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.
I love it when someone uses "all".
Now tell me can you prove that ALL of them were? No, I believe not
I guess about now, Brother Kalamata, you are thinking along the lines of Melville's Ishmael after talking with the cannibal.
“I do not think that my remarks about religion made much impression upon Queequeg. Because, in the first place, he somehow seemed dull of hearing on that important subject, unless considered from his own point of view; and, in the second place, he did not more than one third understand me, couch my ideas simply as I would; and, finally, he no doubt thought he knew a good deal more about the true religion than I did. He looked at me with a sort of condescending concern and compassion, as though he thought it a great pity that such a sensible young man should be so hopelessly lost to evangelical pagan piety.”
Paragraphs are your friend.
Lincoln promised in his First Inaugural to protect slavery in the slave states, Joey. Are you insinuating Lincoln was a liar?
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>>Kalamata wrote: "The South could have had a new Amendment (the 13th) protecting their slaves forever, it they had stayed in the Union. But they knew that under Lincoln, and his Hamiltonian economic policies, their wealth would have been plundered, like it was in the 20's and 30's."
>>Joey wrote: "As OIFVeteran pointed out, Southern Fire Eaters threatened secession in 1856 if Republican John Fremont was elected president. Fremont was defeated by Doughfaced Northern Democrat James Buchanan, who supported the Supreme Court's Dred Scott ruling. In 1860 Fire Eaters again threatened, if Lincoln was elected, but this time they also sabotaged their own national Democrat party, splitting it and insuring Lincoln's minority victory. In neither 1856 nor 1860 was the main issue tariffs, it was always slavery."
The most serious threats to secession in pre-Lincoln America, if I recall correctly, were the 1824 tariff by Henry "Slave-Master" Clay, and the 1814-1815 Hartford Convention of New England states that was precipitated by the War of 1812.
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>>Joey wrote: "Were some Southerners concerned about tariffs? Sure, a small number of Southern elites doubtless did worry about such things. But the vast majority of Southerners, even in the Deep South, could not be persuaded to reject their own country over the difference between 20% and 25% tariffs on the price of raw materials for clothing."
Most citizens, North and South, were jealous of their pocket books, and for their respective states, not the Union. But, just in case, please cite references for your claim.
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>>Joey wrote: "Only slavery had the power to move a majority of voters, and even then the vote was quite close in Louisiana, Alabama and Georgia. Even in 1861 a lot of Southerners weren't buying the nonsense pro-Confederates were selling."
Please cite references for your claim.
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>>Kalamata wrote: "On the other hand, with perpetual free trade from their Southern ports, they would have flourished. At the same time, the Northern manufactures that relied on protective tariffs would have "suffered" due to increased competition."
>>Joey wrote: "There was never a proposal in the Confederate Congress for "free trade".In fact the first Confederate tariff was basically the old Union 1857 tariff, but redirecting the proceeds from Washington to Montgomery. It was also proposed to collect tariffs on "imports" from Union states, expected to bring total Confederate tariff revenues to maybe $20 million per year. This would compare to 1860 Union tariff revenues over $50 million per year. In fact, Confederate tariff revenues totaled about $3 million ($Confederate) over four years."
Joey is deceiving you by throwing out contextually-useless numbers. Federal tariffs, especially the 1824 Henry Clay Whig tariff, were "targeted" to favor politically-connected, crony-capitalistic Northerners. The 1846 tariff reduced the crony capitalism somewhat, and the 1857 tariff even more so. But the Morrill Tariff was an in-your-face return to Whig-style crony-capitalism:
"As president [James Polk, who defeated the protectionist Henry Clay,] delivered on his promise in 1846 when, under the guidance of Treasury Secretary Robert J. Walker, Congress adopted a comprehensive overhaul of the tariff system featuring a moderate downward revision of rates and, importantly, the standardization of tariff categories on a tiered ad valorem schedule.
"This final feature was intended to improve the transparency of the tariff system by consolidating the somewhat convoluted list of tariff items, itself the product of many decades of lobbying and the carving out of highly specialized categories as political favors for specific companies and industries. By converting the tariff from a system that relied primarily on itemized specific duties or individually assigned ad valorem rates to a formal tiered schedule of ad valorem categories in which tariffs were assessed as a percentage of the import's declared dollar value, Walker further limited the ability of special interests of all stripes to disguise tariff favoritism in units of volume and measurement—different tariff rates assessed by tons of iron, gallons of alcohol, yards of cord and so forth.
"The Walker reforms helped to stabilize many years of fluctuating tariff politics by instituting a moderately free trade Tariff-for-revenue system that lasted, subject to a further uniform reduction of rates in 1857, until the eve of the Civil War…
"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. 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, pp.6,8]
The Morrill Tariff was the bastard-child of defunct Whig Party politics. Abraham Lincoln was a devout Whig, as were many of the so-called "republicans" of his day, and crony-capitalism was their game.
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>>Kalamata wrote: "The United States went to war because Lincoln wanted to go to war, and he did everything he could think of to precipitate it."
>>Joey wrote: "The United States went to war because Jefferson Davis started it at Fort Sumter, then Confederates formally declared war on May 6, 1861."
Don't confuse Joey with the facts. Lincoln made it crystal clear that the collection of taxes (tariff revenues) was vital to his "success".
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>>Kalamata wrote: "Lincolnites tend to forget that Lincoln promised war against any state that refused to collect tariffs for him:"
>>Joey wrote: "Indeed, Confederates at the time called Lincoln's First Inaugural a "declaration of war", but it wasn't."
Who do we believe: the Confederates who were living in the nightmarish days of Lincoln, or Joey?
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>>Joey wrote: "It simply informed them that Lincoln would carry out his oath of office by repossessing the seized forts and collecting tariffs. Lincoln did not "ask states to collect tariffs for him". The decision for war was Jefferson Davis', and he made it."
Joey speaks with a forked-tongue. With a little more practice he may qualify as a progressive lawyer.
