On this date in 1864 President Lincoln receives a Christmas gift.

Results count. Little else matters.

Well his results were not what he wanted. What he wanted was to reassert control, and resume having that Southern export trade routing through his friends pockets, with all the slaves remaining in harness powering that money machine.

Now he greatly underestimated the resistance he was going to face when he started that war, and so he didn't get what he wanted when he began it.

Of course what he got instead is greatly increased federal power and control over the rest of the country, which for him and his cronies was not a bad deal.

Wasn't so good for the actual people of the nation, but was great for the cronies exploiting government connections. Of course this stuff got so bad that it came to a head under the Grant administration and the public finally noticed.

In both these cases, the residents have a claim on the land, but in one case the land is absolutely essential to the security of the central government, and in the other case it is absolutely useless.

Who decides what is "essential"? Who says California is essential to the country's defense? Wasn't control of the Mississippi essential to our national security in 1860?

And who says the national interest prevails over the will of a "sovereign state"? You certainly don't believe that was true in 1860. You support the Confederacy in spite of all they were trying to do to hurt the country they were leaving.

If the federal government has legal title it has legal title. If the property passes to the state it passes to the state. If you believe that the federal government has the land by right then it has that right whether the base is "essential" or not. You really don't have a leg to stand on, logically and ethically speaking. Just necessity and force.

>>Kalamata wrote: "But the reasons for the first secession, in a nutshell, were the tentacles of crony capitalism, only one of which threatened slavery; the most dangerous of which was the Morrill Tariff. "
>>BroJoeK, the Drama Queen, wrote: "In fact, no secessionist ever said anything about "crony capitalism", period -- that is pure Lost Causer fantasy."

Crony capitalism was called patronage in those days:

"But the most formidable of all the obstacles the source of the vast and corrupting surplus, with its host of extravagant and unconstitutional expenditures the protective tariff, still remained in full force, and obstructed any further progress in the reaction that had commenced. By what decided and bold measures it was overcome is well known to all, and need not be told on this occasion. It is sufficient to say, that, after a long and desperate struggle, the controversy terminated in the Compromise Act, which abandoned the protective principle, and has, I trust, closed for ever what has proved in this Government a most prolific source of power, patronage, and corruption."...
"Having taken these steps, every measure of prominence originating in the principles and policy of the National Federal school will become obliterated, and the Government will have been brought back, after the lapse of fifty years, to the point of original departure, when it may be put on its new tack. To guard against a false steerage thereafter, one important measure, in addition to those enumerated, will be indispensable: to place the new States, as far as the public domain is concerned, in a condition as independent of the Government as the old. It is as much due to them, as it is indispensable to accomplish the great object in view. The public domain, within these States, is too great a stake to be left under the control of this Government. It is difficult to estimate the vast addition it makes to its power and patronage, and the controlling and corrupting influence which it may exercise over the Presidential election, and through that, the strong impulse it may receive in a wrong direction. Till it is removed, there can be no assurance of a successful and safe steerage, even if every other sinister influence should be removed."...
"On this question of patronage, let me add, in conclusion, that, according to my conception, the great and leading error in Hamilton and his school originated in a mistake as to the analogy between ours and the British system of Government. If we were to judge by their outward form, there is, indeed, a striking analogy between them in many particulars; but if we look within, at their spirit and genius, never were two free Governments so perfectly dissimilar. They are, in fact, the very opposites. Of all free governments that ever existed no, 1 will enlarge the proposition of all governments that ever existed, free or despotic, the British Government can bear the largest amount of patronage the greatest exaction and pressure on the people, without changing its character, or running into revolution. The greater, in fact, its patron age, the stronger it is till the pressure begins to crush the mass of population with its superincumbent weight. But directly the opposite is the case with ours. Of all governments that ever existed, it can stand under the least patronage, in proportion to the population and wealth of the country, without changing its character, or hazarding a revolution. I have not made these assertions lightly. They are the result of much reflection, and can be sustained by conclusive reasons drawn from the nature of the two Governments; but this is not the proper occasion to discuss the subject."
[On the Bill to prevent the Interference of certain Federal Officers in Elections, delivered in the Senate, February 22d, 1839, in Cralle, Richard K., "The Works of John C. Calhoun Vol III - Speeches." D. Appleton & Company, 1867, pp.396-403]

