Posted on 12/22/2019 4:23:47 AM PST by Bull Snipe
"I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." General William T. Sherman's "March to the Sea" was over. During the campaign General Sherman had made good on his promise d “to make Georgia howl”. Atlanta was a smoldering ruin, Savannah was in Union hands, closing one of the last large ports to Confederate blockade runners. Sherman’s Army wrecked 300 miles of railroad and numerous bridges and miles of telegraph lines. It seized 5,000 horses, 4,000 mules, and 13,000 head of cattle. It confiscated 9.5 million pounds of corn and 10.5 million pounds of fodder, and destroyed uncounted cotton gins and mills. In all, about 100 million dollars of damage was done to Georgia and the Confederate war effort.
A little context would help. I'm going to have to go back and see what message you are responding to in order to answer your question, but I will add that I seldom ever cite court decisions as "proof" of anything.
I've long ago given up the idea that the courts decide anything strictly on what is true. They mostly decide things on the basis of what flavor of politics they prefer.
As a matter of fact, I often regard a court decision in support of something as a fair indicator that it is wrong.
Abortion and "gay" marriage come to mind.
The court after the war would rubber stamp anything Lincoln did, because to do otherwise would have created massive upheaval. Their decisions around this time had nothing to do with facts or law, and were simply a matter of politics.
Actually that hasn't changed much since then either.
So you cite your opinion, unsubstantiated by law. Got it.
BroJoeK admits the Southern states were producing at least 50% of the Federal income, and once I got him to admit it was as high as 60%.
There were 20 million or so citizens in the North, and about 5 million citizens in the South, yet the South was producing at least 50% of the federal revenue, so who was paying for it again?
And that his “right” to rebel does not obviate my right to security and should he start an armed rebellion that affects me & mine I have a right to shoot back.
It's not your security when you are in someone else's house. When invited to leave, you should leave, rather than try to provoke a fight with the homeowner.
And do you believe abortion is valid law? Do you believe homosexual marriage is valid law? Do you believe the Federal government banning religion in schools is valid law? Do you believe a farmer growing his own wheat to feed his own cows is a violation of Federal Interstate commerce law?
To pursue this line of thought just a bit further, do you only believe what a court tells you, or can you actually read the law and think for yourself?
“apart from some relatively minor conflicts with them,”
Would consider sending 3 armies into Mexico one of which captured Mexico City, something other that a “minor conflict.” Would believe Mexico saw it as something other than a “minor conflict.”
“and we make no efforts to seize their.”
After being defeated in “minor conflict” Mexico was forced cede enough territory to make the entire States of California, Nevada, and Utah. In addition to parts of what would become Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.
There is also a difference between a modern aircraft carrier or nuclear sub and a man-of-war like Nelson's HMS Victory, but in 1800 the man-of-war was perhaps the most powerful thing on earth.
But this is just a distraction. Your argument was that the seceding states were entitled to all the property within their borders. Now you claim that it's a matter of whether you like the state and whether you like the country and what you regard as important to the the defense of the country (if you do like the country). The point here is your own hypocrisy.
I thought we got rid of it because the majority came to see it as morally wrong. I didn't know there was an ulterior motive for doing it.
In time, yes, but it didn't happen overnight. And it wasn't like moral sentiments could be wholly disconnected from what was happening in the world. You of all people shouldn't be denying that based on what you are always posting.
I don't even understand what you are trying to say here.
You don't have to be a genius to understand. You condemn those Northerners who attacked slavery. You condemn Northerners who respected or tolerated Southerners right to own slaves. If Northerners make demands on the South, you condemn them according to 19th century values for bullying the poor slaveowners. If Northerners make no demands, but try to accommodate and please Southerners, you attack them according to 21st century values for not being hard enough on slavery and for being hypocritical. You judge Northerners by a different standard than you judge Southerners. That is like condemning Republicans for sex scandals and letting Democrats off the hook, because they aren't expected to be moral. If I've made any of that clearer to you now, could you stop doing it?
What happened to the Union is forever position?
If you were paying attention, you'd know that that has never been my position. It's also probably not the position of many others here.