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>>Kalamata wrote: "In that same statement you will notice that Lincoln also declared all forts and other buildings within the seceded states belonged to the Union, rather than the states of which they were a part of, including Fort Sumter, a tariff collection depot."
>>Joey wrote: "And still another lie straight from the Lost Causers' inventory. No tariffs were collected at Fort Sumter."
I researched that last eve when I returned from Church, and you appear to be correct about Fort Sumter. Several of my references mentioned Fort Sumter as a tax collection depot, but I could not find an original source that stated the collection point had been moved from the Custom House to the Fort. I did find this message from Buchanan's Secretary of State stating he had recommended its relocation, but no record that his recommendation had been accepted and put into action, that I can find:
"It has been my decided opinion, which for some time past I have urged at various meetings of the Cabinet, that additional troops should be sent to reinforce the forts in the harbor of Charleston, with a view to their better defence should they be attacked, and that an armed vessel should likewise be ordered there, to aid, if necessary, in the defence, and also, should it be required, in the collection of the revenue; and it is yet my opinion that these measures should be adopted without the least delay. I have likewise urged the expediency of immediately removing the Custom House at Charleston to one of the forts in the port, and of making arrangements for the collection of the duties there by having a Collector and other officers ready to act when necessary, so that when the office may become vacant, the proper authority may be there to collect the duties on the part of the United States. I continue to think that these arrangements should be immediately made. While the right and the responsibility of deciding belong to you, it is very desirable that at this perilous juncture there should be, as far as possible, unanimity in your Councils, with a view to safe and efficient action."
"I have therefore felt it my duty to tender you my resignation of the office of Secretary of State, and to ask your permission to retire from that official association with yourself and the members of your Cabinet which I have enjoyed during almost four years without the occurrence of a single incident to interrupt the personal intercourse which has so happily existed."
[General Lewis Cass, Department of State, Dec. 12, 1860 to President Buchanan, in John Bassett Moore, "The Works of James Buchanan Vol 11." J. B. Lippencott & Co., 1910, pp.57-58]
Therefore, I am placing the "tax collection point" narrative into my "debunked file" until I see supporting evidence. That said, the collection of tariff revenue was a significant part of the narrative of those trying times. In the same volume of Buchanan's letters (Volume 11) you will find this:
"When Mr. Lincoln came into office he had no authority of law to call out the militia or to call for volunteers in order to suppress insurrections against the United States or to collect the revenue outside of custom-houses, nor had he the necessary means to reconstruct the Federal judiciary in the seceding or the seceded States. When, after more than a month of informal negotiation between the Lincoln Administration and the Confederate Commissioners and other persons about the evacuation of Fort Sumter, it was determined to re-enforce that garrison, and re-enforcements were sent and Beauregard was ordered by Davis to bombard the fort, and it was done—when the Civil War was thus begun—Mr. Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand men was made, and had to be made, without any legal authority. When the first troops from the North poured into Washington, after forcing their way through Maryland, there was not the slightest preparation by the Government to receive them; no billeting, no subsistence, no forage, no anything; all was at first confusion worse confounded; private individuals and extemporized local committees had to do the whole. Whose fault was this? Certainly it was not the fault of President Lincoln or his Secretary of War. It was the fault of that Congress, which had expired on the 4th of March without having made any provision either to coerce the seceded States back into the Union, or to execute the laws of the United States upon individuals, or to recapture the public property in the seceded States, or to do anything that would save the border States from being swept into the control of the Montgomery Confederacy." [Ibid. George Ticknor Curtis to the Editor of the "Times," Richfield Springs, August 20, 1883, p.51]
Buchanan was a little better versed than Lincoln on the construction of the Constitution, but not by much.
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>>Joey wrote: "In 1860 Charleston harbor contributed roughly one half of one percent of all Federal tariff revenues. This is precisely the reason that Lost Causers like DiogenesLamp have concocted their ridiculous "money flows from Europe" and "northeaster power brokers" conspiracy theory -- because there were effectively no tariffs collected at Charleston, SC, it sort of mocks their "tariff theory of secession." So they have to retreat to ever more obscure and fanciful explanations for why majorities of Southern voters agreed to secession."
Lost Causers? LOL! I have read similar economically-illiterate statements to yours from other "Burners and Pillagers," and I must declare that I am astonished! This is Economics 101, Joey. Read carefully:
Where, and by whom, tariffs are collected has nothing to do with who benefits from them or who is harmed by them. The Southern states were mostly consumers of the protected items, so they were harmed by the tariffs. Rightly, they saw the tariffs as a method of redistribution-of-wealth -- redistribution of the wealth from their pockets into the pockets of politically-connected Northerners. Another name for redistribution-of-wealth is socialism, and the tariff was the chief method of socialism adopted by the Henry Clay Whigs to buy political support, and to enrich themselves.
Regarding revenue, Lincoln said this:
"And whereas, since that date, public property of the United States [Fort Sumter] has been seized, the collection of the revenue obstructed, and duly commissioned officers of the United States, while engaged in executing the orders of their superiors, have been arrested and held in custody as prisoners, or have been impeded in the discharge of their official duties without due legal process. . ." [Abraham Lincoln, "Proclamation of April 27, 1861." United States Government, April 27, 1861, p.1]
The collection of tariff revenue was vital to the agenda of the Whigs and their crony-capitalist economics. This conversation on the eve-of-the-war between a Virginia delegate and Lincoln reveals Lincoln's passionate concern about revenue collection:
"You have been President a month to-day, and if you intended to hold that position you ought to have strengthened it, so as to make it impregnable. To hold it in the present condition of force there is an invitation to assault. Go upon higher ground than that. The better ground than that is to make a concession of an asserted right in the interest of peace."
