This Map is the key to the entire affair. All you need to know is that the money ending up in New York, Came from the South.
Posted on 04/08/2018 3:39:59 PM PDT by iowamark
A friend recently posed this question: “If you had to recommend one book for a first-time visitor to the U.S. to read, to understand our country, what would it be and why?”...
If the goal is an education, we could recommend Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager’s Growth of the American Republic, a two-volume history that used to be required reading...
Huckleberry Finn may be the greatest American novel... But there is no single novel, no matter how great, that can do the job alone.
Consider instead the great American essayists who invented a new style of writing in the 1920s and founded The New Yorker. E. B. White’s One Man’s Meat is the finest such essay collection... Joseph Mitchell’s Up in the Old Hotel is nearly as great...
Teddy Roosevelt’s short book The Strenuous Life, which opens with his 1899 speech by that name, is an explanation of America’s view of itself — a view that greatly shaped the 20th century. It was the peculiar marriage of power and prosperity together with a sense of moral urgency. Roosevelt demands an active life, a life of struggling for personal and national virtue. He commends a triad of strength in body, intellect, and character — of which character is the most important. America must meet its moral obligations vigorously, he tells us: “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”...
The origin of that moral urgency was America’s most important spiritual crisis. It is best expressed in a single speech, rich in Biblical imagery and contemporary prophecy: Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, which is the greatest of all American writing. It is a tone-poem or photograph of the American soul. A complete understanding, in just 697 words.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Money. Not Freedom. Not Union. Money and Power. That is all it was ever about.
This Map is the key to the entire affair. All you need to know is that the money ending up in New York, Came from the South.
Yep. Against a flood of sources on both sides as well as foreign at the time....against a guy considered to be the pre-eminent historian in the first half of the 20th century in Charles Beard, against a well known expert on historical tax in Charles Adams they have....”but in 1861 the exports for stuff other than cotton (never mind that cotton was 60% of all US exports) wasn’t down that much.....so that therefore proves they were growing lots of tobacco in Vermont and rice in Wisconsin and indigo in Connecticut).”
The desperation to deny reality is palpable.
I think this is because every bit of information that points to the real cause of the conflict has them thinking "but...but...but..... We're the good guys! That can't possibly be true! or if it is true, it must mean something different than what it appears to mean!"
To acknowledge the truth, is to tear down their idols, and they cannot bring themselves to do that. They hold Lincoln and company in the same esteem as do the Communists in Russia regarding Lenin and Stalin.
The people they grew up believing to be the good guys, in their minds cannot possibly be the bad guys.
Neither you nor I can the a “good guy” in regards to the Civil War since the conflict ended 150 years ago and none of us had a damn thing to do with it.
Nowadays people see the sides in much the same way they see their favorite sports team. They pick a side, and then they defend it. For most people in the nation, they pick the Union side, because everyone likes a winner, they don't want to be thought of as a racist, and they have been taught that the South was completely evil and that the Union was the good guys who provided freedom to an oppressed people.
The people who generally chose the South are the people from that region of the Country, or people descended from people who fought for the South in that conflict. (I am neither)
And then there are people like me, who had no dog in the fight, grew up believing that the North did the right thing and that Lincoln was a great man, and then they are either shown the truth, or stumble upon it themselves, and become aghast at how they had been misled about what happened for so long.
I didn't start at the Civil War. My introduction to politics had nothing at all to do with it. I started out opposing Abortion, worrying about the decline of morals in the public behavior, concerned about the creeping homosexual crap, wondering why the nation couldn't balance it's budget, and so forth.
What I started to notices is that problem after problem kept coming back to the 14th amendment. Abortion? 14th amendment. Denial of prayer in public schools? 14th amendment. Homosexual Marriage? 14th amendment. Anchor babies? 14th amendment. Non Natural born citizen assuming the role of President? 14th amendment!
Time and time again, the problems kept coming back to the 14th amendment, and so I noticed that modern problems were often the consequence of the aftermath of the civil war.
And then my best friend, who is black, has always been obsessed about racial issues, and who also has an obsession about history, and especially the civil war, Told me that Lincoln deliberately started the war, and he did it by outsmarting the Confederates. I didn't believe him, because that's not what I had heard all my life.
