What Should a First-Time Visitor to America Read?

How is it deceitful? It clearly shows that your assumptions on accounting for tariffs paid are flawed.

It clearly shows no such thing. It does in fact support my assertion that trade must balance over time.

I also notice you still haven't done it. That's okay, because I have. It works out to 6.9% over 40 years. That's the differential between imports and exports over a 40 year period.

That means the average ratio of import export trade for 40 years was 53.45/46.55 in other words, roughly balanced.

You originally started out arguing for that 13% between what you admitted were the cotton exports value and the 73% that I told you was made up by exports of Tobacco, Sugar, Indigo, Hemp and Molasses, and now you are arguing over 6.9 %.

You are focusing on the trivial in an effort to ignore the significant.

Where did the difference come from?

Where did the difference come from?

The Europeans were content to let us owe them the differential. I'm sure there was interest charged on the balance, or some such.

Support for abolition in the North was quite small.

I wouldn't disagree with that. I only mentioned the abolitionists because a few wealthy Northerners did give money to John Brown and other anti-slavery activists, and neo-Confederates make much of that. They were atypical and not representative of the North as a whole or of wealthy bankers and industrialists.

But one word of caution: out and out abolitionists - people who'd be recognized as abolitionists today - were few, but there were plenty of ways Northerners could oppose the slaveholding interest and be labeled as "abolitionists" by pro-slavery extremists.

Since they did not have the economies of scale and could not compete on price with established manufacturers in Britain, they also could not offer wages that were as good.

By 1860, the US actually had more people (barely) than the UK, so the US domestic market was at least comparable to the British. I suspect that by 1860, Northern mill owners were competitive with British manufacturers. Competition meant they had to compete and weren't guaranteed that they'd come out on top, or even that they'd survive. The British could beat them out sometimes, since they had a head start, but I wouldn't say that US products were always more expensive or inferior.

That agriculture was saddled with paying for industrialization was not unusual.

My understanding is that farmers and manufacturers in the North recognized that they were working together. Trade between the cities and the countryside got canals and railroads built, and banks and warehouses and retail stores established.

Southerners had a political grievance -- they thought the Yankees threatened slavery -- and that made them resent Northern merchants and manufacturers. I'm not sure that middling and poor Southerners were as angry at Northerners at this time as wealthy and politically powerful planters were (obviously, that changed later and feelings were very different during the Populist Era).

The Navigation Act of 1817 locked foreign shippers out of shipping between US ports. I believe that at various times there were also some exceptions made for Canadian and West Indian (as opposed to British) ships handling cargoes between US ports.

Goods could still be sent on foreign ships from US ports to Europe. There was no requirement that the goods be sent to Britain or Europe on US or Northern ships, and no requirement that goods sail out of New York or Boston, rather than Charleston or New Orleans.

It is still the case (per the Merchant Marine Act of 1920) that cargo shipping between US ports sail on US ships. That hasn't prevented Louisiana and Texas from having the busiest US ports in terms of tonnage, but Los Angeles - Long Beach and New York - New Jersey are still the biggest ports in dollar terms. Today or in the 1850s having a large population means having a major port, and the ports where imports come in isn't automatically the same place where exports go out.

The Warehousing Act of 1846 also gets blamed for New York's predominance. That law said that importers didn't have to pay tariffs immediately on imports. The goods could be stored in warehouses until they had the money available. Nothing required that goods go through New York. It was just that New York built many warehouses.

New Orleans did too, but it didn't have the resources on hand, and also had to worry about flooding, drainage, epidemics and other problems. Those problems would have remained even without the Warehousing Act.

One difficulty with all of the theories is that it's not always easy to tell a Northern from a Southern from a British firm. Early coastal shipping in Texas was dominated by a Northerner, but whether his firm represented New York City rather than the ports it served in the South is something that ought to at least be discussed. Agents in New Orleans made most of the everyday decisions. Charleston had direct cargo shipping to Britain, but whether the firm counted as Northern or Southern or British could only be sorted out when war forced the owners to choose a side.

Everything you wrote made sense. I don’t get this idea that the Navigation Act of 1817 was part of some Yankee conspiracy to enslave the South. I’m doing a lot of research and it reflects part of what you alluded to. Companies weren’t all “Southern” or a “Northern” or even “British.” There was a whole lot of synergy going on, just like today.

Let’s see if we can agree on one thing, at least.

We have no specific data on who ultimately paid import tariffs, correct? We have numbers for total exports and total imports, numbers for “Southern” and “Northern” exports, total tariff revenues and tariffs collected by port of entry, but we do not have numbers that tell us directly who paid import duties at the time of entry nor where those goods were ultimately sold within our borders.

Any such estimation must be based on inference drawn from available data. Would you agree with that?

We have no specific data on who ultimately paid import tariffs, correct?

Not yet, but why would we need specific data? Once we've established that a general condition holds, specific numbers will only reflect "noise."

Any such estimation must be based on inference drawn from available data. Would you agree with that?

Yes, but inferences are close enough. You aren't going to find a radical departure from the norm.

With the South producing 65-84 percent of the total export value, 65-84 percent of the tariff money must come from this revenue stream. (Probably more actually, because the tariffs were also weighted to favor the North.)

But none of this addresses the largest and most significant aspect of this. The bulk of European trade would have moved to Southern ports, and it would have very badly hurt some Northern Industries and especially New York.

At least we agree on this one small point.

I’ll argue the rest later.

I wouldn't disagree with that. I only mentioned the abolitionists because a few wealthy Northerners did give money to John Brown and other anti-slavery activists, and neo-Confederates make much of that. They were atypical and not representative of the North as a whole or of wealthy bankers and industrialists.

It's funny, because many very wealthy individuals today are supporting liberal groups, including some we would regard as liberal terrorist groups. Many people on our side of the Aisle are always quick to blame George Soros, but there is a whole host of liberal billionaires out there that are funding liberal kooks.

Wealthy Urban Liberals that generally live on the Coasts. Same now as then.

Wealthy Urban Liberals that generally live on the Coasts.

Sure, just like Thomas Jefferson.

Sure, just like Thomas Jefferson.

By the standards of his time, he was very much a liberal.

FLT-bird: "The Democrats did not even exist until 1828. Learn some history."

Wrong again.

Today's Democrat party started off as anti-Federalists lead by Southerners like Patrick Henry and James Monroe, opposed to ratification of the US Constitution.
After ratification (1788), anti-Federalists became the new anti-Administration faction now lead by Southerners Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
They opposed Northern Federalists like John Adams and Alexander Hamilton.
Around 1792 Jefferson's anti-Federalists faction became known as the Democratic-Republican party, lead by Southerners it destroyed the old Northern Federalist party and lasted until around 1825.
By 1825 Jefferson's Democratic-Republican party split, with Southerners like Andrew Jackson supporting the new Democrat party and Northerners like John Quincy Adams the new Whig party.
Northern Whigs eventually became Lincoln Republicans while Jefferson-Jackson Democrats became the party of Wilson, FDR, LBJ, WJC & BHO.
And, oh yeh, the party of slavery, secession, Civil War, Black Laws, segregation, KKK, etc., etc.

In summary, Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans were the party of the South which became Jacksonian Democrats, allied with Big City Northerners like Martin Van Buren.

Today's Democrats are the same people except that where old Democrats were slave-holders allied to Big City Northerners, today it is Big City Democrats allied to the descendants of slaves.
But the program & practices are largely the same.

FLT-bird: "I think your claim is laughable and you have offered zero evidence for it."

