Oh, but they certainly did, in the beginning.
In 1790 Virginia was the most populous state (including slaves) and roughly half of Americans lived in the South.
In 1810 New York's population surpassed Virginia's and in 1820 so did Pennsylvania's, such that by 1830 the South's population had fallen to about 44% of the total.
Still the Constitution's 3/5 rule gave Southerners far more representation in Washington than their white populations alone would allow, and the huge political skills of such recognized Southern geniuses as Jefferson, Madison and Andrew Jackson gave the South far more clout in Washington, DC, than mere numbers suggest.
Unfortunately such giants were eventually followed by lesser men of lesser skills and correspondingly more difficult dispositions.
South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks comes to mind.
Regardless, before 1861 Southern Democrats always dominated their Doughfaced Northern Democrat brethren and together Democrats Dominated in Washington, DC, from about 1800 until secession in 1861 -- almost continuously, with very few exceptions.
The strength of Democrat dominance can be seen in the steady decline of tariffs after what was effectively the Calhoun/Jackson Tariff of Abominations.
Note my graph in post #290 above.
Again, if you'll note the two maps in post #290 of 1852 & 1856 elections, you'll see that in 1852 Democrats totally dominated the North and in 1856 still took some very important Norther states (i.e., Pennsylvania).
But in 1860 Preston Brooks' Fire Eater buddies succeeded in splitting the Democrat party, demoralizing Northern Democrats and paving the way for minority Republican victory.
So Southerners didn't lose power in Washington, DC, so much as they threw it away.
FLT-bird: "In a pamphlet published in 1850, Muscoe Russell Garnett of Virginia wrote: The whole amount of duties collected from the year 1791, to June 30, 1845, after deducting the drawbacks on foreign merchandise exported, was $927,050,097.
Of this sum the slaveholding States paid $711,200,000, and the free States only $215,850,097."
Speaking of "patently absurd", those numbers certainly are, since there is no possible way to collect them.
Federal import tariffs were collected at ports on entry and afterwards was no way to tell the ultimate customers, or even if Northern or Southern.
So what such numbers typically do refer to is US exports which were not taxed but were claimed to somehow "pay for" imports.
Thus, for example, if Deep South cotton represented, say, 50% of total exports (which it did), then it was claimed the Deep South "paid for" 50% of US imports and thus Federal revenue tariffs.
Likewise with tobacco or rice, etc.
But one problem is: cotton is the only product where that equation really works -- everything else could be and was produced in many places, only counted as "Southern products" because they were exported from Southern ports, i.e., New Orleans.
This was proved big-time in 1861 when Confederate South products were 100% deleted from US exports, and yet a "Southern product" like tobacco's exports fell only 14%.
Clearly tobacco was not only produced by Confederates.
Of course, if you wish to argue that Muscoe Russell Garnett's numbers are what many Southerners came to believe, then it might be true some believed it, but the numbers themselves are, ahem, "patently absurd".
FLT-bird: "Complete BS.
All the commentators at the time, as well as several Northern Newspapers, foreign commentators and Charles Adams all say otherwise.
On your side you have one 1928 book."
I don't dispute that some believed what you say, I only say that it was not true.
My opinions are based not only on that 1928 book, which shows that Federal spending was roughly equal North vs. South, but also on some of the same documents used to show that "Southern products" exceeded all other by far.
I simply note that when Confederate products were deleted, cotton exports did indeed fall 80% as you would expect.
But no other "Southern product" fell anywhere near than much and tobacco, for example fell only 14%.
Clearly not all "Southern products" were produced in the Confederate South.
FLT-bird: "So of the 6, none were arrested and that was due to the support of locals in Massachusetts as well as sympathetic local officials.
Texas was absolutely right to say that Northerners sympathize with financial backers of terrorism directed against the South."
Some Northerners, just like today some Americans sympathize and financially back Muslim terrorists.
History does not tell us the percentages, but I'd suggest that 150 close neighbors defending Franklin Sanborn against arresting Federal officers did not necessarily speak for all of several million Northern voters.