He told me what he believed happened, and I just dismissed it for years and years. Eventually I learned that there was some evidentiary support for his claim. Two letters he told me about, did in fact exist, and were real.
Then more pieces started coming out. That map I always post had initially convinced me the war couldn't have been over tariffs because the South wasn't paying the tariffs. The map showed it was obviously the North and especially New York that was paying for all the tariffs.
Then someone posted the numbers regarding which Southern exports earned the European money, and now I realized something was very wrong with what I had been led to believe. If the South was earning the vast bulk of European money, why was all the money ending up in New York?
In other words, I'm someone who originally believed as do you and most other people, who slowly, over time, and after exposure to more information, realized we have been misled, and now I see that the war was really about money and power. "Slavery" was just propaganda meant to pacify the rubes, and justify the carnage, after the fact.
I've seen both sides, and objectivity compels me to say that according to the society and laws in place at that time in history, the South was in the right, and the North was in the wrong.
You don't want to believe it, and neither did I.
I just don’t believe it. It’s not a matter of desire. It’s objectivity.
I don’t know how you can be objective when you’ve only heard one side of the story. My opinion was changed because I finally heard the side of the story that has been covered up all these years.
I’ve heard your side ad nauseam.
DiogenseLamp: "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."
Cockamamie cognitive nonsense.
"Cognitive break" can't happen from lies, and you people have few clues as to real truth.
It starts here: in 1860 Republicans were the party of abolitionists and Lincoln favored gradual abolition, as can be seen from any number of quotes.
So "Ape" Lincoln and his Black Republicans believed slavery wrong, period.
In 1860 Southern Fire Eaters threatened: if Lincoln won election they would secede.
He was and they did, making certain their new Confederate constitution explicitly protected slavery under all circumstances.
In effect, the Confederate Constitution made the SCOTUS Dred Scott decision inviolable.
So it was all about slavery.
Now Lost Causers claim Corwin was offered to secession states and they rejected it, but there's no record to support this.
Instead, the record shows Corwin offered to Union states like Kentucky and Maryland, which ratified it.
Further, Corwin simply made explicit what the Constitution already implied: that Congress alone could not abolish slavery in states and that abolition must come from within slave-states themselves.
Civil War -- started not over slavery but over Federal properties unlawfully attacked and secession unlawfully declared.
For Lincoln's thoughts at the time, see here.
Fort Sumter was not about slavery:
But slavery quickly became an issue, in the form of "contraband of war", should they be returned to Confederates or freed and hired to help the Union cause?
They were not returned leading to the 1862 Emancipation Proclamation and enlistment of nearly 200,000 black soldiers in the Union army -- enough to replace every Union soldier killed in battle.
That's how by war's end Northerners saw themselves fighting for both Union and freedom: "As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, as God is marching on."
Of course, for many Northerners (especially Democrats) abolitionism did not come soon or naturally, they had to be dragged to it kicking & screaming.
But by civil war's end, even with Lincoln assassinated, Republicans were ready for not just emancipation, but also full citizenship: the 13th, 14th and 15 amendments.
And those were all about slavery.
So slavery was the issue before, during and after Civil War, supported by Democrats, opposed by Republicans second in importance only to Union itself.
And that's the truth, with no "cognitive break".
DiogenseLamp: "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)"
According to both FLT-bird & DiogenesLamp's own posts, "money and power" is what Southern Fire Eaters expected in declaring secession from their allegedly "oppressive" Federal government and what they fought for, until the bitter end.
Lost Causers themselves say, in effect, "money and power" were gone from Southerners in Washington, DC, by 1860 and this loss, not "slavery, slavery, slavery" forced Fire Eaters to declare secession.
So here we see DiogenesLamp releasing his inner Democrat to do what Democrats often do: project their own mind-sets onto others.
He's telling us, in effect, that since Fire Eaters were driven by "money and power" therefore so must Lincoln's Black Republicans.
Indeed, it's often the Democrats' last resort, when they are finally caught, cornered and have no place to escape they throw up their hands saying: "you're right, both sides do it".