"Well," said he, "what about the revenue? What would I do about the collection of duties?" Said I, "Sir, how much do you expect to collect in a year?" Said he, ''Fifty or sixty millions." "Why, sir," said I, "four times sixty is two hundred and forty. Say $250,000,000 would be the revenue of your term of the presidency; what is that but a drop in the bucket compared with the cost of such a war as we are threatened with? Let it all go, if necessary; but I do not believe that it will be necessary, because I believe that you can settle it on the basis I suggest,"
"He said something or other about feeding the troops at Sumter. I told him that would not do. Said I, "You know perfectly well that the people of Charleston have been feeding them already. That is not what they are at. They are asserting a right. They will feed the troops, and fight them while they are feeding them. They are after the assertion of a right. Now, the only way that you can manage them is to withdraw from them the means of making a blow until time for reflection, time for influence which can be brought to bear, can be gained, and settle the matter.
"If you do not take this course, if there is a gun fired at Sumter—I do not care on which side it is fired—the thing is gone." "Oh," said he, "sir, that is impossible." Said I, "Sir, if there is a gun fired at Sumter, as sure as there is a God in heaven the thing is gone. Virginia herself, strong as the Union majority in the Convention is now, will be out [of the Union] in forty-eight hours." "Oh," said he, "sir, that is impossible."
"Said I, "Mr. President, I did not come here to argue with you; I am here as a witness. I know the sentiments of the people of Virginia, and you do not. I understood that I was to come hereto give you information of the sentiments of the people, and especially of the sentiments of the Union men of the Convention. I wish to know before we go any further in this matter, for it is of too grave importance to have any doubt of it, whether I am accredited to you in such a way as that what I tell you is worthy of credence."
"Said he, "You come to me introduced as a gentleman of high standing and talent in your State." Said I, "That is not the point I am on. Do I come to you vouched for as an honest man who will tell you the truth?" Said he, "You do." "Then," said I, "sir, I tell you before God and man, that if there is a gun fired at Sumter this thing is gone. And I wish to say to you, Mr. President, with all the solemnity that I can possibly summon, that if you intend to do anything to settle this matter you must do it promptly. I think another fortnight will be too late. You have the power now to settle it. You have the choice to make, and you have got to make it very soon. You have. I believe, the power to place yourself up by the side of Washington himself as the savior of your country, or, by taking a different course of policy, to send down your name on the page of history notorious forever as a man so odious to the American people that, rather than submit to his dominations, they would overthrow the best government that God ever allowed to exist. You have the choice to make, and you have, in my judgment, no more than a fortnight to make it in."
"That is about as much as I can gather out of the conversation now. I went to Alexandria that night, where I had telegraphed an acceptance of an invitation to make a Union speech, and made a speech to a large audience, which, I believe, was the last Union speech made in Virginia before the war; and I went on to Richmond and reported to those gentlemen."
[John Brown Baldwin, "Interview between President Lincoln and Col. John B. Baldwin, April 4th 1861 - statements and evidence." 1866, p.13-14]
The only controlling issue identified in that exchange was revenue. The following statement, as recorded by Robert L. Dabney, is from the same conversation between Colonel Baldwin and Lincoln, but with a few extra details:
"If, as Mr. Lincoln had argued, secession was unconstitutional, coercion was more clearly so. When attempted, it must necessarily take the form of a war of some States against other States. It was thus the death-knell of constitutional Union, and so a thorough revolution of the Federal Government. It was the overthrow of the reserved rights of the States, and these were the only bulwark of the liberty of the people. This, then, was the real cause of alarm at the South, and not the claim of free-soil, unjust as was the latter; hence, all that was necessary to reduce the free-soil controversy to harmless and manageable dimensions, was to reassure the South against the dreaded usurpation of which free-soil threatened to be made the pretext. This, Colonel Baldwin showed, could easily be done by a policy of conciliation, without giving sanction to what Mr. Lincoln's administration chose to regard as the heresy of secession! The Government would still hold the Union and the Constitution as perpetual, and the separate attitude of the seceded States as temporary, while it relied upon moderation, justice, self-interest of the Southern people, and the potent mediation of the border States to terminate it.
"Only give this assurance to the country, in a proclamation of five lines," said Colonel Baldwin, "and we pledge ourselves that Virginia (and with her the border States) will stand by you as though you were our own Washington. So sure am I," he added, "of this, and of the inevitable ruin which will be precipitated by the opposite policy, that I would this day freely consent, if you would let me write those decisive lines, you might cut off my head, were my life my own, the hour after you signed them."
"Lincoln seemed impressed by his solemnity, and asked a few questions: "But what am I to do meantime with those men at Montgomery? Am I to let them go on?'' "Yes, sir." replied Colonel Baldwin, decisively, "until they can be peaceably brought back." "And open Charleston, etc.. as ports of entry, with their ten per cent, tariff. What, then, would become of my tariff?"
"This last question he announced with such emphasis, as showed that in his view it [the tariff] decided the whole matter. He then indicated that the interview was at an end, and dismissed Colonel Baldwin, without promising anything more definite."
[C. R. Vaughn, "Discussions by Robert L. Dabney Vol IV - Secular." Crescent Book House, 1890, pp.93-94]
The concern shown by Northern newspapers about the potential loss of tariff revenue was equally emphasized; for example:
"It does not require extraordinary sagacity to perceive that trade is perhaps the controlling motive operating to prevent the return of the seceding states to the Union which they have abandoned. Alleged grievances in regard to slavery were originally the causes for the separation of the cotton states; but the mask has been thrown off, and it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding states are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centres of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports. The merchants of New Orleans, Charleston and Savannah are possessed with the idea that New York, Boston, and Philadelphia may be shorn, in the future, of their mercantile greatness, by a revenue system verging on free trade. If the Southern Confederation is allowed to carry out a policy by which only a nominal duty is laid upon imports, no doubt the business of the chief Northern cities will be seriously injured thereby."
"The difference is so great between the tariff of the Union and that of the Confederate States that the entire Northwest must find it to their advantage to purchase their imported goods at New Orleans rather than New York. In addition to this, the manufacturing interests of the country will suffer from the increased importation resulting from low duties.... The [government] would be false to its obligations if this state of things were not provided against."