Indeed, in 1860 those Northern voters may still have returned more Democrats to office, had the party remained united.
FLT-bird: "I was talking about the refusal of the Southern states to accept the Corwin Amendment and the subsequent war Lincoln started.
Had it been “about” slavery, the Corwin amendment would have sufficed."
But slavery was the reason given by secessionists themselves, so slavery is what Congress addressed.
Now you say it wasn't really about slavery, since Confederates rejected all such compromises.
But the truth is that once they declared secession, then no compromise offered by Congress would have been adequate to entice their return.
So slavery was the stated reason for secession, but slavery would not get Confederates to return.
As it turned out, nothing would, short of Union victory and Confederates' Unconditional Surrender.
FLT-bird: "We have furthermore seen how 3 of those 4 had extensive economic grievances relating to tariffs and grossly unequal federal government expenditures..."
Wrong again.
All four focused on slavery, none mentioned tariffs or taxes.
Yes, Georgia complained about "bounties" for "fishing smacks" but did not claim they went exclusively to Northerners, nor can anybody seriously suggest Georgia was willing to secede and risk Civil War over "fishing smacks"!
The real reason was clearly slavery.
FLT-bird: "Next you desperately try to do a simple word count to claim Rhett’s #1 concern was slavery which is of course patently false."
Nothing either "desperate" or "patently false" about it because the fact remains that Rhett devoted twice as many words to slavery as to all other issues combined.
So I'm not claiming Rhett had no other red herrings to throw out, I'm only saying the real reason is the one he spent the most words talking about -- slavery.
FLT-bird quoting: "The legislation of this Union has impoverished them [the Southern States] by taxation and by a diversion of the proceeds of our labor and trade to enriching Northern Cities and States."
But that claim is false, beginning with the fact that Southerners were far from "impoverished".
Rather, on average, white Southerners were wealthier than any other people on Earth.
And Rhett's claim of "diversion" of proceeds is also false, though it appears some people then & now believed it.
In reality, such numbers were fake, as I've explained.
FLT-bird: [Doris Kerns Goodwin] "praises Lincoln for orchestrating it [Corwin].
Others have noted that he was pulling the strings on this as well."
Lincoln commented noncommittally on it in his first inaugural.
Other than that, I've seen no evidence of his "orchestration".
So I'm starting to think it's on a par with Trump's "Russia collusion" -- something devoutly wished for by his political enemies but sadly, for them, nothing but fantasy.
FLT-bird: "WHat the Corwin Amendment did do was demonstrate conclusively that the Northern states were quite willing to protect slavery effectively forever in the Constitution and that the original 7 seceding states were obviously not motivated by fears over the protection of slavery because they indicated no willingness to return upon being offered the Corwin Amendment."
Wrong on both counts.
But I did find your mysterious "orchestrator", it was President Buchanan, who took the trouble to sign the amendment, even though not required.
And Lincoln did forward it to the states, noting Buchanan's signature.
But only five states ratified it -- two Southern Border, two Northern Border, plus Rhode Island.
Most later rescinded their ratifications.
I think some allowances should be made for the local politics of those border states.
As for Confederates refusing to reconsider rejoining based only on the Corwin amendment, I would say rather that by that time secessionists were unwilling to consider anything the Union proposed, slavery related or not.
FLT-bird: "It doesn’t make them a lie.
The Northern states really had violated the compact by refusing to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution."
But that itself is a lie because the Compromise of 1850 removed responsibility for enforcing fugitive slave laws from states to Federal government.
Claims that somehow states were still responsible is rather a breech of faith by secessionists, not Northerners.
FLT-bird: "Slavery was something most white Southerners did not participate in."
Most in the Deep South certainly did, where nearly 50% of families owned slaves.
Outside the Deep South things were quite different, with slave ownership falling to 15% or less in Border States.
That's the reason those states didn't join the Confederacy, even after Fort Sumter.
FLT-bird: "They simply did not want to remain in given that they felt they had been economically exploited and could look forward to nothing but even more egregious economic exploitation."