And why should a person have to ask a group of people for permission to no longer associate with them? The association was joined voluntarily, and so it should be voluntary to remain.
You join the army voluntarily. But you can't just decide by yourself to quit and walk off. You get married voluntarily. But you can't just leave and marry somebody else. You have children voluntarily (one hopes). But if you walk out, you still have to provide for them. You can't unparent yourself or secede from your responsibilities.
They were both slaveholders, but the larger, more massive nation of slave holders, beat the much smaller nation of slaveholders, and as a consequence of the power they had amassed, they grew the government to massively intrude in everyone's lives.
A nation with fewer slaveowners fought a group with more slaveowners. They were helped by some slaveowners who apparently didn't put owning slaves first. If they hadn't helped - if they had thrown in with the other slaveowners, the side with more slaveowners would have won. If you're looking for absolute moral purity here, you'll be disappointed, just as you'd be disappointed by almost everything in history.
And excessive, overbearing government that rams F@ggot marriage down our throats
I could do a lot with the way you phrased that, but I will resist the temptation.
I point out that slavery is a red herring to cover up the real reason why the Northern states joined their men together to fight other states which simply wanted to be separated from Washington DC's control.
Few people here would say that the Union went to war to free the slaves. But we don't think that means the Union cause was illegitimate, and as I tried to say in my post, fighting the war made Northerners more inclined to accept emancipation, just as fighting in WWII led Americans to reject unjust practices that they had favored or accepted when they went to war.
We've had Canada and Mexico along side our borders for centuries, and apart from some relatively minor conflicts with them, everyone has gotten along okay. They still rule their territory, and we still rule ours, and we make no efforts to seize theirs, and they make no efforts to seize ours.
Uh ... am I allowed to bring up slavery here? Canada doesn't have thousands of slaves trying to escape here. Or slave catchers running after them. We don't have abolitionists or Black militants looking to attack Canada. Or pro-slavery partisans trying to break off parts of the country and attach it to the Great White North.
We do have many border and migration problems with Mexico. But we are so much more powerful than Mexico, that they can't attack us and we don't need to attack them. Besides, nuclear weapons make everybody less warlike. If we had the current migration situation a century ago, things would be different. And hey, that's sort of what happened in Texas in the 1830s and with Mexico in the 1840s.
The court decides what the law says. You are free to express your opinion, but it does not have the weight of law in this country.
That was the fantasy of a lot of counterfactual history writers. But once governments get established and governing elites form, they usually resist anything that will make them lose power. I shouldn't have to explain that to you.
Now if one side were a complete mess, it might try to join with the other, but barring that I just don't see it. If the country broke up now, I don't see you wanting to join up again with New York or California.
This country IS MY HOUSE and I’ll damned well go where I please.
Don’t like a law, sue in Court to set it aside. Elect officials that will change the law. Or you can stand on a soap box at a street corner and shout how unjust, unfair or unconstitutional a law is and see what happens.
Actually slaves still existed in the States of the defeated Confederacy at wars end. So Lincoln did not treat them any differently than the horses, mules, or houses that his army missed.
| 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 |
>>Joey continuing: "Those five items represented about half of US imports. Another six items added 25% -- silk, coffee, molasses, flax, hemp & tea -- for which I don't have numbers. But we can notice that some of those are luxury items only purchased by wealthy people able to pay higher tariffs. So the numbers I've seen show the original Morrill proposal signaled a return to the 1846 Walker Tariff levels. That makes "cronyism" just your own special Democrat propaganda talk."
Again, Joey, you are cherry-picking the data, or perhaps you do not know or understand the details. This is 19th-20th century Harvard professor and economist Frank Taussig explaining some of the details:
"When protectionists make a change of this kind, they almost invariably make the specific duties higher than the ad-valorem, duties for which they are supposed to be an equivalent,—a circumstance which has given rise to the common notion, of course unfounded, that there is some essential connection between free trade and ad-valorem duties on the one hand, and between protection and specific duties on the other hand. The Morrill tariff formed no exception to the usual course of things in this respect. The specific duties which it established were in many cases considerably above the ad-valorem duties of 1846. The most important direct changes made by the act of 1861 were in the increased duties on iron and on wool, by which it was hoped to attach to the Republican party, Pennsylvania and some of the Western States. Most of the manufacturing States at this time still stood aloof from the movement toward higher rates. [Frank W. Taussig, "The Tariff History of the United States." G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1892, pp.158-159]
The term "specific duties" simply means "targeted protections," which is a more politically-correct way of saying, "crony-capitalism."