[Boston Transcript, March 18, 1861, in Kenneth M. Stampp, "The Causes of the Civil War." 1986, p.69]
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>>Kalamata wrote: "Is there any reason to doubt why Lincoln attempted to re-supply Fort Sumter? Not according to this letter:"
>>Joey wrote: "Lincoln's letter to Fox expresses his sincere regret at the failure of Fox's mission, but he offers as consolation the fact that, as they expected, even in failure "the cause of the country" was advanced. Fort Sumter had the same effect on Americans as December 7 and September 11."
The highlighted statement should read, "the cause of Lincoln and his crony-capitalist friends" was advanced. Lincoln's advancement of the war was the way for him and his cronies to break the shackles of the Constitution -- the shackles that have always irritated greedy, power-hungry men, like Lincoln.
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>>Kalamata wrote: "The bottom line is, Lincoln manipulated events that caused the bloodiest war in American history."
>>Joey wrote: "The bottom line is that Jefferson Davis provoked, started, formally declared and waged the bloodiest war in American history. And from Day One, Davis called it "a war of extermination on both sides."
That was Lincoln's War, Joey, and the extermination was strictly a one-sided operation by Lincoln's "Burners and Pillagers."
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>>Kalamata wrote: "That is grossly over-simplified. The chief cause of the secession was the election of the Plunderer-In-Chief, Abraham Lincoln, whose motive since the beginning of his political career in the early 1830's was the promotion of a high protective tariff, an internal improvement system, and a national bank, all requisites of a crony-capitalist."
>>Joey wrote: "Talk about "oversimplified" -- all of that was just "politics as usual", none of it ever caused serious threats of secession, compromises were always reached and life went on as before. What changed in 1860 was the election of Lincoln's "Black Republicans" who many Southerners saw as an existential threat to their own "domestic institutions" and "way of life". Those terms referred to slavey, not tariffs or infrastructure."
No doubt Lincoln's flip-flop discussions of slavery were strictly politics. On the other hand, his desire for white-separatism, fiat currency, crony "internal improvement" ventures, and a high protective tariff for the politically-connected, was his religion.
Mr. Kalamata
>>Kalamata to OIFVeteran: “I see you are still playing the moral-superiority card. I thought you were done with that.”
>>Joey wrote: “OIFVeteran merely pointed out that he met a small number of racists in the military, and somehow in Kalamata’s warped mind that becomes “playing the moral-superiority card”?”
Joey is contextually-challenged.
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>>Kalamata wrote: “You have lived a very sheltered life. I ran into many racists in the military, but admittedly I served long before you. “
>>Joey wrote: “That is the first claim I’ve seen from Kalamata that he actually did serve, though curiously, he says it was so long ago there were still many racists then. I too remember the military from very long ago and I can tell you it was always less racist than the civilian worlds most of the soldiers came from.”
Perhaps you fit in with the racists better than I did, Joey?
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>>Kalamata wrote: “The most racist people I have ever experienced were the town’s people of a Pennsylvania college I attended, but that too was long ago.”
>>Joey wrote: “Pennsylvania is normally a “blue state” and voted for Democrats like pro-slavery Doughfaced Northerner James Buchanan in 1856. On those rare occasions when Pennsylvania flips sides, we can help elect game-changing Republicans like Lincoln, Reagan and Trump.”
Lincoln was a crony-socialist, Joey, as was Buchanan.
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>>Kalamata wrote: “In 1964 Pennsylvanians knowingly chose Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” over Barry Goldwater’s “Conscience of a Conservative”. So however racist you imagine those old Pennsylvanians were, there weren’t enough of them to swing the election.”
I didn’t say “Pennsylvanians” were racist, Joey. I singled some out as racist.
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>>Kalamata wrote: “The South has already risen again.”
>>Joey wrote: “The South was never down for long. About 400,000 Southerners lost some of their “property”, but within a few years they’d effectively nullified the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments and restored their major export, cotton, to production levels well above antebellum levels.”
Where are your sources, Joey?
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>>Kalamata wrote: “Sure, even today Southerners on average earn less than Northerners, but it also costs less to live in the South and anyone accustomed to high taxes for Northern roads is always amazed to see Southern roads maintained at much lower costs. And if your definition of “the good life” includes enjoying the relaxed outdoors with your family & friends, then it would be easy to construct a chart showing that the further North you travel, the less of that you find. But while Republicans North & East of Hodgenville are often in the minority, those in states South & West are more often the majority in their states.”
Joey finally said something I am in complete agreement with. Our property taxes are now roughly 25% of what they were in PA, on approximately the same size home and lot.
Mr. Kalamata
This is incorrect. The Confederates (they weren't rebels. Lincoln was the rebel.) had no intentions of firing on Ft. Sumter until Lincoln made it into a necessity.
When the Powhatan, the Pocahontas, The Pawnee, The Harriet Lane, the Yankee, the Uncle Ben, the Thomas Freeborn and the Baltic all remained up in their harbors in the north, there was no need to attack the fort.
When Lincoln ordered them all to proceed to Charleston and there *ATTACK* everyone surrounding the fort if they did not cooperate, this caused the need to fire on the fort. Even then, General Beauregard had sent a message to Major Anderson telling him that if Anderson would give assurance that the fort would not attack them when those ships arrived, he would refrain from firing on the fort. Anderson refused.
So you see, it was the sending of warships that caused the war. Without that single act by Abraham Lincoln, there would have been no war. Therefore it is on Lincoln's head, and his alone, that the nation descended into a bloody civil war.
The main reason there was a rebellion was because of slavery.
Slavery for "four score and seven years", and Lincoln and the Republican congress voting to pass the Corwin amendment (extending slavery indefinitely) and you think the war was fought over the normal status quo for that era?
The main reason for secession is because a majority of people in disaffected states had decided that the Special Interest Crony Capitalists corruptocrats running Washington DC for the benefit of the powerful men of New York, no longer served their interests, and so they voted to "dissolve the political bonds" much as the founders did "four score and seven years" previously.
Concerned with preserving the money streams flowing through his backers pockets and also into the Federal treasury so that he may use it to "stimulate" more Crony Capitalism with him at the center of it.