DiogenesLamp knows well his own side is guilty, and his evidence for "both sides"?
Only his own inner Democrat, crying out for recognition.
DiogenseLamp: "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."
More rubbish & nonsense, because the United States Constitution itself is moral.
So neither Lincoln's April 15, 1861 proclamation nor his July 4, 1861 message to Congress mentioned slavery.
The former called for 75,000 troops to return Federal properties unlawfully seized, the latter argues against secession and for restoration of the Union.
And after Fort Sumter plus Confederates' May 6, 1861 declaration of war, no more justifications would be needed than after, for example, WWII attacks and declarations of war against the USA.
So here's the bottom line: when Democrats accuse Republicans of the very thing they are most guilty of (think "Russia collusion", in this case "money and power"), it should be taken as only a sign they full well know they've been cornered & caught and this is their last chance to escape judgment.
Of course, I know this post is too much "cognitive break" for DiogenesLamp to even read, such is life...
In a nutshell:
DiogenesLamp: "Yes, but I was unaware of this until about the last three years.
I got a hint of it a little over a decade ago, but I didn't realize the truth of it until I began to notice things that didn't make any sense if you believed what we were told growing up.
We've been lied to about the Civil War for our whole lives."
That's another lie.
In fact, Lost Causer revisionism, begun by Confederates like Jefferson Davis before war's end, hoped to deny the centrality of slavery to secessionists, while emphasizing "states rights" to secede unilaterally for any reason, or no reason, and the "villainy" of President Lincoln.
And much of Lost Cause revisionist myth was bought into by most Democrats of the time, hoping to use it as a tool for reuniting the old pre-war Democrat alliance of Northern Big City immigrant bosses with Southern slave-masters.
So it's just rubbish to say, "the Lost Cause truth was hidden", it wasn't, ever, by the old Democrat party.
It only began to be dropped when Democrats began flipping constituents from descendants of slave-holders to descendants of their slaves.
Only then many Southern schools began dropping Lost Cause myths in favor actual Civil War era history.
DiogenesLamp: "...unfortunately you have to search out this information, and you have to look for it while being subjected to the gale force wins of revisionist propaganda, and 'everybody knows the war was fought over slavery' ad populum fallacy. "
No, the myth you have to supposedly "search out" was actually taught for generations as gospel throughout the South:
"...In 1913, for instance, the sons of confederate Veterans succeeded in banning from the University of Texas history curriculum a book that they felt offered an excessively New England slant on recent history....
"...As late as the 1970s, neither textbooks nor curricula veered far from lost cause interpretations, especially in the Deep South,' writes historian Karen L. Cox — and in his book on the civil rights era in Mississippi, historian John Dittmer concluded that the lost cause version of post-Civil War reconstruction in the South still held sway among the vast majority of whites in that state as recently as the early 1990s."
"...Die-hard defenders of some version of the Lost Cause today say that the South has always been the victim of 'political correctness' in school textbooks, and that this continues to this day.
The truth is just the opposite: for decades, publishers of school textbooks went out of their way not to offend delicate Southern sensibilities in their treatment of the Civil War"
DiogenesLamp: "The numbers tell the truth.
The North deliberately provoked a war with the South because the South was going to take away most of their European trade, and thereby cause all sorts of financial stress in their wealthiest city."
No, that's just your own fantasy, projecting your own inner Democrat mind-set onto those you disparage.
Union motives were no different than American motives in, for example, WWII -- we were attacked, we had to defend and destroy the source of that attack.
And just as, by the grace of God, WWII left the US much stronger as a world economic & military leader, so Civil War also enhanced the United States.
But no reasonable person would disparage the US for those results any more in one war than the other.
DiogenesLamp: "The Empire of New York was behind this war because someone dared threaten their money stream."
Nonsense.
New York's wealthy Democrats supported Civil War, but only half-heartedly, and soon after reformed their old alliance with Southern Democrats.
Yes the new alliance was less successful than before but did accomplish its one essential goal: removal of Union troops from the South after 1876, and imposition of Black Laws, Jim Crow segregation and KKK type enforcements, thus in effect nullifying the 13th, 14th & 15th amendments for nearly 100 years.
