an immediate and serious decline in their revenues.
Answer: roughly the value of Deep South Cotton exports in 1860, which were about 50% of total US exports. In 1860 about half of the US cotton crop shipped directly from New Orleans, not New York.
And here you go again, singling out "Cotton" as the sole significant export from the South. Hemp, Sugar, Tobacco, Molasses and other things amounted to another 23% of the total Southern exports, and if you include the South's cotton to the North for the export of finished textiles, then the South's contribution to the European trade is even greater. According to this data compiled by "Pea Ridge", the South contributed the vast bulk of the European trade. (87%)
Specie was certainly not a "Southern product" and yet it was the #2 US export in 1860 at $66 million.
It was 57 million according to sources I have found. Are you exaggerating it for some reason? Also I haven't found any information designating which came from the North and what came from the South, so your claim that all specie came from the North is a "fact" not yet in evidence.
"Specie" is not trade. It is not replenishable in the sense that "goods", either manufactured or grown, are replenishable. A nation that uses specie to pay for imports will eventually run out of specie, and will have to resort to actual trade to pay for imports. It's a transitory condition, and therefore should not be considered in the context of normal trade.
The rest of your numbers are such an illogical argument that I don't want to take the time to explain to you why your numbers are completely misleading.
As I said with the Barack Obama administration, when you are deliberately gaming the numbers, they no longer mean anything.