Just like that other race obsessed Liberal lawyer from Illinois, the whole thing was about steering Federal money to "allies" and supporters.
Southern independence represented a very serious threat to the pockets of all his wealthy backers.
Silly on the face of it. Why didn't the five Union slave states secede? They had slavery too. If "slavery" was the reason states seceded, then why didn't the other slave states also secede?
In fact, Virginia lists as it's primary reason for seceding the abuse of power from Lincoln in calling up an army to deny freedom to other people who wanted out of his control.
What did the founders of the US do? (In 1776)
I have only learned of this thing we now call "Crony Capitalism" in the last decade or so. Prior to that, I had no inkling that there was in fact collusion between powerful government officials and powerful wealthy men of business.
Once I learned of it, and the Obama administration (that other race obsessed Liberal Lawyer President from Illinois) was a very good lesson on the subject, I started seeing evidence of it throughout history, and especially in the run up to the Civil War.
The subsequent corruption of the Grant Administration and the widespread corruption during the "Gilded Age", demonstrates that Lincoln was greatly responsible for expanding this back door influence selling scheme between government and business.
This thing that came to resemble what we later know as Nazism.
We had already moved out of the state by then, but we visited Gettysburg several times after I began to delve into Civil War history beginning in the early 2000's.
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>>OIFVeteran wrote: "One of those panels was discussing the Army of Northern Virginia and the Confederate government’s policies of capturing and selling into slavery any blacks they came across. They had many contemporary news articles with stories in local papers about blacks, free blacks, citizens of the state of Pennsylvania and the United States of America that this happened to."
Slavery was a complicated issue that cannot be objectively cherry-picked. One thing that IS history, according to these Lincolinites, is Lincoln clearly did NOT fight the war over slavery:
"To one who approaches the problem with the view that the North fought the war to suppress slavery in the South, the disclaimers of such a purpose by the Washington government may seem surprising. Lincoln made such a disclaimer in his inaugural of 1861, putting this topic first in his address. Referring to Southern apprehension on this point he said: "There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed. ... It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that 'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists.' "In announcing this policy of hands off as to slavery in the states, Lincoln was acting in harmony with the program of his party, for the Republican platform of 1860 declared that "the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to... control its own domestic institutions ... exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend...." As noted in a previous chapter, Congress uttered a similar disclaimer in the Crittenden resolution (July 22, 1861), in which it was announced that the war was not being prosecuted with the intention of overthrowing the "established institutions" of the states."
[Randall & Donald, "The Civil War and Reconstruction." Rev 2nd Ed, 1969, p.370]
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>>OIFVeteran wrote: "So you see the US Army was an Army of liberation. Freeing men, woman, and children wherever they advance. Many times slaves themselves would escape their local plantations when they heard that this great Army was near to them."
Are you aware of the plights Union Generals Freemont and Hunter when they attempted to emancipate Southern slaves? You can find those on pages 371-372 of the above reference.
When the troops did "emancipate" the blacks, it was not necessarily out of compassion. Even in the Army blacks were second-class citizens:
"The attitudes of a good many soldiers on this matter were more pragmatic than altruistic. They understood that every slave laborer who emancipated himself by coming into Union lines weakened the Confederate war effort. It also strengthened the Union army. "I don't care a damn for the darkies," wrote an Illinois lieutenant, but "I couldn't help to send a runaway nigger back. I'm blamed if I could. I honestly believe that this army [in Tennessee] has taken 500 niggers away with them." In fact, "I have 11 negroes in my company now. They do every particle of the dirty work. Two women among them do the washing for the company." Another Illinois soldier, an infantry sergeant, wrote from Corinth, Mississippi, in 1862 that "every regt has nigger teamsters and cooks which puts that many more men back in the ranks. ... It will make a difference in the regt of not less than 75 men that will carry guns that did not before we got niggers."
[James M. McPherson, "For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War." Oxford University Press, 1998, p.119]
You can cherry-pick history till hell freezes over, but you will never erase the suppressive Northern Black Codes – the ones that were introduced by Republican "reconstructionists" into the South. Modern day black historians are becoming more and more aware that "Jim Crow" was an invention of the North, and not the South.
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>>OIFVeteran wrote: "The Confederate army was an army of enslavement. Citizens, who happened to be black, would run in fear from this army. If that doesn’t tell you anything about the difference between the two then you are truly blind."
There is little doubt that you are blinded by your own ignorance.
Mr. Kalamata
I have not posted anything to you, so why are you still posting this b_______t to me?
I’m continuously amazed that you lost causers refuse to believe what the secessionist themselves said.
“We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.” - South Carolina
“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.” - Mississippi
“The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.” - Georgia
“Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union... She was received into the confederacy...as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery — the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits — a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.
In all the non-slave-holding States… the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party… based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color — a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States
…all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations…” - Texas
Not only that, the Confederate Constitution FORBADE the Abolition of Slavery in Article I, Section 9, Clause 4, if the War wasn’t over Slavery, then Why the Confederate Constitution even protected it?
“No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.” - Constitution of the Confederate States of America, Article I, Section 9, Clause 4
Stephens also made clear what their cause was:
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.”
This is just the most basic, given all this, it becames irrefutable and undeniable that the main cause of the War was SLAVERY!
In fact, Mosby would later admit that the War was over Slavery:
“The South went to war on account of slavery. South Carolina went to war, as she said in her secession proclamation, because slavery would not be secure under Lincoln. South Carolina ought to know what was the cause for her seceding. The truth is the modern Virginians departed from the teachings of the Father’s.” - John S. Mosby
From the Vir “Sir, the great question which is now uprooting this Government to its foundation - the great question which underlies all our deliberations here, is the question of African slavery...”
-—Thomas F. Goode, delegate from Mecklenburg County to Virginia’s Secession Convention, 1861
“I say, then, that viewed from that standpoint, there is but one single subject of complaint which Virginia has to make against the government under which we live; a complaint made by the whole South, and that is on the subject of African slavery....