It's just basic history, which you should have learned in school.
You can find its details spelled out with any internet search.
Wikipedia does as good a job as any on that.

FLT-bird: "Brooks caning Sumner had everything to do with Sumner being a complete jerk and attacking Brooks’ cousin mocking him for just having had a stroke."

Sure, but it does demonstrate that Southerners would stop at nothing to assert their dominance.

FLT-bird: "Wrong.
I am right again.
The Tariff of Abominations was hugely destructive to the Southern economy.
Not surprisingly, Yankees came to love it even if some had not supported it initially"

Some Yankees may have loved it, others did not.
New Englanders opposed it (23-16), along with most Southerners but Mid-Atlantic and Western states supported it.
Original supporters included VP John C. Calhoun from South Carolina who later resigned when President Jackson (from Tennessee) didn't fully repeal it.

Point it: there were a lot of hands on that bill, and far from all were "Northern", just as far from all opposed were "Southern".

FLT-bird: "It was so destructive in fact that South Carolina nullified it and prepared to fight about it."

To which President Jackson responded strongly and South Carolinians backed down.

FLT-bird: "As for the unequal federal spending, I have provided ample evidence that it was indeed quite unequal and I have done so from a variety of sources.
You meanwhile cling desperately to one 1928 book."

But you've provided no actual data, none, just political quotes that we have no way of verifying.
And no, I don't "cling desperately", but so far that 1928 book is the only actual data we have.
When you produce something else, we can consider it.

FLT-bird: "The South did not receive its fair share of federal spending - not even close."

Long term, the South received about half of Federal expenditures.
That sounds fair to me.

FLT-bird: "Lower tariffs were what was in the South’s economic interest.
Even the 'lowest ever' tariffs were still about twice the maximum the CSA allowed."

Wrong again:

"The

import tariff, enacted in May 1861, was set at 12.5% and it roughly matched in coverage the previously existing Federal tariff, the Tariff of 1857.[9]
Between February 17 and May 1 of 1861, 65% of all government revenue was raised from the import tariff."

The Confederate tariff of 1861 was roughly the same as the Union tariff of 1857.
It was expected to bring in $25 million in revenues.
It didn't.

FLT-bird: "It DOUBLE the rates.
That was obviously extremely damaging to the Southern economy.
Remember the Confederate Constitution just about set HALF the rate of the Walker tariff as the MAXIMUM.
Meanwhile the Morill Tariff DOUBLED the Walker Tariff rate...and as everybody knew this would just be the first bite of the apple.
They eventually TRIPLED the rate and kept it there for 50 years."

There were many different tariffs and average rates went up & down:

"The Democrats in Congress, dominated by Southern Democrats, wrote and passed the tariff laws in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, and kept reducing rates, so that the 1857 rates were down to about 15%, a move that boosted trade so overwhelmingly that revenues actually increased, from just over $20 million in 1840 ($0.5 billion in 2016 dollars), to more than $80 million by 1856 ($1.7 billion).[27]
The South had almost no complaints but the low rates angered many Northern industrialists and factory workers, especially in Pennsylvania, who demanded protection for their growing iron industry."

Following the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations" there were several new tariffs nearly all lowered rates:

1828 -- Tariff of Abominations = 55% average
1832 -- returned levels to 1824 rates = 40%
1833 -- gradual reduction to 1816 levels = 22%
1842 -- increased rates after Panic of 1837 = 30%
1846 -- Walker tariff reduced tariffs to new lows = 20%
1857 -- reduced to same rate as President Washington = 15%
1860 -- original Morrill proposal = 23%
Civil War = 45%
post war reduced to 30%

FLT-bird: "Of course, everybody knew the Morrill tariff was going to pass.
All that was required was to flip a Senator or two."

No, Morrill only passed after secessionists walked out of Congress.
Indeed, Republicans only won the 1860 election because Southern Fire Eaters split their national Democrat party apart making Democrat victory impossible.
So secessionists had only themselves to blame for the results of their actions.

FLT-bird: "Laughable BS from our resident PC Revisionists.
Lincoln was entirely focused on collecting the tariff....the one what had just been doubled..... the one who campaigned on and told audiences was THE single most important issue."

So Lost Cause mythologizers repeatedly claim, but can provide no actual historical data to support it.

FLT-bird: "He and his corporate backers could not afford to see the big cash generators - ie the Southern states - leave.
That’s why he started a war to prevent it. to prevent it."

Total fantasy.

FLT-bird: "Yes and I’ve posted it many times already.
Even Northerners admitted it openly.
Its in the editorials of numerous Northern Newspapers explaining how they’d be economically ruined if the Southern states went their own way."

No, your posts don't support your ridiculous claim that all imports were owned by Southerners.

FLT-bird: "an intentional misreading on your part.
Southerners owned the goods to be imported.
Northerners made a lot of profit servicing the export of Southern Cash crops."

No misreading by me.
Here again you claim "Southerners owned the goods to be imported.".
I'm merely reporting to you that DiogenesLamp claims everything was controlled by evil "New York power brokers".
But if Southerners owned their goods, then they'd have no need of "power brokers", right?

FLT-bird: "LOL! and I do mean that I’m not just typing that every time.
I am actually laughing at the BS you spew.
Anyway....you think YOU know better than all the commentators at the time North, South and Foreign where the cash crops that provided the bulk of US exports came from?"

The numbers we have don't support your assertions.
Instead they tell us that, except for cotton, "Southern products" did not equate to Confederate products.
They tell us that, except cotton, much or all of it was produced in Union states (i.e., Kentucky, Missouri) or in Unionist regions of Confederate states (I.e., E Tennessee, W Virginia).
Confederate territory under Union army control would continue with business as usual.

FLT-bird: "Furthermore, you think you know this based on one year’s data?"

Sure, since 1861 was the key year, when the Confederacy was whole and could do what it wished, i.e., block the Mississippi River to Union commerce.
So Mid-West exports had to ship east on railroads instead of south on steamboats.
And Southern products were not going to ship north on the Mississippi past Confederate gun boats there to stop them.

After 1861, as more & more of the Confederacy was returned to the Union, then its products would return to Union export data.

Here's the bottom line: there was a huge difference, it turned out, between alleged "Southern products" and Confederate products.
That means all the economic analysis based on percentages of "Southern products" was & is flawed.

FLT-bird: "and yes trading did occur during the war. Try reading some history some time."

Of course, especially from regions under Union army control.

FLT-bird: "Your position is 'I have one year’s worth of data, therefore everything everybody was saying at the time was false - they didn’t know anyway - and I know better....150+ years later....based on one year of export data.'
LOL!"

Sure, because 1861 was the key year, the year of truth, when all the lies told for decades before were put to the real test: what was the true percent of "Southern products" in US total exports?
Answer: about 50% and everything else, when push came to shove, even if "Southern" were not necessarily Confederate products.

FLT-bird: "Yes by Confederate states - which is my point here. annnnd you’re back to trying to use one year of data to explain away what everybody else observed at the time. Ridiculous."

Yet, 1861 puts the lie to claims that "Southern products" represented 3/4 or 80% or whatever of US total exports.
When Confederate products were removed from US exports, including 80% of cotton, total US exports fell just 35%.
And excluding cotton, the reduction in "Southern" exports was only $3 million.
The mystery is solved when you remember that "Southern products" included exports from several Union states, including Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland & Delaware.

FLT-bird: "Hello pot! I’m kettle! You’re black! Talk about cherrypicking data....holy chit!
That’s all you do.
Your calculations are self interested horse crap.
Everybody at the time admitted the North got far more in federal payments."