This historian mentioned the word, in passing:

"The Northerner feels redeemed, for he, being human, tends to rewrite history to suit his own deep needs; he may not, in fact, publish this history, but it lies open on a lectern in some arcane recess of his being, ready for his devotional perusal... When one is happy in forgetfulness, facts get forgotten. In the happy contemplation of the Treasury of Virtue it is forgotten that the Republican platform of 1860 pledged protection to the institution of slavery where it existed, and that the Republicans were ready, in 1861, to guarantee slavery in the South, as bait for a return to the Union. It is forgotten that in July, 1861, both houses of Congress, by an almost unanimous vote, affirmed that the War was waged not to interfere with the institutions of any state but only to maintain the Union. The War, in the words of the House resolution, should cease "as soon as these objects are accomplished." It is forgotten that the Emancipation Proclamation, issued on September 23, 1862, was limited and provisional: slavery was to be abolished only in the seceded states and only if they did not return to the Union before the first of the next January. It is forgotten that the Proclamation was widely disapproved and even contributed to the serious setbacks to Republican candidates for office in the subsequent election. It is forgotten that, as Lincoln himself freely admitted, the Proclamation itself was of doubtful constitutional warrant and was forced by circumstances; that only after a bitter and prolonged struggle in Congress was the Thirteenth Amendment sent, as late as January, 1865, to the states for ratification; and that all of Lincoln's genius as a horse trader (here the deal was Federal patronage swapped for Democratic votes) was needed to get Nevada admitted to statehood, with its guaranteed support of the Amendment. It is forgotten that even after the Fourteenth Amendment, not only Southern states, but most Northern ones, refused to adopt Negro suffrage, and that Connecticut had formally rejected it as late as July, 1865. It is forgotten that it was not until 1870 that the Negro finally won his vote—or rather, that very different thing, the right to vote.
[Warren, Robert Penn, "The Legacy of the Civil War." Harvard University Press, 1961, pp.59-60]

Mr. Kalamata

>>Kalamata wrote: "The reason for the second secession was Lincoln's declaration of war to protect HIS tariff."
>>BroJoeK, the Drama Queen, wrote: "And still more of your lying father Schiff's logic. The truth is Jefferson Davis started war at Fort Sumter precisely because that's what he needed to force those Upper South states to declare secession & war against the United States."

Acts of war were committed by Buchanan and Lincoln, before Fort Sumter was fired upon.

Mr. Kalamata

>>BroJoeK, the Drama Queen, wrote: “The truth about Union tariffs is they produced about $50 million in 1860, only a small percent of which was jeopardized by secession, and all of which paled in comparison to the roughly $5 billion total cost of Civil War.”

Lincoln instigated the war to fulfill the threat he made during the 1st Inaugural, Joey.

Mr. Kalamata

>>Bull Snipe write: "By Lincoln’s death 3,600,00 slaves were free persons."

Free? Really? MLK seemed to believe the blacks were not freed until the 1960's.

***************

>>Bull Snipe write: "Within a year of his death the remaining 800,000 were free persons. Not a bad record for a white-supremacist, white-separatist, black-colonizationist."

No one in the days of Lincoln believed Lincoln desired to free any slaves. In fact, his so-called "Emancipation Proclamation" was purposefully designed to NOT free any slaves, as mentioned here:

"The stereotyped picture of the emancipator suddenly striking the shackles from millions of slaves by a stroke of the presidential pen is altogether inaccurate. On this point one should carefully note the exceptions in the proclamation itself. The whole state of Tennessee was omitted; none of the Union slave states was included; and there were important exceptions as to portions of Virginia and Louisiana, those being the portions within Union military lines. In fact freedom was decreed only in regions then under Confederate control.
"The President has purposely made the proclamation inoperative [declared the N. Y. World, Jan. 7, 1863] in all places where we have gained a military footing which makes the slaves accessible. He has proclaimed emancipation only where he has notoriously no power to execute it. The exemption of the accessible parts of Louisiana, Tennessee, and Virginia renders the proclamation not merely futile, but ridiculous." As to the effect of the proclamation The World declared:
"Immediate practical effect it has none; the slaves remaining in precisely the same condition as before. They still live on the plantations, tenant their accustomed hovels, obey the command of their master... , eating the food he furnishes and doing the work he requires precisely as though Mr. Lincoln had not declared them free.... [The state courts] do not recognize the validity of the decree on which he [the slave] rests his claim. So long... as the present... status continues, the freedom declared by this proclamation is a dormant, not an actual, freedom."
"The proclamation is issued as a war measure, as an instrument for the subjugation of the rebels. But that cannot be a means of military success which presupposes this same... success as the condition of its own existence.... A war measure it clearly is not, inasmuch as the previous success of the war is the thing that can give it validity."
"We show our sympathy with slavery," Seward is reported to have said, "by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free."
"The London Spectator declared (October 11, 1862): "The government liberates the enemy's slaves as it would the enemy's cattle, simply to weaken them in the... conflict.... The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States."
"On the same date the Saturday Review, in a caustic article, denounced the proclamation as a crime, and declared that Lincoln's "desperate efforts to procure military support will probably precipitate the ruin of his cause."
"Earl Russell in England declared: "The Proclamation... appears to be of a very strange nature. It professes to emancipate all slaves in places where the United States authorities cannot exercise any jurisdiction... but it does not decree emancipation... in any States, or parts of States, occupied by federal troops... and where, therefore, emancipation... might have been carried into effect.... There seems to be no declaration of a principle adverse to slavery in this proclamation."
"It will be noted that Lincoln justified his act as a measure of war. To uphold his view would be to maintain that the freeing of enemy slaves was a legitimate weapon of war to be wielded by the President, and that a proclamation for the purpose would be somewhat analogous to a presidential proclamation blockading an enemy's coast, the legal principle being that a state of war puts the whole enginery of belligerent measures within the control of the President. In the new attitude toward slavery which the war produced it was natural to find considerable support for the view that slavery was a legitimate target of the war power; but it is a matter of plain history that prior to the Civil War the United States had emphatically denied the "belligerent right" of emancipation. Indeed John Quincy Adams, who has been credited by his grandson with having originated the idea of the emancipation proclamation, declared officially while secretary of state in 1820 that "No such right [emancipation of slaves] is acknowledged as a Law of War by writers who admit any limitation."
[Lincoln and Emancipation, in Randall & Donald, "The Divided Union." Little, Brown & Company, 1961, pp.380-382]

Like I said earlier:

"Abraham Lincoln was NOT an abolitionist."
[David Herbert Donald, "Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era." Alfred A. Knopf, 1st Ed, 1956, p.19]

Mr. Kalamata

>>DiogenesLamp wrote: "I have learned that the Navigation act of 1817 did a great deal to create Northern monopolies in the shipping industry. It greatly increased Northern power at the expense of the rest of the country. I've had many discussions with people regarding the various ways this particular law caused all the Southern trade to be controlled by New York."

Thanks for the comment and link. These footnotes have been in my library for a while, and I really didn't know what to do with them. I'll see if they fit:

"I mentioned to the President the substance of the dispatches, and left them with him. The first of the two ordinances is a retaliatory duty of ninety francs a ton upon American vessels entering French waters laden. The other gives a bounty of ten francs per hundred kilogrammes upon cotton brought in French vessels from any part of the two Americas. The objects of this are to obtain a supply of cotton for their manufactures, to invite evasions of our French tonnage duty, and to give a premium upon Brazil cotton. Mr. Gallatin does not appear to consider it in that light. It was four o'clock when I left the President's, and I lost the day at the office; for I consider every day as lost in which there is no writing done."
[The Department of State, September 20, 1820, in Charles Francis Adams, "Memoirs of John Quincy Adams Vol 05." J. B. Lippencott & Co., 1875, p.179]
"Mr. Freeman Walker, the Senator from Georgia, and the Baron Hyde de Neuville, came to the office. Walker's object was most earnestly to recommend a friend of his by the name of Walton to be Secretary for the new Territory of Florida. De Neuville's purpose related to the remission of the retaliatory discriminating duties imposed by the Act of Congress of the 15th of May last, and by the ordinance of the King of France of 26th July, so far as they operated upon persons not having notice of them. The Act of Congress imposed a tonnage duty of eighteen dollars a ton upon French vessels, and was made to commence on the 1st of July. The French ordinance was even retrospective, and applied to American vessels which had sailed from the United States after the 15th of June. Several French vessels which had sailed from France before the Act was known there to exist have been required to pay the tonnage duty. One American vessel has been in a similar predicament in France."
[Ibid. p.302]

Mr. Kalamata

>>Kalamata wrote: “what does the Constitution say about secession? It says that all states have the right to secede BECAUSE secession clauses of three of the states were accepted, as follows:
>>OIFVeteran wrote: “Except for the fact that those pronouncements had no force of law or any effect.”