..But, sir, the great cause of complaint now is the slavery question, and the questions growing out of it. If there is any other cause of complaint which has been influential in any quarter, to bring about the crisis which is now upon us; if any State or any people have made the troubles growing out of this question, a pretext for agitation instead of a cause of honest complaint, Virginia can have no sympathy whatever, in any such feeling, in any such policy, in any such attempt. It is the slavery question. Is it not so?”
-—John B. Baldwin, delegate from Augusta County to the Virginia Secession Convention, 1861
ginia secession debates;
Henry Benning was sent from the state of Georgia as a commissioner to convince Virginia to secede. How did he attempt to convince them to secede? Read it yourself.
I have been appointed by the Convention of the State of Georgia, to present to this Convention, the ordinance of secession of Georgia, and further, to invite Virginia, through this Convention ‘ to join Georgia and the other seceded States in the formation of a Southern Confederacy. This, sir, is the whole extent of my mission. 1 have no power to make promises, none to receive promises; no power to bind at all in any respect. But still, sir, it has seemed to me that a proper respect for this Convention requires that I should with some fulness and particularity, exhibit before the Convention the reasons which have induced Georgia to take that important step of secession, and then to lay before the Convention some facts and considerations in favor of the acceptance of the invitation by Virginia. With your permission then, sit, I will pursue this course.
What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. This conviction, sir, was the main cause. It is true, sir, that the effect of this conviction was strengthened by a further conviction that such a separation would be the best remedy for the fugitive slave evil, and also the best, if not the only remedy, for the territorial evil. But, doubtless, if it had not been for the first conviction this step would never have been taken. It therefore becomes important to inquire whether this conviction was well founded.
Is it true, then, that unless there had been a separation from the North, slavery would be abolished in Georgia? I address myself to the proofs of that case.
In the first place, I say that the North hates slavery, and, in using that expression I speak wittingly. In saying that the Black Republican party of the North hates slavery, I speak intentionally. If there is a doubt upon that question in the mind of any one who listens to me, a few of the multitude of proofs which could fill this room, would, I think, be sufficient to satisfy him. I beg to refer to a few of the proofs that are so abundant; and the first that I shall adduce consists in two extracts from a speech of Lincoln’s, made in October, 1858. They are as follows: “I have always hated slavery as much as any abolitionist; I have always been an old line Whig; I have always hated it and I always believed it in the course of ultimate extinction, and if I were in Congress and a vote should come up on the question, whether slavery should be excluded from the territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, I would vote that it should.”
These are pregnant statements; they avow a sentiment, a political principle of action, a sentiment of hatred to slavery as extreme as hatred can exist. The political principle here avowed is, that his action against slavery is not to be restrained by the Constitution of the United States, as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States. I say, if you can find any degree of hatred greater than that, I should like to see it. This is the sentiment of the chosen leader of the Black Republican party; and can you doubt that it is not entertained by every solitary member of that same party? You cannot, I think. He is a representative man; his sentiments are the sentiments of his party; his principles of political action are the principles of political action of his party. I say, then; it is true, at least, that the Republican party of the North hates slavery.
My next proposition is, that the Republican party of the North is in a permanent majority. It is true that in a government organized like the government of the Northern States, and like our own government, a majority, where it is permanent, is equivalent to the whole. The minority is powerless if the majority be permanent. Now, is this majority of the Republican party permanent? I say it is. That party is so deeply seated at the North that you cannot overthrow it. It has the press, it has the pulpit, it has the school-house, it has the organizations-the Governors, Legislatures, the judiciary, county officers, magistrates, constables, mayors, in fact all official life. Now, it has the General Government in addition. It has that inexhaustible reserve to fall back upon and to recruit from, the universal feeling at the North that slavery is a moral, social and political evil. With this to fall back upon, recruiting is easy. This is not all. The Republican party is now in league with the tariff, in league with internal improvements, in league with three Pacific Railroads. Sir, you cannot overthrow such a party as that. As well might you attempt to lift a mountain out of its bed and throw it into the sea.
But, suppose, sir, that by the aid of Providence and the intensest human exertion, you were enabled to overthrow it, how long would your victory last? But a very short time. The same ascendancy which that party has gained now, would be gained again before long. If it has come to this vast majority in the course of twenty-five years, from nothing, how long would it take the fragments of that party to get again into a majority? Sir, in two or three Presidential elections your labor would be worse than the labor of Sisyphus, and every time you rolled the rock up the hill it would roll back again growing larger and larger each time until at last it would roll back like an avalanche crushing you beneath it.
The Republican party is the permanent, dominant party at the North, and it is vain to think that you can put it down. It is true that the Republican party hates slavery, and that it is to be the permanent, dominant party at the North; and the majority being equivalent to the whole, as I have already stated, we cannot doubt the result. What is the feeling of the rest of the Northern people upon this subject? Can you trust them? They all say that slavery is a moral, social and political evil. Then the result of that feeling must be hatred to the institution; and if that is not entertained, it must be the consequence of something artificial or temporary-some interest, some thirst for office, or some confidence in immediate advancement. And we know that these considerations cannot be depended upon, and we may expect that, ultimately, the whole North will pass from this inactive state of hatred into the active state which animates the Black Republican party.
Is it true that the North hates slavery? My next proposition is that in the past the North has invariably exerted against slavery, all the power which it had at the time. The question merely was what was the amount of power it had to exert against it. They abolished slavery in that magnificent empire which you presented to the North; they abolished slavery in every Northern State, one after another; they abolished slavery in all the territory above the line of 36 30, which comprised about one million square miles. They have endeavored to put the Wilmot Proviso upon all the other territories of the Union, and they succeeded in putting it upon the territories of Oregon and Washington. They have taken from slavery all the conquests of the Mexican war, and appropriated it all to anti-slavery purposes; and if one of our fugitives escapes into the territories, they do all they can to make a free man of him; they maltreat his pursuers, and sometimes murder them. They make raids into your territory with a view to raise insurrection, with a view to destroy and murder indiscriminately all classes, ages and sexes, and when the base perpetrators are caught and brought to punishment, condign punishment, half the north go into mourning. If some of the perpetrators escape, they are shielded by the authorities of these Northern States-not by an irresponsible mob, but ,by the regularly organized authorities of the States.