But the data we have doesn't show it.
It shows roughly equal spending, over time, North & South.
The claim that "everybody knew" doesn't make it true.

FLT-bird: "Buchanan the Pennsylvanian openly said the South had not gotten its fair share.
There was a long history of Southerners complaining about it."

Buchanan the Doughfaced Northern Democrat would say whatever his Southern masters wanted to hear, so he's hardly a credible source.
The data we have does not support your claims.

FLT-bird: "And once again your pet theory that Southerners controlled the federal government is complete horse crap unsupported by any evidence."

No, it's supported by all the data we have, including records of Congress, presidents' cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, army commanders, etc.
All those records tell us that Southerners ruled over Washington, DC, until secession in 1861, with very few exceptions.

FLT-bird: "We know they rejected the Corwin amendment and the high Morrill Tariff. "

There was no Corwin amendment for Confederates to reject, because it never got to them.
There was no Morrill tariff for them to vote on because they walked out long before it finally passed.

FLT-bird: "Jefferson Davis did not need war."

Davis absolutely needed war because Virginia refused to secede without it, and along with Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas.

FLT-bird: "Indeed he sent representatives to Washington DC to negotiate terms of separation including taking on a share of the national debt as well as compensation for federal property that had been nationalized by various Southern states.
It was the Lincoln administration that refused to meet with them."

Just as Doughfaced Democrat President Buchanan had refused.
In this matter, if in no others, both Buchanan and Lincoln understood & agreed where their duty lay.

FLT-bird: "Oh and the Lincoln declared hostilities in April 15th 1861 when he called for 75,000 volunteers to invade the CSA.
This is yet more BS you simply spew without any evidence to support it hoping it will pass without challenge.
It won’t."

So claims Mr. NO-EVIDENCE-bird himself!
You can look up the Confederate declaration of war on May 6, 1861 on line -- here, for example.
The Union never did formally declare war, doubtless because that was not considered appropriate in cases of rebellion.
But Congress did approve all of Lincoln's actions and authorized his military operations.

FLT-bird: "Sure violation of the compact over slavery by the Northern states was the legal means of saying the Northern states had violated the compact.
However once offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment to return, they rejected it."

First, there was no "violation of compact", because the 1850 compromise made it irrelevant.
Second, secessionists were offered nothing, so they rejected nothing.
That's all pure fantasy on your part.

FLT-bird: "Yet more tapdancing.
Georgia laid out the economic case EVEN THOUGH this was NOT unconstitutional.
That says a lot about how much they were upset by it."

But they didn't "lay it out", they briefly mentioned it in one paragraph out of 14.
The rest were devoted to slavery.
Clearly Georgians knew where their real priorities lay, even if FLT-bird misses it.

FLT-bird: "I note you left out the part in the Georgia declaration where they said each side started casting about for new allies and that Northern protectionists settled on the slavery issue to use as a wedge issue to unite the Northern states against the South in order to get high tariffs back in place."

Just one of many complaints focused on their real reason for secession: slavery.

FLT-bird: "Any claim that Georgia’s declaration was “all about slavery” is patently false as anybody who reads it can see quite quickly."

It takes a special kind of self-imposed blindness not to see that 13 of 14 paragraphs in the Georgia reasons are devoted to slavery.
Only one paragraph is devoted to all other reasons.

FLT-bird: "No it does not talk about “RE Lee’s Failure”.
That is a LIE born of your irrational hatred of all things Southern.
It talks about the federal government’s failure.
RE Lee the LT Col. of one federal brigade and thus the 2nd in command of that brigade was not mentioned."

But if Lee had done his job, Texans would have nothing to complain about.
It's not clear what his duties in Texas were, but he was there several years and Texans were not happy with the results.

As for "irrational hatred", coming from Mr. IRRATIONAL HATRED-bird, that's pretty rich.
But about half of my large family is Southern, and I don't hate them, I love them.
Of course, they don't fill up conversations with a bunch of godawful lies the way our Lost Cause mythologizers do.

FLT-bird: "Texas also talks about partisan legislation which “drains their substance”....ie squeezes money out of their pockets."

Sure, paragraph #18, very briefly, in passing.

FLT-bird: "It also talks about how the Northern states supported terrorists sent to attack the South.
Any claim that the Texas declaration of causes was “all about slavery” is just a laughable lie."

Two paragraphs talk about RE Lee's failure to protect Texans against "savage Indians" & "banditti", one (#18) complains about "unequal legislation", and all the rest, 19+ are devoted to their real reason: slavery.

So who's lying?

FLT-bird: "OK once again, Rhett talked about the economics first.
Therefore that is what was most important.
What? Its not more ridiculous than your word count?"

Or... you could just as well say that Rhett saved his strongest clinching arguments -- slavery -- for the end.
The fact remains that he spent twice as many words on slavery as he did on all other reasons combined.

FLT-bird: "Once again, he said he would have supported secession on economic grounds alone."

Sure, and some of our pro-Confederate posters claim they would have supported secession just as a chance to kill some Yankees, they didn't need any other excuses!
But the fact remains that at the time slavery was the main reason, if not the only reason, used to justify secession.

FLT-bird: "Clearly it was all about tariffs and unequal federal government expenditures."

Not.

FLT-bird: "The fact remains that economic issues were extensively used to persuade Southerners that they would be better off independent.
Had anybody been worried about the preservation of slavery, Lincoln and the Northern states made it crystal clear they need have no concerns about that."

But only after the fact.
The first seven declarations of secession came before Lincoln's inauguration, and were made anticipating Republican take-over in Washington, DC.
By the time Lincoln took office and might have done something about it, secession was done and a new Confederacy formed, so they weren't going back.

By the way, if you're interested in where the idea for the Corwin amendment came from, you might consider this:

"In the Congressional session that began in December 1860, more than 200 resolutions with respect to slavery,[7] including 57 resolutions proposing constitutional amendments,[8] were introduced in Congress.
Most represented compromises designed to avert military conflict.
Senator Jefferson Davis, a Democrat from Mississippi, proposed one that explicitly protected property rights in slaves.[8"

Of course, by the time Corwin finally passed Congress, Davis was long gone.

FLT-bird: "The rich no more called all the shots politically in the South than the rich called all the shots politically in the North."

DiogenesLamp will be disappointed to see you post that, because he believes that those rich power brokers are the root of all evil, Northerners, that is, not Southern.
Southern rich people are OK in DL's mind, but those deplorable Northerners were/are as bad as bad can get.

FLT-bird: "The fact that there were some rich people in the South in no way invalidates the accurate claim that the Northern states had via federal government policy, drained a lot of wealth out of the Southern states. "

Statistics say there were more rich people in the South than the North.
That suggests to me, if there was any "draining" going on, it went the other way.

FLT-bird: "Several of my sources have provided verifiable data.
Charles Adams wrote two books on the subject.
Try reading them and you’ll find plenty of verifiable data."

The book I posted in #385 above is very clear on those statistics.
You should read it.

FLT-bird: "Even his sycophants say he orchestrated the Corwin Amendment.
They praise him at length for it."

The amendment passed Congress before Lincoln was inaugurated.
Lincoln forwarded it to the states, but if he in fact "orchestrated" anything, it would have been Corwin's defeat, since only four, maybe five states ratified it.
Some "orchestration".

FLT-bird: "Nah. I’m right on both counts.
Lincoln and the Northern Dominated Congress passed the Corwin amendment.
Lincoln offered it in order to entice the original 7 seceding states to come back in his inaugural address.
It failed to do that.
Had it been for the purposes of holding slaves states in which had not left, then they would have gone ahead and passed it because some slave states did not leave."