Ratification documents are contracts, and have the force of law.

****************
>>OIFVeteran wrote: “As James Madison said in replying to Alexander Hamilton when Alexander told him about the conditional ratification that New York was proposing, “It must be adopted in toto and for ever.” This letter from Madison was read to the ratification convention. So as far as the father of the constitution was concerned that was just fluff.”

I see you are still obsessed with that phrase. Why not post all of the correspondence on that matter and let us take a look at it?

****************
>>OIFVeteran wrote: “No, the constitution is clear it is the supreme law of the land, and clearly stars so. “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

That is correct.

****************
>>OIFVeteran wrote: “And speaking of the constitution, can you show me where it gives the President, or congress, the power to recognize a state is no longer a state?”

Show me where the federal government is authorized to stop a state from seceding, and I will show you what you are looking for.

****************
>>OIFVeteran wrote: “I’d think the founders would have put such a procedure in there for such a momentous act, if they wanted state’s to be able to leave. I can’t seem to find it.”

You cannot find it because you don’t understand the 10th amendment; and, might I add, it doesn’t appear you don’t want to understand it.

Mr. Kalamata

Be that as it may. By Lincoln’s death 3,600,00 slaves were free persons

What he wanted was to reassert control, and resume having that Southern export trade routing through his friends pockets, with all the slaves remaining in harness powering that money machine.

What "friends"? New York financiers and traders? Lincoln didn't many of them. Most of them didn't vote for him. And they were willing to work with the South to insure that trade continued to benefit Northern shippers and financial interests as well as Southern planters.

Do you seriously think that Northern firms hadn't acquired much commercial expertise and ability to compete over time? Or that they weren't willing to establish Southern branches and subsidiaries? As I've said, companies had branches in the North, in the South and abroad. It wasn't an all or nothing thing for them.

I've posted it before, find it yourself.

In addition to that correspondence we have James Madison actual thoughts on secession at the time of the nullification crisis. Here is his letter to Daniel Webster.

I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful Speech in the Senate of the United S. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten the abandonment of "Secession." But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy. Its double aspect, nevertheless, with the countenance recd from certain quarters, is giving it a popular currency here which may influence the approaching elections both for Congress & for the State Legislature. It has gained some advantage also, by mixing itself with the question whether the Constitution of the U.S. was formed by the people or by the States, now under a theoretic discussion by animated partizans.

It is fortunate when disputed theories, can be decided by undisputed facts. And here the undisputed fact is, that the Constitution was made by the people, but as imbodied into the several states, who were parties to it and therefore made by the States in their highest authoritative capacity. They might, by the same authority & by the same process have converted the Confederacy into a mere league or treaty; or continued it with enlarged or abridged powers; or have imbodied the people of their respective States into one people, nation or sovereignty; or as they did by a mixed form make them one people, nation, or sovereignty, for certain purposes, and not so for others.

I'll go with the father of the constitution who clearly states; "the latter(secession) is just another name for revolution." and "...the constitution was made by the people."

DiogenesLamp: "You're slipping BroJoeK.
I have pointed out many times that slavery is indeed mentioned indirectly in the Declaration of Independence.
"He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us"
Referring to Lord Dunmore's proclamation."

We've discussed this before, and I don't agree that "domestic insurrections" refers to Dunmore's Proclamation.
My reasons are:

Dunmore did not call for "domestic insurrections", but rather promised freedom to slaves who joined & fought for the British Army.
There were no "domestic insurrections" by slaves in 1776 or later.
There were many domestic insurrections by white loyalists against patriots, including:
- Battle of Kemp's Landing, VA November 1775
- Siege of Savage's Old Fields, SC November 1775
- Battle of Great Bridge, VA December 1775
- Snow Campaign, SC December 1775
- Burning of Norfolk, VA January 1776
- Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, NC January 1776

Indeed, the old estimate for the numbers of Loyalists was about 1/3 of Americans, or 750,000, which is more than the numbers of slaves, roughly 700,000.
The newer estimate is less, about 400,000 Loyalists, but surely this number rose & fell with the fortunes of war such that 400,000 would be an average of the 750,000 Loyalists in, say, 1775, and the much smaller number at the war's end.