My next proposition is, that we have a right to argue from the past to the future and to say, that if in the past the North has done this, in the-future, if it shall acquire the power to abolish slavery, it will do it.
My next proposition is that the North is in the course of acquiring this power to abolish slavery. Is that true? I say, gentlemen, the North is acquiring that power by two processes, one of which is operating with great rapidity-that is by the admission of new States. The public territory is capable of forming from twenty to thirty States of larger size than the average of the States now in the Union. The public territory is peculiarly Northern territory, and every State that comes into the Union will be a free State. We may rest assured, sit, that that is a fixed fact. The events in Kansas should satisfy every one of the truth of that. If causes now in operation are allowed to continue, the admission of new States will go on until a sufficient number shall have been secured to give the necessary preponderance to change the Constitution. There is a process going on by which some of our own slave States are becoming free States already. It is true, that in some of the slave States the slave population is actually on the decrease, and, I believe it is true of all of them that it is relatively to the white population on the decrease. The census shows that slaves are decreasing in Delaware and Maryland; and it shows that in the other States in the same parallel, the relative state of the decrease and increase is against the slave population. It is not wonderful that this should be so. The anti-slavery feeling has got to be so great at the North that the owners of slave property in these States have a presentiment that it is a doomed institution, and the instincts of self-interest impels them to get rid of that property which is doomed. The consequence is, that it will go down lower and. lower, until it all gets to the Cotton States-until it gets to the bottom. There is the weight of a continent upon it forcing it down. Now, I say, sir, that under this weight it is bound to go down unto the Cotton States, one of which I have the honor to represent here. When that time comes, sir, the free States in consequence of the manifest decrease, will urge the process with additional vigor, and I fear that the day is not distant when the Cotton States, as they are called, will be the only slave States. When that time comes, the time will have arrived when the North will have the power to amend the Constitution, and say that slavery shall be abolished, and if the master refuses to yield to this policy, he shall doubtless be hung for his disobedience.
My proposition, then, I insist, is true, that the North is acquiring this power. That being so, the only question is will she exercise it? Of course she will, for her whole course shows that she will. If things are allowed to go on as they are, it is certain that slavery is to be abolished except in Georgia and the other cotton States, and I doubt, ultimately in these States also. By the time the North shall have attained the power, the black race will be in a large majority, and then we will have black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything. [Laughter.] The majority according to the Northern idea, which will then be the all-pervading, all powerful one, have the right to control. It will be in keeping particularly with the principles of the abolitionists that the majority, no matter of what, shall rule. Is it to be supposed that the white race will stand that? It is not a supposable case. Although not half so numerous, we may readily assume that war will break out everywhere like hidden fire from the earth, and it is probable that the white race, being superior in every respect, may push the other back. They will then call upon the authorities at Washington, to aid them in putting down servile insurrection, and they will send a standing armv down upon us, and the volunteers and Wide-Awakes will come in thousands, and we will be overpowered and our men will be compelled to wander like vagabonds all over the earth; and as for our women, the horrors of their state we cannot contemplate in imagination. That is the fate which Abolition will bring upon the white race.
But that is not all of the Abolition war. We will be completely exterminated, and the land will be left in the possession of the blacks, and then it will go back into a wilderness and become another Africa or St. Domingo. The North will then say that the Lord made this earth for his Saints and not for Heathens, and we are his Saints, and the Yankees will come down and drive out the negro.
Sir, this is Abolition to the cotton States. Would you blame us if we sought a remedy to avert that condition of things? What must be the requisites of any remedy that can do it? It must be one which will have one of two qualities. It must be something that will change the unanimity of the North on the slavery question, or something that shall take from them the power over the subject. Any thing that does not contain one of these two requisites is not a remedy for the case; it does not come to the root of the disease.
What remedy is it that contains these requisites? Is there any in the Union that does? Let us take the strongest that we have heard suggested, which is an amendment of the Constitution guaranteeing the power of self-preservation, of dividing the public territory at the line of 36 deg. 30 min., giving the South all below that line. I know that remedy has not been thought of as in any degree practicable. But, let us look at it. Suppose they grant us the power of self-preservation suppose they give to each Senator and member the veto power over any bill relating to slavery. That is putting it strong enough. Would that be sufficient now, to make it protective? I say it would not, and for two reasons. The first is that the North regards every such stipulation as void under the higher law. The North entertains the opinion that slavery is a sin and a crime. I mean, when I say the North, the Republican party, and that is the North; and they say that any stipulation in the Constitution or laws in favor of slavery, is an agreement with death and a covenant with hell; and that it is absolutely a religious merit to violate it. They think it as much a merit to violate a provision of that sort, as a mere stipulation in favor of murder or treason.
Well, sir, a people entertaining this opinion of a covenant of that sort, is beyond the pale of contract-making. You cannot make a contract with a people of that kind, because it is a bond not as they regard it, binding upon them. That being so, how will it be any protection to us, that our senators and representatives shall have the power of saying this bill shall not pass. Suppose the bill to pass giving protection to slavery, they would say hereafter, we proclaimed from the mountain tops, from the hustings, from the forum, and wherever our voice could be heard, that we did not regard stipulations in matters relating to slavery as binding upon us. We recognize a higher law, and will not obey these stipulations-you might have so expected from our proclaimed opinions beforehand.
The next reason is this, the North entertains upon the subject of the Constitution the idea that this a consolidated Government, that the people are one nation, not a Confederation of States, and that being a consolidated Government the numerical majority is sovereign. The necessary result of that doctrine when pushed to its natural result is, that the Constitution of the United States is, at any time, subject to amendment by a bare majority of the whole people; and that being so, it becomes no matter what protection the Constitution may contain, it would be changed by a majority of the people, because a stipulation in the Constitution can no more be binding upon those who may choose subsequently to alter it, than the act of a legislature upon a sub-sequent legislature. Thus it is they will have the power to change the Constitution, alter it as you will. The President elect has proclaimed from the house tops in Indiana that a State is no more than a county. This is an abandonment in the concrete of the whole doctrine. How, then, can we accept any stipulation from a people holding the opinions that they do upon the question of slavery, and the obligations of government. The proposition which I have already adduced for argument sake, is infinitely beyond anything that we have a hope of obtaining. Then I assume that if this be true, it must be true that you can get no remedy for this disease in the Cotton States of the Union.