Totally wrong, and now you're just making up nonsense.
Lincoln was not even there when Corwin passed -- President Buchanan signed it.
And the few states that did ratify Corwin included two critical slave-states, Kentucky & Maryland.
Corwin helped keep them in the Union, but was never "offered" to Confederate states.

FLT-bird: "Were they offered much lower tariffs and equal federal government expenditures?
No they were not.
They were offered slavery forever and they turned that down.
You don’t know that they would not have accepted had economic policy been better suited to their needs.
That was never offered."

I don't know where you get the idea that all these "offers" were made, they weren't.
There was no "offer" of representation to colonists in 1776 and there was no "offer" of Corwin to Confederates in 1861.
So it's all just fantasy in your imagination, not history.

FLT-bird: "Firstly the federal government was nowhere near as powerful in the 1850s.
Secondly that was not the real reason the original 7 seceding states left - that was merely the pretext."

Firstly, the federal government in 1860 was plenty powerful enough to do what it most needed to -- for example put a brigade of soldiers lead by RE Lee to fight off Indians in Texas.
So it had power if it had the will.
But fugitive slaves were not a high priority to the Southerners who dominated Washington, DC.

Secondly, your repeated claims of "pretext" are simply your own fantasies overruling the real facts of history.

FLT-bird: "I never said no slave holders were heads of large families.
YOU CLAIMED that heads of large families were the ONLY slaveholders.
That you do not know and have not proven."

Here's what I know for certain: farm families 150 years ago were huge -- four, six, eight children & more.
And the bigger the farm, with a big plantation house on it, the more likely was it to have grandma & grandpa, single aunts & uncles & others there.
Could more than one own slaves?
Sure, but we're talking big families, and the children certainly would not be legal owners.
So the assumption of this calculation is only four people per family, a small enough number to take account of multiple slave-holders in the same family.

By stark contrast, your assumption is ludicrous: that none of the non-slave holders lived with or near slave-holders and therefore most had no stake in the success of that institution.

That is self-inflicted blindness, FRiend.

FLT-bird: "What we actually know is that slave owners comprised a total of 5.63% of the total free population in the states which seceded....meaning 94.37% did not own slaves."

Regardless if they "owned" or not, many times the 5.63 percent were invested in and dependent on slavery.
Every slave-holder had families, children, relatives & close neighbors dependent on the work of slaves, whether they legally "owned" them or not.
And beyond them were contractors who hired slaves from other slave-holders because that was still cheaper than hiring free-white laborers.
Point is: your ridiculous attempts to minimize the importance of slavery -- especially in the Deep South -- are beyond laughable.

FLT-bird: "Missouri’s Governor and a part of its legislature voted for secession."

Missouri's governor was a Confederate and did everything he could, including raising an army to fight the Union army, to make Missouri Confederate.
But Missourians didn't want secession, voted overwhelming against it and served the Union army in vastly greater numbers than Confederate, almost four to one.

FLT-bird: "They were prevented from meeting and voting on the matter in full like the Maryland Legislature had been when Lincoln threw a bunch of them in a federal gulag without charge or trial before they could vote."

On March 19, 1861 the Missouri Constitution Convention which the Governor called to consider secession voted 99 to 1 against secession.
There was never a legitimate vote for secession after that, though the Governor did run off with some Confederate legislators and declare themselves seceded.
The vast majority of Missourians opposed them.

Maryland also voted overwhelmingly against secession (53-13) and supported the Union army over two-to-one vs. Confederates.
But after May 6, 1861 when Confederates formally declared war on the United States, it became, by definition, an act of treason to provide aid & comfort to Confederates.
So there were no further votes on secession.

FLT-bird: "Oh and Lincoln declared war when he called up 75,000 volunteers to invade the Southern states on April 15th."

Constitutionally only Congress declares war, not a president.
In the Civil War Congress did not formally declare war, because that is not done in rebellions, but Congress did approve all of Lincoln's actions and fully supported his war effort.

FLT-bird: "Twice more during the war Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, including the suspension ‘throughout the United States’ on September 24, 1862.
Although the records are somewhat unclear, more than thirteen thousand Americans, most of them opposition Democrats, were arrested during the war years, giving rise to the charge that Lincoln was a tyrant and a dictator.” (Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 182-183)"

Studies suggest the vast majority of those arrested were residents of Confederate states, foreigners, or Border State (i.e., Maryland, Missouri) citizens sympathetic to Confederates.
Very few came from solid Union states (exception: New York), and that explains why Lincoln suffered no serious political consequences.

We might also note that Confederates arrested & held without trial over 3,000 Unionists in East Tennessee.
It means that as a percentage of the population, the number of pro-Confederates arrested in the Union was about the same as the number of Unionists arrested in the Confederacy.

FLT-bird: "Wait don’t tell me.
These quotes are damned inconvenient.
Therefore they must be fake! LOL!"

No, I'm certain that Civil War era prisons were no picnic.
Doubtless, the only place worse would be a POW camp, North or South.

But we should note again 3,000 Unionists in East Tennessee held without trial in conditions which cannot have been better than what you describe here.

FLT-bird: "No its not. Had slavery been the concern, the Corwin Amendment would have allayed those concerns."

Corwin did ally concerns in Union states, but contrary to your cockamamie claims, it was never "offered" to Confederates.

FLT-bird: "They were fully prepared to recognize it anyway.....remember the Corwin Amendment?"

A few were, the vast majority were not and did not ratify Corwin.

FLT-bird: "Oh and the Confederate Constitution is very similar to the US Constitution except that it has provisions to limit spending and graft.
So your claims about it being first and foremost about slavery are just your usual BS."

The Confederate constitution first & foremost addressed slavery specifically and by name, making certain that it could never be abolished, anywhere or any time.
Every other change was minor & inconsequential.

FLT-bird: "Industrialization is incompatible with slavery.
Industrialization is why slavery died out in the entire western world over the course of about 75 years in the 19th century."

Nonsense. Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond was the Confederacy's largest and half its work force were slaves.
Slaves did just fine in Southern factories and there would be no reason not to use them there.

Industrialization did not kill off slavery, just the opposite, the outlawing of cheap slave labor forced manufacturers to invent labor saving machines to reduce costs.
But slaves themselves were perfectly capable of working in any factory, just as their descendants do today.

FLT-bird: "Only 4 states issued declarations of causes.
3 of the 4 listed causes other than slavery even though those other causes were not unconstitutional and refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the constitution was.
The north offered slavery forever.
The original 7 seceding states turned that down.
The northern dominated congress then expressly said it was not fighting over slavery.
The Upper South seceded over Lincoln starting a war to impose a government by force without consent.
Not slavery."

In your own words: "this is just self serving BS."
None of it is true, regardless of how often you re-post it.
It's all a lie from the beginning, can never be anything but.

First, all of the original Declarations of Causes focus primarily if not exclusively on slavery, and you know it.
"The North" offered nothing to Confederate states, and you know it.
Slavery was the issue that drove secession and abolition became the cause of freedom for Union armies, including its 200 colored regiments, and you know all that, but just don't like to confess it.

FLT-bird: "You are fixate on parties and have the erroneous notion that they have always been the same.
That is simply false."

Naw, Democrats have always been just what they are today, dominating in power or rebellious out of power, cheating, always using the law to make others pay for their own free stuff, whether those others were slaves in 1860 or just any hard working Americans today.