The numbers of white Loyalists who fought with the Brits are put at 19,000 while black Loyalists who served are said to be 12,000.

Bottom line: in 1776 and later, the threat of domestic insurrections from white loyalists was far greater than from runaway slaves.

“The truth about Union tariffs is they produced about $50 million in 1860, only a small percent of which was jeopardized by secession, and all of which paled in comparison to the roughly $5 billion total cost of Civil War.”

Covered this before BroJoeK. When you have crony capitalists running the government, what concern is it to them that the public is made to be indebted 5 billion dollars so long as it saves their billion dollar a year incomes?

And yes, not only would the confederates take all that 200 million (In Southern export value to Europe) away from them, they would have wrecked their manufacturing and other industries by supplanting their border states and Midwest markets with European goods.

My quicky estimate is that an Independent South would have cost the Northern financial powers a billion dollars per year in lost income.

Other considerations are that government debt is great for the people loaning the money, (New York of course) and also that the 5 billion was in greatly inflated fiat currency.

And total control of congress as a consequence of the war? Priceless!

Who decides what is "essential"? Who says California is essential to the country's defense?

Objective reality decides. California is not essential, but those military bases are. Army and Air force bases can be moved, but Naval bases cannot.

Wasn't control of the Mississippi essential to our national security in 1860?

"Control" insofar as hostile powers would not be allowed to use it to invade, but that wasn't in the cards and was not a serious consideration.

And who says the national interest prevails over the will of a "sovereign state"? You certainly don't believe that was true in 1860.

Sure I do, but nothing the South had was essential to the security of the rest of the Union.

You support the Confederacy in spite of all they were trying to do to hurt the country they were leaving.

What were they trying to do to "hurt" the country they were leaving? Stop paying the bulk of it's bills? Seems like the 20 million in the North should have been paying most of their own bills anyways.

If the federal government has legal title it has legal title.

"Legal title" is meaningless when the foundation for it changes. George III owned all the land in the Colonies, but when independence was declared, he ceased to own it.

Abraham Lincoln said that people have a right to own the land on which they reside, and I think he is right about this.

This is another aspect of longstanding and heavily populated military bases. They have more or less permanent "residents".

Anderson occupied Ft. Sumter for four months. Had a Federal garrison occupied it since 1800, it would have been a different matter I think. Anderson took it, and this after the South Carolinians had been told it would be turned over to them by the then Secretary of War.

Also the Lincoln administration itself had led people to believe that all the way up to April of 1861 when Lincoln sent his war fleet.

We've discussed this before, and I don't agree that "domestic insurrections" refers to Dunmore's Proclamation.

I saw you debate this with someone else, and my recollection is that you were stomped.

Might have been rustbucket or wardaddy, or central_va, or Pelham, or Jeffersondem but I don't remember exactly who it was.

The lumping it in with the promotion of Indian attacks argues that "domestic" refers to slaves.

The word "Domestic" derives from "domus" which means "house." Shares roots with Dominate, Dominion and Domesticate.

DiogenesLamp: "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain."

Remember, the point of this discussion is DiogenesLamp's hope to equate the terms "United States" and "United Kingdom" as being equivalent "Unions".
Then, having posited that the British Empire was really just a "Union", like the USA, he claims that secession from the American Union was just as legitimate as secession & rebellion against the British "Union".
Actually, he wishes us to believe that rebellion against the Brits was illegitimate, while secession from the United States was totally A-OK.

In other words: if it was OK for our Founders to "secede" from the British Union, then it must be much more OK for Confederates to secede from the American Union, right?

The problem is, those two histories are in no way legitimately comparable, unless we give Confederates the role of 1776 Brits!
For starters, in 1860 there was nothing remotely resembling the "long train of abuses and usurpations" listed by our 1776 Founders.