A modern historian/economist, Phillip Magness, who holds a PhD in public policy from George Mason, makes similar claims.
"Between December 1858 and March 1860, Morrill was inundated with letters from manufacturers and industrialists requesting favorable protective tariff rates against their foreign competitors. Many of these petitions were copied verbatim into the text of the tariff bill [e.g., crony-capitalism]. The Morrill schedule also replaced the ad valorem schedule system of Walker with the reintroduction of item-by-item rates. The new schedule utilized an ad hoc mixture of individual ad valorem rates and specific duties, assessed by import units rather than volume, making its administration less transparent. 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, p.8]
And this is how it all played out, by Charles W. Adams, former tax attorney and current tax historian:
"The Morrill Tariff, as it was called, was the highest tariff in history, doubling the rates of the 1857 tariff to an average of 47 percent of the value of imports. Iron products were taxed over 50 percent. This was the Republicans' big victory, and their supporters were jubilant. They had fulfilled their IODs to the industrialists and commercial men of the North. But by this outrageous tariff for the South, the doors of reconciliation were closed. In Lincoln's inaugural address he had committed himself to collect customs in the South even if there was a secession. With slavery, he was conciliatory; with the import taxes, he was threatening. Fort Sumter was at the entrance to the Charleston Harbor, filled with federal troops to support U.S. Customs officers. It wasn't too difficult for angry South Carolinians to fire the first shot." [Charles W. Adams, "For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization." Madison Books, 2nd Ed, 2001, p.336
This is a lamentation of Ohio congressman Clement L. Vallandigham on the floor of the House in June, 1861:
"[T]here was another and yet stronger impelling cause without which this horrid calamity of civil war might have been postponed, and, perhaps, finally averted. One of the last and worst acts of a Congress, which, born in bitterness and nurtured in convulsion, literally did those things which it ought not to have done, and left undone those things which it ought to have done, was the passage of an obscure, ill-considered, ill-digested, and unstatesmanlike high protective tariff act, commonly known as "the Morrill tariff." Just about the same time, too, the Confederate Congress at Montgomery adopted our old tariff of 1857, which we had rejected to make way for the Morrill act, fixing their rate of duties at five, fifteen, and twenty per cent, lower than ours. The result was as inevitable as the laws of trade are inexorable. Trade and commerce—and especially the trade and commerce of the West—began to look to the South. Turned out of their natural course years ago, by the canals and railroads of Pennsylvania and New York, and diverted eastward at a heavy loss to the West, they threatened now to resume their ancient and accustomed channels—the water-courses—the Ohio and the Mississippi. And political association and union, it was well known, must soon follow the direction of trade and interest. The city of New York, the great commercial emporium of the Union, and the Northwest, the chief granary of the Union, began to clamor now loudly for a repeal of the pernicious and ruinous tariff. Threatened thus with the loss of both political power and wealth, or the repeal of the tariff, and at last of both. New England—and Pennsylvania, too, the land of Penn, cradled in peace—demanded now coercion and civil war, with all its horrors, as the price of preserving either from destruction. Ay, sir, Pennsylvania, the great keystone of the arch of the Union, was willing to lay the whole weight of her iron upon that sacred arch, and crush it beneath the load. The subjugation of the South —ay, sir, the subjugation of the South! I am not talking to children or fools; for there is not a man in this House fit to be a Representative here who does not know that the South cannot be forced to yield obedience to your laws and authority again until you have conquered and subjugated her—the subjugation of the South, and the closing up of her ports, first by force, in war, and afterwards by tariff laws, in peace, was deliberately resolved upon by the East. And, sir, when once this policy was begun, these self-same motives of waning commerce and threatened loss of trade impelled the great city of New York, and her merchants and her politicians and her press, with here and there an honorable exception, to place herself in the very front rank among the worshipers of Moloch. Much, indeed, of that outburst and uprising in the North, which followed the proclamation of the 15th of April, as well, perhaps, as the proclamation itself, was called forth, not so much by the fall of Sumter—an event long anticipated—as by the notion that the " insurrection," as it was called, might be crushed out in a few weeks, if not by the display, certainly, at least, by the presence of an overwhelming force."