This thread is al least affording me the opportunity to learn so much about those wonderful Democrats back in the day. They really haven’t change much!

“The “Fire-eater” majority on the convention's platform committee, chaired by William Waightstill Avery of North Carolina, produced an explicitly pro-slavery document, endorsing Dred Scott and Congressional legislation protecting slavery in the territories. Northern Democrats refused to acquiesce. Dred Scott was extremely unpopular in the North, and the Northerners said they could not carry a single state with that platform. On 30 April, the convention by a vote of 165 to 138 adopted the minority (Northern) platform, which omitted these planks. 50 Southern delegates then left the convention in protest,[1] including the Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas delegations, three of the four delegates from Arkansas, and one of the three delegates from Delaware.”

So the Dems didn’t get what they wanted, and they pulled out of the convention. Then they didn’t get what they wanted in the election, and they pulled out of the country.

I wouldn’t disagree with that. I only mentioned the abolitionists because a few wealthy Northerners did give money to John Brown and other anti-slavery activists, and neo-Confederates make much of that. They were atypical and not representative of the North as a whole or of wealthy bankers and industrialists.

But one word of caution: out and out abolitionists - people who’d be recognized as abolitionists today - were few, but there were plenty of ways Northerners could oppose the slaveholding interest and be labeled as “abolitionists” by pro-slavery extremists.

It wasn’t that 6 guys provided financial support for a terrorist. It was that knowing this, these 6 enjoyed widespread support in the North both from the people as well as government officials in their states. Imagine what our reaction today would be if say Canada refused to bring to justice 6 locals who openly financed a terrorist attack on us. Its not about the 6 guys....its about the fact that many supported them knowing they did this.

By 1860, the US actually had more people (barely) than the UK, so the US domestic market was at least comparable to the British. I suspect that by 1860, Northern mill owners were competitive with British manufacturers. Competition meant they had to compete and weren’t guaranteed that they’d come out on top, or even that they’d survive. The British could beat them out sometimes, since they had a head start, but I wouldn’t say that US products were always more expensive or inferior.

They were not competitive with British mills yet - thus the screaming for a huge tariff. Britain had a big empire it supplied remember. It wasn’t just their domestic market they were selling to.

My understanding is that farmers and manufacturers in the North recognized that they were working together. Trade between the cities and the countryside got canals and railroads built, and banks and warehouses and retail stores established.

Southerners had a political grievance — they thought the Yankees threatened slavery — and that made them resent Northern merchants and manufacturers. I’m not sure that middling and poor Southerners were as angry at Northerners at this time as wealthy and politically powerful planters were (obviously, that changed later and feelings were very different during the Populist Era).

Many of those canals and railroads in the North were paid for with federal money...and the federal government got 90% of its revenue from tariffs. Yankees did not threaten slavery - they made it very clear that they were perfectly willing to protect it in the states that had it. Poor Southerners were affected by higher prices for manufactured goods as would be the inevitable outcome of high tariffs and plenty of them grew at least some cotton on their farms to provide an income for things they could not produce themselves....so tariffs that reduced their sales abroad (which was one of the effects of them) was once again money out of their pockets. There was a general feeling in the Southern states that they were being exploited. Look today at how upset people get about the feds taking more from their state and giving more to other states. It was the same then.

BroJoeK Wrong again.

Today’s Democrat party started off as anti-Federalists lead by Southerners like Patrick Henry and James Monroe, opposed to ratification of the US Constitution.

After ratification (1788), anti-Federalists became the new anti-Administration faction now lead by Southerners Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
They opposed Northern Federalists like John Adams and Alexander Hamilton.

Around 1792 Jefferson’s anti-Federalists faction became known as the Democratic-Republican party, lead by Southerners it destroyed the old Northern Federalist party and lasted until around 1825.

By 1825 Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican party split, with Southerners like Andrew Jackson supporting the new Democrat party and Northerners like John Quincy Adams the new Whig party.
Northern Whigs eventually became Lincoln Republicans while Jefferson-Jackson Democrats became the party of Wilson, FDR, LBJ, WJC & BHO.
And, oh yeh, the party of slavery, secession, Civil War, Black Laws, segregation, KKK, etc., etc.

In summary, Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans were the party of the South which became Jacksonian Democrats, allied with Big City Northerners like Martin Van Buren.

Today’s Democrats are the same people except that where old Democrats were slave-holders allied to Big City Northerners, today it is Big City Democrats allied to the descendants of slaves.
But the program & practices are largely the same.

No, YOU are WRONG. The Democratic Party was started by Andrew Jackson in the 1820’s. The parties through history have not been nearly as neat or consistent as you claim. They have morphed and changed over time.

BroJoeK It’s just basic history, which you should have learned in school.
You can find its details spelled out with any internet search.
Wikipedia does as good a job as any on that.

No its not. You have provided no evidence for it. Its just some fantasy you came up with because its convenient for what you want to believe.

BroJoeK Sure, but it does demonstrate that Southerners would stop at nothing to assert their dominance.

No it demonstrates that Sumner was a complete jerk and shot his mouth off about somebody who had family members who were not going to take that.

BroJoeK Some Yankees may have loved it, others did not.
New Englanders opposed it (23-16), along with most Southerners but Mid-Atlantic and Western states supported it.
Original supporters included VP John C. Calhoun from South Carolina who later resigned when President Jackson (from Tennessee) didn’t fully repeal it.

Point it: there were a lot of hands on that bill, and far from all were “Northern”, just as far from all opposed were “Southern”.

In general the Southern states quickly came to hate it because it did huge harm to their economy. New England came to love it and tried to keep it in place because it allowed them to significantly increase prices while still gaining market share.

BroJoeK To which President Jackson responded strongly and South Carolinians backed down.

Actually it was ended by compromise not by one side backing down. The tariffs were steadily reduced which was the very thing South Carolina had wanted.

BroJoeK But you’ve provided no actual data, none, just political quotes that we have no way of verifying.
And no, I don’t “cling desperately”, but so far that 1928 book is the only actual data we have.
When you produce something else, we can consider it.

But I have provided actual data. I have also provided sources like tax expert Charles Adams’ 2 books on the subject. I have also provided numerous quotes from all sides and from newspapers at the time. You haven’t even addressed Adams’ books and have tried to pretend they did not exist.

BroJoeK Long term, the South received about half of Federal expenditures. That sounds fair to me.

No they didn’t. Not even close. And they were paying the vast majority of the tariffs so it was doubly unfair.

Wrong again:

“The [Confederate] import tariff, enacted in May 1861, was set at 12.5% and it roughly matched in coverage the previously existing Federal tariff, the Tariff of 1857.[9]
Between February 17 and May 1 of 1861, 65% of all government revenue was raised from the import tariff.”

The Confederate tariff of 1861 was roughly the same as the Union tariff of 1857.
It was expected to bring in $25 million in revenues.
It didn’t.

Wrong, they set the maximum initially as a revenue tariff...ie 10% maximum. They were forced due to the needs of war to raise more revenue to defend themselves and thus had to raise it. I have provided quotes from the confederate constitution and numerous articles from Northern newspapers bemoaning the South’s maximum 10% tariff.

Here is one I have already posted numerous times. There are many others proving my point:

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?”

BroJoeK No, Morrill only passed after secessionists walked out of Congress.
Indeed, Republicans only won the 1860 election because Southern Fire Eaters split their national Democrat party apart making Democrat victory impossible.
So secessionists had only themselves to blame for the results of their actions.