Further, the British Empire "Union" was established and maintained by military force -- nobody volunteered to join and nobody could leave except by rebellion.
The American Union was much different -- joined together by mutual consent, it could be dissolved by mutual consent.
Indeed, Civil War only came in 1861 because Confederates provoked, started, declared & waged it, primarily in Union states, for the first 12 months.

I don't recall using such words as "vast expenditures." Did I use those or similar words, or are you embellishing?

Your exact words were "public works expenditures overwhelmingly favored the North."

So perhaps you will pick one of the treasury reports, say from the 1850 to 1860, and demonstrate to us how my sources are wrong. Please itemize.

I already did that with the 1859 report, but you said that one didn't count somehow. Ball's in your court. I've been on enough Lost Causer snipe hunts looking for support for y'all's assertions. But just pointing at some editorial from the "Charlestown Slave Trader Gazette" or whatever doesn't hold much water compared to the actual Treasury reports.

Actually, he wishes us to believe that rebellion against the Brits was illegitimate, while secession from the United States was totally A-OK.

Don't misstate my position. It was contrary to British law, but completely consistent with our own foundation law.

The problem is, those two histories are in no way legitimately comparable, unless we give Confederates the role of 1776 Brits!

And this is where you go into loony land.

The Brits weren't trying to separate from the Colonies. They were trying to keep the colonies from separating from them.

For starters, in 1860 there was nothing remotely resembling the "long train of abuses and usurpations" listed by our 1776 Founders.

Actually, a couple of weeks or so ago I decided to take a closer look at them to see how many might relate to the Confederate's situation, and I was somewhat surprised to discover most of them were exactly the same thing Lincoln and the Union were doing to the Southern states.

Just last week, Mr. Kamalata pointed out exactly the same thing. So yeah, the Confederates had to endure an almost identical "long train of abuses and usurpations".

Ironically, the past "train of abuses" Thomas Jefferson cited in support of secession reads like a checklist of the tactics Lincoln and his successors used against the South to prevent secession:

"He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected.... He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone.... He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us. For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world. For imposing Taxes on us without consent. For depriving us in many cases, of the right of Trial by Jury. For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coast, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny."

Kalamata: "Joey loves playing word games.
This is a large segment from the Georgia Declaration, containing no mention of "tariff," nor of "plunder," but leaves the reader with no doubt that it referring to "tariffs" and crony-capitalistic "plunder":"

Word games are what you Democrats do, Danny-child, they're the core essence of what it means to be a Shifty-Nadler Democrat, and it's just what you're doing here -- substituting your own hyperboles, "plunder", "crony-capitalism" and "tariff" for the actual language of Confederate "Reasons for Secession" documents.

Kalamata quoting Georgia's "Reasons for Secession": "The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the South not at all."

Not true -- in fact every Southern producer had as much protective tariff as anyone else, including especially cotton, tobacco & sugar.
So what this claim amounts to is: while Southerners wanted to keep tariffs on their own products, they didn't like paying tariffs on the products of other regions, poor babies.

Kalamata quoting Georgia's "Reasons for Secession": "In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests."

In the first years of the Republic Congress and the Presidency were controlled by Southern Democrats who introduced and approved all tariffs protecting all American producers, agricultural and manufacturing.
Especially after the War of 1812 exposed our manufacturing as weak & vulnerable, efforts were made to increase America's self-sufficiency.
It had nothing to do with North vs. South, but rather with survival as a nation.

Kalamata quoting Georgia's "Reasons for Secession": "Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury."

Even if we assume this complaint is valid, it is still just a political issue easily resolved whenever Southerners were willing to give up some of their own subsidies in return.
The fact that, over decades they didn't, suggests the issue was not very important to them.
And by the way, least we forget: ALL OF THIS SWAMP-CREATURE CRONY-CAPITALISM WAS UNDER DEMOCRAT RULE IN WASHINGTON, DC.

Kalamata quoting Georgia's "Reasons for Secession": "The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade.
Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day."

And yet the facts show that while 92% of US freight was carried in US owned ships in 1826, by 1860 that number was down to 65% and falling rapidly.
So clearly, whatever "protection" Congress granted, did not do the job.