Anyone could write up a list of reasons and order them by priority.
Then ask Confederates which of those reasons was more important.
I promise you, "economic exploitation" would not be near the top of any but a very few Confederates' lists.
FLT-bird: "Oh and of course it was Lincoln who launched the war and for the same reason the Southern states wanted out - he and his corporate fatcat supporters needed their cash cow ie the Southern States to finance their huge tariffs and infrastructure projects and corporate subsidies.
It was a war for empire and money.
Foreign observers saw that quite clearly."
Total nonsense, but of course there've always been rabid anti-Americans eager to denigrate our ideals and mock our motives.
Many then as now are Democrat Americans, or foreigners devoted to a larger world-government cause.
It was true then, it's true now.
Oh, but they certainly did, in the beginning.
In 1790 Virginia was the most populous state (including slaves) and roughly half of Americans lived in the South.
In 1810 New York’s population surpassed Virginia’s and in 1820 so did Pennsylvania’s, such that by 1830 the South’s population had fallen to about 44% of the total.
In the beginning the population was more balanced though of course blacks did not have the vote be they free or slave so the South had less votes than the North from the start and that got steadily worse over time as the North’s population grew faster due to immigration.
Again, if you’ll note the two maps in post #290 of 1852 & 1856 elections, you’ll see that in 1852 Democrats totally dominated the North and in 1856 still took some very important Norther states (i.e., Pennsylvania).
But in 1860 Preston Brooks’ Fire Eater buddies succeeded in splitting the Democrat party, demoralizing Northern Democrats and paving the way for minority Republican victory.
So Southerners didn’t lose power in Washington, DC, so much as they threw it away.
Democrats were the dominant party. Your claim however that Southerners always ran things and could just snap their fingers and Northern Democrats would do their bidding is absurd. Things like the grossly unequal federal expenditures and the tariff of Abominations never would have passed at all had Southerners been that influential in Washington DC. Even after it was agreed to lower tariffs as part of the compromise that ended the Nullification Crisis, the rates were still considerably higher than would have been ideal for Southern economic interests. Then as the North steadily grew bigger and bigger it sought to impose sky high tariffs once again and this time the Southern states saw they weren’t going to be able to stop it so they seceded. Seeing their cash cows departing was intolerable to Lincoln and his corporate fatcat supporters.
Thus, for example, if Deep South cotton represented, say, 50% of total exports (which it did), then it was claimed the Deep South “paid for” 50% of US imports and thus Federal revenue tariffs.
Likewise with tobacco or rice, etc.
But one problem is: cotton is the only product where that equation really works — everything else could be and was produced in many places, only counted as “Southern products” because they were exported from Southern ports, i.e., New Orleans.
This was proved big-time in 1861 when Confederate South products were 100% deleted from US exports, and yet a “Southern product” like tobacco’s exports fell only 14%.
Clearly tobacco was not only produced by Confederates.
Of course, if you wish to argue that Muscoe Russell Garnett’s numbers are what many Southerners came to believe, then it might be true some believed it, but the numbers themselves are, ahem, “patently absurd”.
More rubbish, nonsense and economic illiteracy. Where a cargo lands and thus where the tariff is paid is irrelevant. WHO owns the goods and thus pays the tariff is what is relevant. Likewise who buys those manufactured goods is irrelevant. Who owned those goods? Southerners.
They were the ones who contracted with the shipping companies to ship their cash crops across the Atlantic. They were the ones who had to find something to fill the cargo holds of those ships with to help pay for the cost on the return journey. Obviously the thing that made sense to fill the cargo holds with was manufactured goods since France and especially Britain had industrialized first and thus had economies of scale and could sell more and better manufactured goods at lower prices.
Your claim that because Northern shipping companies were still able to export decent quantities of rice, indigo, sugar and tobacco that means that the North somehow produced these goods is laughable. Firstly things do get stored in warehouses. You realize that right? Secondly even during the war there was trade going on between both sides. Gee....what’s the South going to be offering in trade?