Yes it DID pass after the Southern delegation withdrew but it was GOING TO pass anyway. The only difference between it becoming law or not was 1-2 Senators. They could have easily picked off 1-2 Senators. No matter how many times you try to claim it couldn’t possibly have passed without the Southern delegation withdrawing, it remains untrue.

BroJoeK So Lost Cause mythologizers repeatedly claim, but can provide no actual historical data to support it.

Try reading his inaugural address! LOL!

BroJoeK Total fantasy.

Total Reality and I’ve posted numerous newspaper articles demonstrating the point as well as quotes from sources on all sides.

BroJoeK No, your posts don’t support your ridiculous claim that all imports were owned by Southerners.

I never said “all”. I said Southerners were doing most of the exporting and importing. This has amply been demonstrated by all sources.

BroJoeK No misreading by me.
Here again you claim “Southerners owned the goods to be imported.”.
I’m merely reporting to you that DiogenesLamp claims everything was controlled by evil “New York power brokers”.
But if Southerners owned their goods, then they’d have no need of “power brokers”, right?

What the hell are you talking about? NY serviced Southern exports....everything from Factors to Bankers to Insurers to Shipbuilders, to Shipping Companies.

BroJoeK The numbers we have don’t support your assertions.
Instead they tell us that, except for cotton, “Southern products” did not equate to Confederate products.
They tell us that, except cotton, much or all of it was produced in Union states (i.e., Kentucky, Missouri) or in Unionist regions of Confederate states (I.e., E Tennessee, W Virginia).
Confederate territory under Union army control would continue with business as usual.

The numbers DO support what I’ve said. So do the newspapers. So do commentators....and from all sides. Cotton alone was 60% of US exports. Missouri seceded by the way.

BroJoeK Sure, since 1861 was the key year, when the Confederacy was whole and could do what it wished, i.e., block the Mississippi River to Union commerce.
So Mid-West exports had to ship east on railroads instead of south on steamboats.
And Southern products were not going to ship north on the Mississippi past Confederate gun boats there to stop them.

After 1861, as more & more of the Confederacy was returned to the Union, then its products would return to Union export data.

Here’s the bottom line: there was a huge difference, it turned out, between alleged “Southern products” and Confederate products.
That means all the economic analysis based on percentages of “Southern products” was & is flawed.

Its ridiculous to take ONE YEAR’s worth of data and claim this tells the whole story for all time. I’ve already explained why one year - particularly the first year of the conflict - is not a reliable indicator of where goods came from. eg. There are things like warehouses in which goods are stored after all. Sometimes those goods aren’t produced in the same year they are exported.....

Most Southern states left. Kentucky was in dispute as was Missouri. Maryland was occupied and Delaware never chose to leave. Most Southern states left so there’s not much of a difference between “Southern” and “Confederate”. There are reams of data and numerous commentators on all sides openly saying the Southern states provided the overwhelming majority of all exports.

BroJoeK Yet, 1861 puts the lie to claims that “Southern products” represented 3/4 or 80% or whatever of US total exports.
When Confederate products were removed from US exports, including 80% of cotton, total US exports fell just 35%.
And excluding cotton, the reduction in “Southern” exports was only $3 million.
The mystery is solved when you remember that “Southern products” included exports from several Union states, including Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland & Delaware.

No it doesn’t. Sorry but you do not know better than what observers at the time on all sides and even foreign countries were saying nor do I trust the one year’s worth of data you have compiled over what other economic historians like Charles Beard and Charles Adams have shown.

BroJoeK But the data we have doesn’t show it.
It shows roughly equal spending, over time, North & South.
The claim that “everybody knew” doesn’t make it true.

ah but we have data that does show it and I have provided those sources. It shows the North got about 75-80% of federal spending.

BroJoeK Buchanan the Doughfaced Northern Democrat would say whatever his Southern masters wanted to hear, so he’s hardly a credible source.
The data we have does not support your claims.

Your claim that Northerners did whatever Southerners told them to do because they happened to be Democrats is laughable. Its irrational and you have no evidence to support it. Oh and of course the data shows the opposite of what you claim.

BroJoeK No, it’s supported by all the data we have, including records of Congress, presidents’ cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, army commanders, etc.
All those records tell us that Southerners ruled over Washington, DC, until secession in 1861, with very few exceptions.

No in fact the evidence refutes it. Its a ridiculous claim The Southern states were in the minority. They did not control the federal government - far from it.

BroJoeK There was no Corwin amendment for Confederates to reject, because it never got to them.
There was no Morrill tariff for them to vote on because they walked out long before it finally passed.

Oh but there WAS a Corwin Amendment. Lincoln offered it in his inaugural address if only the 7 seceding states would return. They rejected it. The Morrill Tariff was sure to pass the Senate - the last barrier to its passage. They only needed to flip 1-2 Senators.

BroJoeK Davis absolutely needed war because Virginia refused to secede without it, and along with Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas.

He didn’t need Virginia. The original 7 seceding states were happy to go on their way without Virginia.

BroJoeK Just as Doughfaced Democrat President Buchanan had refused.
In this matter, if in no others, both Buchanan and Lincoln understood & agreed where their duty lay.

This puts the lie to your claim that Davis was the one who needed a war. He didn’t want one and made that clear. He was perfectly happy to depart in peace. It was Lincoln who needed a war and who started one. Deliberately.

BroJoeK So claims Mr. NO-EVIDENCE-bird himself!
You can look up the Confederate declaration of war on May 6, 1861 on line — here, for example.
The Union never did formally declare war, doubtless because that was not considered appropriate in cases of rebellion.
But Congress did approve all of Lincoln’s actions and authorized his military operations.

Lincoln sent a heavily armed flotilla to invade South Carolina’s territorial waters WITHOUT the consent of Congress. He called up 75,000 volunteers to invade the Southern States BEFORE the CSA declared war and prepared to defend itself against this invasion.

BroJoeK First, there was no “violation of compact”, because the 1850 compromise made it irrelevant.
Second, secessionists were offered nothing, so they rejected nothing.
That’s all pure fantasy on your part.

First there was a violation of the compact by the Northern states when they actively hindered the return of fugitive slaves acting against federal agents.
Second Lincoln openly offered the Corwin Amendment to the original 7 seceding states. Its right there in his inaugural address. Try reading it some time.

BroJoeK But they didn’t “lay it out”, they briefly mentioned it in one paragraph out of 14.
The rest were devoted to slavery.
Clearly Georgians knew where their real priorities lay, even if FLT-bird misses it.

Nah, they went on at length about all the bounties paid to Northern interests at Southern expense. In fact it was one of the first things they mentioned despite the fact that this was not unconstitutional. You just can’t bear to admit that.

BroJoeK Just one of many complaints focused on their real reason for secession: slavery.

No they were very clear that the slavery issue was being used to further the interests of those Northerners interested in jacking tariff rates back up “each side began casting about for new allies”

JoeBroK It takes a special kind of self-imposed blindness not to see that 13 of 14 paragraphs in the Georgia reasons are devoted to slavery.
Only one paragraph is devoted to all other reasons.

So you admit it was not “all about”. Good! You could have just said that from the start and saved a lot of time.

BroJoeK But if Lee had done his job, Texans would have nothing to complain about.
It’s not clear what his duties in Texas were, but he was there several years and Texans were not happy with the results.

As for “irrational hatred”, coming from Mr. IRRATIONAL HATRED-bird, that’s pretty rich.
But about half of my large family is Southern, and I don’t hate them, I love them.
Of course, they don’t fill up conversations with a bunch of godawful lies the way our Lost Cause mythologizers do.