"The panic of 1857 precipitated the crash.
In 1858 ship building, which had been maintained for the preceding years at an average of 400,000 tons a year dropped to 244,000 and in 1859 to 156,000.
At that time the combined imports and exports carried in American bottoms was steadily declining, only 65.2 percent being carried in 1861 as against 92.5 percent in 1826.
Another factor in the decline of American ship building was a fundamental economic change in progress throughout the United States.
Capital was finding new and more profitable fields for investment..."

Kalamata quoting Georgia's "Reasons for Secession": "Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects. "

Again, for DiogenesLamp and Kalamata: we are still talking about Democrat swamp-people, Democrat crony-capitalists and Democrat plunderers.
None of this has anything to do with Republicans.
And again, the key point is: Southern Democrats were totally happy with Washington, DC, so long as they ruled it, but once out of power, as is natural for Democrats, they went berserk with fear and loathing for the new Republican administration -- so 1860 was just like 2016!

Kalamata quoting Georgia's "Reasons for Secession": "The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest.
They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred in our war for independence."

All of which began with the first Tariff of 1790, proposed by James Madison, signed by George Washington and had continued under Southern Democrat administrations ever since.
It was not a great concern in 1859, but suddenly in 1860 it is??

Kalamata quoting Georgia's "Reasons for Secession": " After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed.
It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people.
The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy.
There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all.""

Notice Democrats here singing praises for the 1846 Walker Tariff.
Well, the original Morrill Tariff proposed was simply a return to the levels of 1846, but now suddenly it's cause for secession??

Kalamata quoting Magness: "While it is difficult to measure the full effect of the revisions given this change of assessment, Morrill 's equivalent rates pushed most items well above the 1846 schedule and, in several instances, to near-parity with the Black Tariff levels of 1842."
[Phillip W. Magness, "Tariffs and the American Civil War." Essential Civil War Curriculum, 2017, pp.6,8]"

First, I've not seen numbers to support this claim, but more important, Morrill went through several iterations, including during the Civil War, each one at higher levels than before.
Numbers I have seen for the original Morrill proposal show them as roughly equivalent to the 1846 Walker Tariff.

Commodity	1846 Tariff	1857 Tariff	Morrill
Woolens	30	24	37
Brown Sugar	30	24	26
Cotton	25	19	25
Iron mfg	30	24	29
Wines	40	30	40
Average:	31	24	31

>>rockrr wrote: "Signing statements carry no weight of law. Everyone got the same deal - ratification or no ratification. Anything extra is feel-good symbolism - not law."

Let us hear the matter from someone a little more contemporary with the Convention:

"On examining the first relation, it appears, on one hand, that the Constitution is to be founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the special purpose; but, on the other, that this assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore, establishingthe Constitution, will not be a national, but a federal act.
"That it will be a federal and not a national act, as these terms are understood by the objectors; the act of the people, as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation, is obvious from this single consideration, that it is to result neither from the decision of a majority of the people of the Union, nor from that of a majority of the States. It must result from the unanimous assent of the several States that are parties to it, differing no otherwise from their ordinary assent than in its being expressed, not by the legislative authority, but by that of the people themselves. Were the people regarded in this transaction as forming one nation, the will of the majority of the whole people of the United States would bind the minority, in the same manner as the majority in each State must bind the minority; and the will of the majority must be determined either by a comparison of the individual votes, or by considering the will of the majority of the States as evidence of the will of a majority of the people of the United States. Neither of these rules have been adopted. Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a federal, and not a national constitution." [James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 39, in Bailey, Bill, "The Complete Federalist Papers." The New Federalist Papers Project, p.178]

The last two underlined clauses expose Lincoln's BIG LIE!

This explains that each state was, and is a sovereign power.

"Will it be said that the fundamental principles of the Confederation were not within the purview of the convention, and ought not to have been varied? I ask, What are these principles? Do they require that, in the establishment of the Constitution, the States should be regarded as distinct and independent sovereigns? They are so regarded by the Constitution proposed."
[James Madison, Federalist Paper No. 40, p.183]

The general government is not sovereign, but is merely an agent of the several sovereign states. The powers given by the several states to the general government are both FEW, and DEFINED, as Madison also explained:

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State." [James Madison, Federalist No. 45, pp.214-215]

Secession is not a delegated and defined power of the general government; therefore the three states in question -- NY, RI, and VA -- were simply restating a power they already possess.

Mr. Kalamata