I can cite any of a number of Northern newspapers at the time which also openly admitted the South was providing the vast majority of exports for the whole country and when we look at what was exported its not difficult to see that cash crops comprise most of it.
I simply note that when Confederate products were deleted, cotton exports did indeed fall 80% as you would expect.
But no other “Southern product” fell anywhere near than much and tobacco, for example fell only 14%.
Clearly not all “Southern products” were produced in the Confederate South.
No not all of the cash crops were produced in the states which seceded. Missouri and Kentucky did and still do grow some cotton and tobacco as well. Some things will inevitably get stored in warehouses as well. There was some trading between both sides during the war as well. The vast majority of the exports were provided by the Southern states though (including border states).
As for federal expenditures, those were totally unbalanced in favor of Northern states and had been since the beginning. For example: From 1789 to 1845, the North received five times the amount of money that was spent on southern projects. More than twice as many lighthouses were built in the North as in the South, and northern states received twice the southern appropriations for coastal defense.
The fact that NONE of the 6 who openly supported and financed a terrorist who launched an attack with the express aim of killing Southern civilians were arrested says it all.
Firstly you don’t know that no compromise offered after secession would have been sufficient to entice the original 7 seceding states to come back. What we know is that the slavery with massively high tariffs carrot was offered and they refused it.
That both the North was willing to offer it and that the Southern states rejected it says a lot. Slavery was simply not what was motivating most people on either side.
Wrong. Georgia talked extensively about both the tariffs and the unequal federal expenditures. Texas talked about that as well as the failure to provide border security as well as the Northern states refusing to act against terrorists based there who had attacked the South. South Carolina attached Rhett’s address which talked extensively about tariffs and unequal federal expenditures. Had the “real reason” been slavery then the Corwin Amendment would certainly have satisfied that....yet it did not.
and I’m saying that’s laughable BS and that Rhett had said he would support secession on economic grounds alone.
His claim is clearly true. By 1860, the South’s wealth was only on par with that of the North even though it was the South which produced the vast majority of the valuable exports. Clearly a lot of money had been drained out of Southerners’ pockets over the years for that to happen.
Such numbers were true as I have demonstrated from multiple sources from all sides.
Lincoln....brace yourself.....I hope you are sitting down for this......Lied! I know it will come as a great shock to you to learn that politicians lie but yes, it indeed does happen and did happen in the past too. That the de facto head of the party would have only “heard about” and “not seen” a bill that was going to be so central to his presidency is side splittingly funny.
As for Confederates refusing to reconsider rejoining based only on the Corwin amendment, I would say rather that by that time secessionists were unwilling to consider anything the Union proposed, slavery related or not.
Nope! I’m right on both counts. The Northern dominated Congress passed it, The Northern president signed it and multiple states ratified it. It was a bona fide offer. Had the original 7 seceding states indicated this would be sufficient and would address their concerns, I have no doubt the votes would have been there to pass it in enough states for it to be ratified.
You just claim the original 7 seceding states were not going to come back no matter what. You don’t know that. What we do know is that a constitutional amendment protecting slavery effectively forever and very high tariffs was not acceptable to them.
But its not because multiple Northern states passed state laws forbidding cooperation with the feds over return of escaped slaves. In several cases mobs had prevented federal agents from capturing escaped slaves and state courts had excused all of it. The breech of faith was by the Northern states as they have long bragged about.
Most certainly did not. As I’ve already shown, your 50% claims are pure BS. What we know is that slave ownership was in the single digit percentages among the white population. Oh and your claim about the border states is dubious at best. Missouri did eventually secede and Maryland was occupied and its legislature jailed by Lincoln without charge or trial before they could vote on the matter.
I promise you that you’re wrong. Again.
“Why did this war come? There was a widely shared feeling among many in the Confederacy that their liberty and way of life were being overpowered by northern political, industrial, and banking powers.” (Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, p. 152)
Here is what was in the Confederate Constitution:
“. . . delegates from the Deep South met in Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4 [1861] to establish the Confederate States of America. The convention acted as a provisional government while at the same time drafting a permanent constitution. . . . Voted down were proposals to reopen the Atlantic slave trade . . . and to prohibit the admission of free states to the new Confederacy. . . .