But that’s horsecrap. The 2nd in command of one of the regiments is entirely to blame? LOL! There were nowhere near enough troops to cover the vast amount of territory needed to be covered and against as many Indians and Bandits as they had to contend with. Texas made it quite clear they had received insufficient resources from the federal govt for defending the border. You then try to twist that to somehow blame not even the commander but the 2nd in command....of one of the brigades. Yep, irrational hatred on your part. Gosh, why might you be so focused on trying to blame one of the junior officers for this mission? Just the standard lies from PC Revisionists.

BroJoeK Sure, paragraph #18, very briefly, in passing.

Another cause in the train of abuses...very similar to the Declaration of Independence in listing a train of abuses.

BroJoeK Two paragraphs talk about RE Lee’s failure to protect Texans against “savage Indians” & “banditti”, one (#18) complains about “unequal legislation”, and all the rest, 19+ are devoted to their real reason: slavery.

So who’s lying?

They don’t talk about one of the 2nds in command of one of the brigades. This is a lie on your part.

They list a train of abuses INCLUDING refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause....INCLUDING sending terrorists into the South to cause death and destruction. Is that about slavery? No. Its about the irrational hatred the North had for the South and how the Southern states could no longer live with them.

BroJoeK Or... you could just as well say that Rhett saved his strongest clinching arguments — slavery — for the end.
The fact remains that he spent twice as many words on slavery as he did on all other reasons combined.

Nah, he used the best and strongest argument first - sectional partisan legislation which drained money out of the South and lined Northerners’ pockets. He was wordy about the North’s bad faith on the slavery issue but he laid out the North’s bad faith and economic exploitation first.

BroJoeK Sure, and some of our pro-Confederate posters claim they would have supported secession just as a chance to kill some Yankees, they didn’t need any other excuses!
But the fact remains that at the time slavery was the main reason, if not the only reason, used to justify secession.

The fact remains that this is BS. They listed a variety of causes ranging from the tariffs to unequal federal government expenditures to refusal to provide border security to sending terrorists into the South to kill to refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution. The overarching theme is the bad faith of the Northern states.

BroJoeK Not

Oh but it was.

BroJoeK But only after the fact.
The first seven declarations of secession came before Lincoln’s inauguration, and were made anticipating Republican take-over in Washington, DC.
By the time Lincoln took office and might have done something about it, secession was done and a new Confederacy formed, so they weren’t going back.

By the way, if you’re interested in where the idea for the Corwin amendment came from, you might consider this:

“In the Congressional session that began in December 1860, more than 200 resolutions with respect to slavery,[7] including 57 resolutions proposing constitutional amendments,[8] were introduced in Congress.
Most represented compromises designed to avert military conflict.
Senator Jefferson Davis, a Democrat from Mississippi, proposed one that explicitly protected property rights in slaves.[8”

Of course, by the time Corwin finally passed Congress, Davis was long gone.

Lincoln said on the campaign trail and over and over again that he had no intention of interfering with slavery. He even promised to strengthen fugitive slave legislation. He did that BEFORE South Carolina seceded.

You just blithely CLAIM “they weren’t going back”. You don’t know that. You only know that they did not accept explicit protections of slavery + high tariffs. You don’t know that they would not have accepted something different....like no tariff hike and equal federal government expenditures for example....because that was never offered.

Corwin was from Ohio by the way. Nice try.

BroJoeK Statistics say there were more rich people in the South than the North.
That suggests to me, if there was any “draining” going on, it went the other way.

No it doesn’t. It says that Southerners got wealthy earlier since they had valuable exports while the North did not until Midwestern grain starting really in the 1850s. As we have shown already, Southerners paid most of the tariff burden while most federal government expenditures went to the North. The North saw fit to use its majority to vote itself other people’s money right from the start.

BroJoeK The book I posted in #385 above is very clear on those statistics.
You should read it.

Charles Adams and Charles Beard are very clear on the statistics. You should read them.

BroJoeK The amendment passed Congress before Lincoln was inaugurated.
Lincoln forwarded it to the states, but if he in fact “orchestrated” anything, it would have been Corwin’s defeat, since only four, maybe five states ratified it.
Some “orchestration”.

You obviously haven’t read even the nauseating hagiographies of his supporters like Doris Kearns-Goodwin who praises him for orchestrating it. He was the president elect. He was the de facto leader of the party. This did not happen without his knowledge, approval or support.

BroJoeK Totally wrong, and now you’re just making up nonsense.
Lincoln was not even there when Corwin passed — President Buchanan signed it.
And the few states that did ratify Corwin included two critical slave-states, Kentucky & Maryland.
Corwin helped keep them in the Union, but was never “offered” to Confederate states.

Not at all. Lincoln was the president elect. He was the de facto leader of the Republican Party. The passage of the Corwin Amendment was his doing. In his inaugural address he offers the Corwin Amendment (and the Morrill Tariff though he did not say that, everybody knew it had passed) on the one hand, and war on the other. The Corwin Amendment was the offer to the Southern states. They turned it down.

BroJoeK I don’t know where you get the idea that all these “offers” were made, they weren’t.
There was no “offer” of representation to colonists in 1776 and there was no “offer” of Corwin to Confederates in 1861.
So it’s all just fantasy in your imagination, not history.

Where was the offer made? In his inaugural address. Duh. Try reading it some time.

BroJoeK Firstly, the federal government in 1860 was plenty powerful enough to do what it most needed to — for example put a brigade of soldiers lead by RE Lee to fight off Indians in Texas.
So it had power if it had the will.
But fugitive slaves were not a high priority to the Southerners who dominated Washington, DC.

Secondly, your repeated claims of “pretext” are simply your own fantasies overruling the real facts of history.

Obviously it was not powerful enough since several Northern states had thwarted its efforts to return fugitive slaves. Oh and Lee did not even lead one of the only 3 brigades sent to Texas. He was 2nd in command of one brigade but don’t let that stop you from spewing hate at him. LOL!

Oh and Southerners did not dominate Washington DC. They were in the minority. Claims that they dominated it are nothing more than your fantasies based on laughable claims that Northern Democrats followed orders from Southerners because they were Democrats.

The fact that the Southern states did not return when offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment in Lincoln’s inaugural address shows what their real concerns were and it was not slavery. And of course Andrew Jackson said 20 years before that Slavery would be used as a pretext as the quote I provided along with a source amply demonstrated. So you’re wrong on all counts.

BroJoeK Here’s what I know for certain: farm families 150 years ago were huge — four, six, eight children & more.
And the bigger the farm, with a big plantation house on it, the more likely was it to have grandma & grandpa, single aunts & uncles & others there.
Could more than one own slaves?
Sure, but we’re talking big families, and the children certainly would not be legal owners.
So the assumption of this calculation is only four people per family, a small enough number to take account of multiple slave-holders in the same family.

By stark contrast, your assumption is ludicrous: that none of the non-slave holders lived with or near slave-holders and therefore most had no stake in the success of that institution.

That is self-inflicted blindness, FRiend.

Farm families were big. Infant mortality was high. Not all slave owners were farmers. Children were often gifted slaves for a variety of events ranging from birthdays to marriages, etc. Wives often inherited slaves from their families so hubby might well not be the only parent to own slaves....like Grant’s wife for example...like Lee’s wife for example.

I never said non slave holders couldn’t have lived near slave holders. I said you fail to take into account that in slave holding families, often more than one person in the family owned slaves. Furthermore you make this “calculation” because you wish to maximize the number of families directly involved with slaveowning because that suits your anti-Southern agenda, FRiend.