Suggesting that most or all cotton had already been paid for and so changed hands before loading on ships to Europe, or Northeastern USA.
SoCal Pubbie: "What I’ve read is that rich Southerners reinvested profits in more slaves and more land."
Exactly, because according to Wigfall rules and simple common historical sense, that was the surest, quickest and longest lasting way to become wealthy.
After all, a Southern gentleman without a large plantation was, as Texans today say, "all hat and no cattle."
SoCal Pubbie: "That’s not to say that those profiting from crops in the South did not also participate in importing.
But I don’t see a direct connection."
The best I can do on import tariffs is here, and it suggests there was no way Southerners would pay for more than a small portion of it.
The reason is: bulk commodities of which you'd only buy as much as needed.
Items for resale would remain in large warehouses in, say, New York, until other buyers were found to pay the tariffs.
Today's US GDP is about $20 trillion, of which the entire Boston to DC corridor represents roughly 15%.
I note from your link the poster spent some effort to track down & "verify" this quote, but I don't believe it.
This language sounds "off" for Lincoln, more like something years later admirers might wish him to have said.
Also I note again that name, William H. Herndon, along with Jessie Weik, seems to be associated with any number of suspicious Lincoln quotes.
"Hidden Lincoln" indeed, hidden even from Lincoln?
All depends on your definitions of "North", "South" and "total exports".
Deep South cotton was undoubtedly 50% of the total, including specie.
But everything else classified "Southern" could be and was produced in the Upper South, Union South, Northern Border and Western states.
This was proved conclusively in 1861 when all Confederate exports were deleted from Union totals and yet "Southern exports" excluding cotton fell net-net only $3 million.
Finally, 1860 Northern "exports" to the South totaled about $200 million, which explains the source of funds for Northern imports from Europe, and puts the lie to claims that "Northeast power brokers" were ripping off the pooooor Southern plantation owners.
This source says the Northeastern Megalopolis produces 20% of US GDP, from 17% of the US population on 2% of its land.
My own calculations say closer to 15% of GDP, (all depends of definitions), but regardless, using 17% of population to produce even 20% of GDP does not suggest grossly "out of whack" numbers.
Further, there's no particular reason to lump everybody living between Washington, DC, and Boston as just one big megalopolis, and as soon as you start to consider those metropolitan areas individually, then they are no more intimidating than many other similar all over the United States.
And still more cockamamie nonsense.
There's no record to suggest Corwin was "orchestrated" by Lincoln, "offered" to Confederate states or "rejected" by them.
The record clearly does show Corwin passed under and signed by President Buchanan, directed towards & accepted by Union slave-states like Kentucky & Maryland.
It also shows that Senator Davis himself, before January 21, 1861 when he left the Senate, worked on his version of Corwin's idea.
Indeed, no secessionist was ever recording as promising that if the Union simply dropped Morrill, or spent more money in the South, then they'd be happy to return.
That should tell us all we need to know about what secessionists said was their biggest concern: slavery.
Only half true, if that much.
50% (about $200 million) of 1860 US exports ($400 million) were Deep South cotton, that's all.
Almost everything else classified as "Southern products" could be and was produced outside the Deep Confederate South.
This was demonstrated conclusively in 1861 when Confederate exports were deleted from US totals, and excluding cotton, "Southern products" fell only $3 million.
So roughly $200 million of $400 million was Confederate cotton and, sure, that's a big deal.
But Northern "exports" to the South were also around $200 million, plus several times that number manufactured for Northern consumption.
That explains how Northerners earned money to pay for US imports and import tariffs.
So would loss of Confederate exports hurt the Union economy?
Of course, but even in 1861 the pain was not a much as secessionists claimed it would be, and in later years the Union adjusted, adapted & continued to grow economically without Confederate cotton.
Of course, as a certified Lost Causer propagandist (CLCP), you simply cannot acknowledge anything contradicting your own orthodoxy.
Otherwise you'd be decertified, tarred, feathered & run out on a rail, right?
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