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To: BroJoeK

Your 1987 authors are fantasizing.
In fact, there is nothing in any of the quotes about producing a “balanced economy” in the South, far from it.
Southerners hated the North’s industrialization and didn’t want to support it.
None said they wanted more industry “in the South”

Laughable BS. Most people could see by then that industrialization was the way forward. All anyone needed to do was look at the world. Those countries that were industrialized were the most powerful and wealthiest. The South just wanted to industrialize on its own terms and not have to pay for somebody else’s industrialization.


What’s true here is that many Southerners wanted low tariffs, and so did many from other regions.
What’s not true is the claim that Federal spending went disproportionately to the North.
It didn’t.

Yes it did.


But the biggest deceit here is the claim that Northerners somehow ran Washington, DC and could do what they wished.
The opposite is true: Southern Democrats were the power brokers in Washington, DC, from about 1800 until secession in 1861.
What Southerners wanted they got, what they didn’t want didn’t happen, period.

This is patently absurd. The North had an equal number of states from the start and later had more - thus more Senators. The North always had more people - thus more Representatives. To say that Southerners got what they wanted and did not get what they did not want is simply absurd. From the early high protectionist tariffs to tariffs being on manufactured goods but not raw materials to unequal federal expenditures favoring the Northern states to the Tariff of Abominations to the Morrill Tariff, it was clear the reality was exactly the opposite of what you claim.


But they didn’t, ever, until secession in 1861.
Sure, by 1860 for the first time there was a Republican majority in one house of Congress, but Southerners still controlled the other, and the President.

Simply false as I laid out above. The North always had more congressmen and the balance shifted ever further in their favor as time went on.


Both claims are false: those four states did not “defray” 3/4 of Federal expenses, nor was Federal spending focused outside the South.
Nor is the claim that Southerners were impoverished credible because, in fact, Southern planters and their white neighbors enjoyed the highest average standard of living of any country ever.

For example, in 1840, total US exports (including specie) were $132 million of which $61 million (46%) was cotton.
Everything else listed as “Southern products” was also produced outside the Confederate South and so continued with strong exports even after secession in 1861.

False. The South provided the overwhelming bulk of the exports from 1791 right up until 1861. Only in the last few years did Midwestern grain become a significant export. The South also paid the vast majority of the tariffs since those cash crops financed the purchase of manufactured goods to fill the holds of ships on their return journeys across the Atlantic.


It was not true in 1840 or 1850 or 1860.
In fact, truly Southern exports represented about half the total and Federal dollars were spent correspondingly, about half in the South.

Total BS on both counts.


212 posted on 04/18/2018 12:33:22 AM PDT by FLT-bird (.)
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To: FLT-bird; x; SoCal Pubbie; rockrr
FLT-bird: "Laughable BS.
Most people could see by then that industrialization was the way forward.
All anyone needed to do was look at the world. Those countries that were industrialized were the most powerful and wealthiest.
The South just wanted to industrialize on its own terms and not have to pay for somebody else’s industrialization."

Sure, and I'll believe that as soon as you produce a quote from the time of any recognized Southern leader who said as much.
Until then, what you say here is total fantasy, or, dare I say it, "Laughable BS".

FLT-bird: "Yes it did."

Only in the propaganda from certain Southern sympathizers.

FLT-bird: "This is patently absurd.
The North had an equal number of states from the start and later had more - thus more Senators.
The North always had more people - thus more Representatives."

Totally irrelevant.
What matters is that Southern Democrats ruled the national Democrat party which ruled over Washington, DC, almost continuously from 1800 to secession in 1861.
Throughout those years Southern Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, the Presidency, Supreme Court and Military.
And Southerners had a name for those Northern Democrat allies who made their rule in DC possible -- they called them "Doughfaced", and not with affection.

FLT-bird: "To say that Southerners got what they wanted and did not get what they did not want is simply absurd.
From the early high protectionist tariffs to tariffs being on manufactured goods but not raw materials to unequal federal expenditures favoring the Northern states to the Tariff of Abominations to the Morrill Tariff, it was clear the reality was exactly the opposite of what you claim."

Never happened.
The 1828 "Tariff of Abominations" was originally supported by Southerners like John C. Calhoun and Andrew Jackson, while opposed by many New Englanders.
When it passed, then Calhoun announced he'd somehow been tricked and really didn't want it.
But President Jackson kept most of it because he wanted to pay off the national debt -- the only US president to ever do so.
Regardless, over the following years Southern Democrats steadily reduced the Tariff of Abominations until by 1860 tariffs were about as low as they had ever been.

As for alleged "unequal Federal expenditures", the facts say otherwise.
So Southerners always got what they truly wanted, even if it wasn't always instant gratification.

FLT-bird: "Simply false as I laid out above.
The North always had more congressmen and the balance shifted ever further in their favor as time went on."

But what you refuse to "get" is that Congress was not divided by strictly "Northerners" vs. "Southerners".
Rather it was Democrats controlled by Southerners but with many Northern Doughfaced Democrat allies versus mostly Northern Federalists / Whigs / Republicans with very few Southern allies.
That's why Southern Democrats ruled Washington, DC.

FLT-bird: "False.
The South provided the overwhelming bulk of the exports from 1791 right up until 1861.
Only in the last few years did Midwestern grain become a significant export."

False, and the absolute proof of it came in 1861 when all products from the Confederate South were deleted from Union exports, especially cotton, whose exports fell 80% that year.
But overall exports fell only 35% and some alleged "Southern products" (i.e., clover seed & hops)actually increased significantly in 1861.
Typical was the second largest export crop -- tobacco.
With Confederate products deleted, tobacco exports fell only 14%.

It tells us all that yammering about "Southern products paying for Federal government" was just propaganda stuff & nonsense.

FLT-bird: "Total BS on both counts."

Referring to your own arguments, of course.


218 posted on 04/18/2018 11:54:51 AM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective...)
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