BroJoeK Regardless if they “owned” or not, many times the 5.63 percent were invested in and dependent on slavery.
Every slave-holder had families, children, relatives & close neighbors dependent on the work of slaves, whether they legally “owned” them or not.
And beyond them were contractors who hired slaves from other slave-holders because that was still cheaper than hiring free-white laborers.
Point is: your ridiculous attempts to minimize the importance of slavery — especially in the Deep South — are beyond laughable.

More than 5.63%? Yes. “Many more”? We don’t know but even by your calculations it would be 75% and I think that calculation too high because it assumes only one slaveholder per family when we know anecdotally that was often not the case. How much does that lower it to? 20% instead of 25%? 15%? It is unknown exactly but regardless the overwhelming majority of Southerners did not own slaves.

Point is your ridiculous efforts to maximize the importance of slavery are beyond laughable.

BroJoeK Missouri’s governor was a Confederate and did everything he could, including raising an army to fight the Union army, to make Missouri Confederate.
But Missourians didn’t want secession, voted overwhelming against it and served the Union army in vastly greater numbers than Confederate, almost four to one.

They didn’t exactly have the opportunity for a free and fair vote. Missouri was mostly occupied from early on.

BroJoeK Maryland also voted overwhelmingly against secession (53-13) and supported the Union army over two-to-one vs. Confederates.
But after May 6, 1861 when Confederates formally declared war on the United States, it became, by definition, an act of treason to provide aid & comfort to Confederates.
So there were no further votes on secession.

Maryland was occupied early on and several members of the state legislature jailed by Lincoln without charge or trial before a vote could be held. Any votes held after that are not exactly reliable. Remember when Saddam used to get 99% of the vote in Iraq?

BroJoeK Constitutionally only Congress declares war, not a president.
In the Civil War Congress did not formally declare war, because that is not done in rebellions, but Congress did approve all of Lincoln’s actions and fully supported his war effort.

Lincoln’s call up of invaders was a de facto declaration of war. The Congress did not approve of him starting the war in the first place by sending a heavily armed flotilla to invade South Carolina’s territorial waters.

BroJoeK Studies suggest the vast majority of those arrested were residents of Confederate states, foreigners, or Border State (i.e., Maryland, Missouri) citizens sympathetic to Confederates.
Very few came from solid Union states (exception: New York), and that explains why Lincoln suffered no serious political consequences.

We might also note that Confederates arrested & held without trial over 3,000 Unionists in East Tennessee.
It means that as a percentage of the population, the number of pro-Confederates arrested in the Union was about the same as the number of Unionists arrested in the Confederacy.

Ah so they were “undesirables” in Lincoln’s mind. Of course many of them were residents of border states and most of them were Democrats - ie his political opponents. No surprise there.

“Davis . . . possessed the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for a total of only sixteen months. During most of that time he exercised this power more sparingly than did his counterpart in Washington. The rhetoric of southern libertarians about executive tyranny thus seems overblown.” (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 435)

BroJoeK Corwin did ally concerns in Union states, but contrary to your cockamamie claims, it was never “offered” to Confederates.

It was offered. Anybody who reads Lincoln’s inaugural address can see that this was the offer made to the original 7 seceding states to return.

BroJoeK A few were, the vast majority were not and did not ratify Corwin.

They didn’t ratify it because the Republicans stopped trying to get them to ratify it....because it didn’t work, the Southern states rejected it and refused to return.

BroJoeK The Confederate constitution first & foremost addressed slavery specifically and by name, making certain that it could never be abolished, anywhere or any time.
Every other change was minor & inconsequential.

Horsecrap. The main differences were the express limits on the ability of the central government to spend money.

BroJoeK Nonsense. Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond was the Confederacy’s largest and half its work force were slaves.
Slaves did just fine in Southern factories and there would be no reason not to use them there.

Industrialization did not kill off slavery, just the opposite, the outlawing of cheap slave labor forced manufacturers to invent labor saving machines to reduce costs.
But slaves themselves were perfectly capable of working in any factory, just as their descendants do today.

Total Rubbish. Over time, Industrialization kills off slavery. This is exactly what happened in the Northern states and throughout the Western world over the course of the 19th century. It was already killing off slavery in the Upper South as the figures I posted show (lower percentage of families owned slaves, higher percentage of Blacks were freedmen, etc).

It is not a coincidence that Slavery which had existed since before writing suddenly died all over the place in the western world from Russia to the Americas over the course of about 75 years in the 19th century. Its not like people suddenly and magically became more moral in country after country. You can’t possibly be that naive.

BroJoeK In your own words: “this is just self serving BS.”
None of it is true, regardless of how often you re-post it.
It’s all a lie from the beginning, can never be anything but.

First, all of the original Declarations of Causes focus primarily if not exclusively on slavery, and you know it.
“The North” offered nothing to Confederate states, and you know it.
Slavery was the issue that drove secession and abolition became the cause of freedom for Union armies, including its 200 colored regiments, and you know all that, but just don’t like to confess it.

Nope, its all true and remains true no matter how many times you dishonestly try to deny it.

Firstly the declarations of causes did focus on the legal pretext the Southern states needed in order to say the Northern states had violated the compact.

Lincoln offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment in his inaugural address. He could only offer it because it had passed the northern dominated Congress with the 2/3rds supermajority, been signed by the president and ratified by several states already. And you know it.

The war was about MONEY like all other wars. The North was more than happy to protect slavery in the South so long as the gravy train kept rolling. The Southern states knew they’d be much better off on their own which is why they wanted out. It was ALL ABOUT money and you know it, you just don’t want to admit imperial Washington was fighting for grubby motives like war and empire.

BroJoeK Naw, Democrats have always been just what they are today, dominating in power or rebellious out of power, cheating, always using the law to make others pay for their own free stuff, whether those others were slaves in 1860 or just any hard working Americans today.

The parties today are nothing like the parties of 150 years ago. Its ridiculous to even try to compare them.

Too long. Not going to read it.

Second Lincoln openly offered the Corwin Amendment to the original 7 seceding states. Its right there in his inaugural address. Try reading it some time.

They literally cannot bear the thought that the motivations of their side were evil. All their lives they have been told that the side supporting slavery must be evil, and when it is shown that their side was actually supporting slavery, they have a cognitive break.

Without their fig leaf of "Dying to make men free", the entire thing looks like what it was; A raw grab for power by a totalitarian who got 750,000 people killed in direct conflict, and perhaps 2 million more killed as an indirect result of it. (for money and power)

This is why they always look at the conflict through "slavery colored glasses". It is the sole moral justification for the horror unleashed, and it isn't even true when you look at specifics.

They can't look at the specifics.

As we have shown already, Southerners paid most of the tariff burden while most federal government expenditures went to the North. The North saw fit to use its majority to vote itself other people’s money right from the start.

Tax and Spend Liberals in the North East? Why that's astonishing! Nowadays the North East is the seat of frugal economic policy, exhibiting great concern about the Fiscal stability of the nation.

A cause they did not even discover they were actually fighting for until two years into the conflict.....after being told this is what they were fighting for by Mill.....despite the offer of slavery expressly protected by constitutional amendment that would still be irrevocable even today without the consent of the dlaveholding states and despite the nearly unanimous resolution passed by Congress declaring this is not what they were fighting for and despite Lincoln’s repeated denials that this is what they were fighting for.

Theirs was revisionist history right from the start. Unfortunately for purveyors of this propaganda, we can read. We can see what they actually said and did at the time rather than what they later said.