"These, sir, were the chief causes which, along with others, led to a change in the policy of the Administration, and, instead of peace, forced us headlong into civil war, with all its accumulated horrors."
[Clement L. Vallandigham, "Speech of Hon. C.L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, on Executive Usurpation, in the House of Representatives, July 10, 1861." 1861, p.4]
Perhaps you should consider better sources, Joey; at least resort to something other than Wikipedia.
Mr. Kalamata
>>Kalamata wrote: “Acts-of-war are acts-of-war, Joey. Major Anderson’s dumb move was the first. The second was when Buchanan ordered the reinforcement and resupply of the Fort”
>>BroJoeK wrote: “Right, Danny-child, you insane Democrats, then as now, were calling every defense of America “illegal”, “impeachable”, “acts of war”, etc., etc. When it comes to hating America, Democrats were just as rabid in 1860 as you are today.”
You are such a Drama Queen, Joey! Lincolnites (e.g., big-government progressives) tend to downplay the fact that about 350,000 United States Soldiers died during Lincoln’s war, as well as about 300,000 Confederate Soldiers (who are also U.S. Military Veterans;) along with tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of civilians, which included tens of thousands of blacks. Lincoln really wanted those taxes.
Mr. Kalamata
I replied to the wrong post. This is the right one.
>>Kalamata wrote: “Acts-of-war are acts-of-war, Joey. Major Anderson’s dumb move was the first. The second was when Buchanan ordered the reinforcement and resupply of the Fort”
>>BroJoeK wrote: “Right, Danny-child, you insane Democrats, then as now, were calling every defense of America “illegal”, “impeachable”, “acts of war”, etc., etc. When it comes to hating America, Democrats were just as rabid in 1860 as you are today.”
You are such a Drama Queen, Joey! Lincolnites (e.g., big-government progressives) tend to downplay the fact that about 350,000 United States Soldiers died during Lincoln’s war, as well as about 300,000 Confederate Soldiers (who are also U.S. Military Veterans;) along with tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of civilians, which included tens of thousands of blacks. Lincoln really wanted those taxes.
Mr. Kalamata
They explained the process of secession in the Declaration of Independence. Madison also explained in the Federalist Papers how the states can secede if the tyrants at the federal level won't let them go:
"The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism. Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger." [James Madison, Federalist Paper 41, in Bill Bailey, "The Complete Federalist Papers." The New Federalist Papers Project, p.219]
That was true in Madison's days; but by the time the tyrant Lincoln came along, there were too many entrenched federal (mostly Union) politicians who were more concerned with political patronage than the Constitution. Politicians are far more entrenched today. If you desire to become filty rich, but lack an appropriate skill set, consider running for Congress.
Mr. Kalamata
(who are also U.S. Military Veterans;)
No, they are not veterans of the armed forces of the United States.
They are entitled to a VA provided head stone, which is not the same head stone provided to U.S. veterans.
In 1958, surviving widows of Confederate veterans became entitled to a pension based on their husbands service in the Confederate Army or Navy.
Neither of these actions make Confederate soldiers U.S. Veterans.
Stay on topic and stop trying to misdirect. You made the claim that Secession is what the founding fathers did. I then gave you quotes from four of the revolutionary era founding fathers showing that they called what they did rebellion/revolution plus a quote from Benjamin Franklin that shows he knew it was rebellion.
I have asked you to provide quotes form the revolutionary founding fathers(with citation) to support your claim that the founding fathers believed were seceding from England instead of appealing to the natural right of revolutions. Not your opinion or your dismissal of what the founding fathers said. Anything else is just your opinion, which really isn’t worth much.
I liked how he accused BroJoeK of being a “Drama Queen”.......and then went full-tilt DQ in the same sentence!
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