“The resulting constitution was surprisingly similar to that of the United States. Most of the differences merely spelled out traditional southern interpretations of the federal charter. . . .
“. . . it was clear from the actions of the Montgomery convention that the goal of the new converts to secessionism was not to establish a slaveholders’ reactionary utopia. What they really wanted was to recreate the Union as it had been before the rise of the new Republican Party, and they opted for secession only when it seemed clear that separation was the only way to achieve their aim. The decision to allow free states to join the Confederacy reflected a hope that much of the old Union could be reconstituted under southern direction.” (Robert A. Divine, T. H. Bren, George Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams, America Past and Present, Fifth Edition, New York: Longman, 1998, pp. 444-445, emphasis added)
“The most remarkable features of the new instrument sprang from the purifying and reforming zeal of the delegates, who hoped to create a more guarded and virtuous government than that of Washington. The President was to hold office six years, and be ineligible for reelection. Expenditures were to be limited by a variety of careful provisions, and the President was given budgetary control over appropriations which Congress could break only by a two-thirds vote. Subordinate employees were protected against the forays of the spoils system. No bounties were ever to be paid out of the Treasury, no protective tariff was to be passed, and no post office deficit was to be permitted. The electoral college system was retained, but as a far-reaching innovation, Cabinet members were given seats in Congress for the discussion of departmental affairs. Some of these changes were unmistakable improvements, and the spirit behind all of them was an earnest desire to make government more honest and efficient.” (Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, p. 435)
“In its general pattern the [Confederate] constitution closely resembled that of the United States; indeed at most points its wording was precisely the same. . . .
“The framers of the Confederate constitution improved upon the Constitution of the United States in a number of minor ways, designed to produce ‘the elimination of political waste, the promotion of economical government, and the keeping of each echelon of complex government within its appointed orbit.’ So effective were these changes that William M. Robinson, Jr., has termed the document ‘the peak contribution of America to political science.’ The process of amendment was altered. With certain exceptions Congress was not to appropriate money except by two-thirds vote of both houses. The amount and purpose of each appropriation were to be precisely specified; and after the fulfillment of a public contract Congress was not to grant any extra compensation to the contractor. ‘Riders’ on money bills were discouraged by the provision that the President might veto a given item of an appropriation bill without vetoing the entire bill. Each law was to deal with ‘but one subject,’ to be expressed in the title.” (Randall and Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, pp. 157, 159)
and you want to just scream “slavery slavery slavery!!!” like a wind up doll whose string has been pulled. Don’t tell me these people did not care about the overcentralization of power, wasteful expenditures under a broad interpretation of the “general welfare” clause exactly as Patrick Henry had warned about when he urged rejection of the Constitution, government being in bed with corporate special interests, etc. They would never have gone to the trouble of drafting a constitution so elaborately designed to stop exactly the kind of abuses wrt expenditures they had long complained about if they didn’t care about it. They would not have set the maximum tariff rate at 10% had this not been important to them.....and as for the provision allowing non slave states to join.........
I only WISH we had many of the provisions that were in the Confederate Constitution. It would have spared us much of the difficulty we have today with our massive debts and uncontrollable spending on social programs as well as our constant military adventures overseas.
All true - just inconvenient for you to admit. The motives of the federal government and the special interests who backed them was the same as it is everywhere......money and power. Its always about money and power. Ideals like government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed get chucked aside the second they get in the way of the acquisition of more money and power. Ask Southerners or the Plains Indians or indeed many foreigners about that. They’ll all tell you the US Federal govt has often shown itself to be quite aggressive and imperialist.
It’s no use - you’re dealing with an anti-American who has shown nothing but contempt for this nation, its history, it’s laws or its ideals. Argue with it all you wish but you’ll never penetrate its cold hard shell.