The question then is, would a separation from the North be a remedy? I say it would be a complete remedy; a remedy that would reach the disease in all its parts. If we were separated from the North. the will of the North on the subject of slavery would be changed. Why is it now that the North hates slavery? For the reason that they are, to some extent, responsible for the institution because of the Union, and for the reason that by hating slavery they get office. Let there be a separation, and this feeling will no longer exist, because slavery will no longer enter into the politics of the North. Does slavery in the South enter into the politics of England or France? Does slavery in Brazil or Cuba enter into the politics of the North? Not at all; and if we were separated, the subject of slavery would not enter into the politics of the North. I say, therefore, that this remedy would be sufficient for this disease in the worst aspect of it. Once out of the Union, we would be beyond the influence of the yeas and nays of the North. Get us out, and we are safe.
I think, then, that this conviction in the mind of Georgia-namely, that the only remedy for this evil is separation-was well-founded. She also was convinced that separation would be the best, if not the only remedy for the fugitive slave evil and for the territorial evil. It may be asked, sir, if the personal liberty bills, if the election of Lincoln by a sectional majority, had nothing to do with the action of Georgia? Sir, they had much to do with it. These were most important facts. They indicated a deliberate purpose on the part of the North, in every case in which there was a stipulation in favor of slavery, to obliterate it if it had the power to do so. They are valuable in another respect. These personal liberty bills were unconstitutional; they were deliberate infractions of the Constitution of the United States; and being so, they give to us a right to say that we would no longer be bound by the Constitution of the United States, if we choose. The language of Webster, in his speech at Capon Springs, in your own State, was, that a bargain broken on one side, is broken on all sides. And in this opinion many others have coincided. And these Northern States having broken the Constitutional compact gives us cause to violate it also if we choose to do it. The election of Lincoln in itself is not a violation of the letter of the Constitution, though it violates it in spirit. The Constitution was formed with a view to ensure domestic peace and to establish Justice among all, and this act of Lincoln’s election by a sectional majority, was calculated to disregard all these obligations, and inasmuch as the act utterly ignores our rights in the government, and in fact disfranchises us, we had a full right to take the steps that we have taken.
Now, I ask the question, Georgia feeling this conviction, what could she have done but to separate from this Union? Was she to stay and wait for Abolition? Sir, that was not to be expected of her? She did the only thing that could have been done to ensure her rights.
The second branch of my case is to lay before the Convention some facts to influence them, if possible, to accept the invitation of Georgia to join her in the formation of a Southern Confederacy.
What ought to influence a nation to enter into a treaty with another nation? It ought not be, I am free to say, any higher consideration than interest-material, social, political, religious interests. I am free to say that unless it could be made to appear that it was to her interest, she ought not to enter into it. And it shall be my endeavor now, to show that it will be to the interest of Virginia materially, socially, politically and religiously, to accept the invitation of Georgia to join the Southern Confederacy-and, first, will it be to her material interests?
Georgia and the other cotton States produce four millions of bales of cotton, annually. Every one of these bales is worth $50. The whole crop therefore, is worth $200,000,000. This crop goes on growing rapidly from year to year. The increase in the last decade was nearly 50 per cent. If the same increase should continue for the next decade we should have, in 1870, six million bales; in 1890,1 nine million of bales, and so on. And, supposing that this rate will not continue, yet we have a right to assume that the increase, in after years, will be very great, because consumption outruns production, and so long as that is the case, production will try to overtake it.
You perceive, then, that out of one article we have two hundred millions of dollars. This is surplus, and a prospect of an indefinite increase in the future. Then, we have sugar worth from fifteen to twenty millions of dollars, increasing every year at a pretty rapid rate. Then, we have rice, and naval stores, and plank, and live oak and various other articles which make a few more millions. You may set down that these States yield a surplus of $270,000,000 with a prospect of increase. These we turn into money and with that we buy manufactured goods, iron, cotton and woolen manufactures ready made and many other descriptions of goods necessary for consumption. Then we buy flour, and wheat, and bacon, and pork, and we buy mules and negroes; very little of this money is consumed at home; we lay it out this way.
Now I say, why will not Virginia furnish us these goods? Why will not she take the place now held by New England and New York, and furnish to the South these goods? Bear in mind that the manufactures consumed by the South are manufactures of the United States. They have now got the whole market by virtue of the tariff which we have laid on foreign importation. Will not Virginia take this place? I ask, is it not to the interest of Virginia and the border States to take this place? Most assuredly it is. Now I say it is at her own option whether she will take it or not. I dare say she can have the same sort of protection against the north that she has against Europe. That being so, and inasmuch as the same cause must produce the same effect, the same cause that built up manufactures at the north, will operate similarly in Virginia.
Then the question is, will you have protection necessary to accomplish this result? I say I think you will. I do not come here, as I said at the outset, to make promises; but I will give my opinion, and that is that the South will support itself by duties on imports. It has certainly begun to do that. We have merely adopted the revenue system of the United States so far, and are now collecting the revenue under an old law. Our Constitution has said that Congress should have the power to lay duties for revenue, to pay debts and to carry on the government, and therefore there is a limit to the extent that this protection can go, and within that the South can give protection that will be sufficient to enable you to compete with the North. We have got to have a navy, and an army, and we have got to make up that army speedily. It must be a much larger army than we have been accustomed to have in the late Union-it must be large in proportion to the armv that it will have to meet. These things will require a revenue of about 10 per cent, which will yield an aggregate of about $20,000,000, and with this per cent, it would be in the power of Virginia to compete, in a short time, with all the nations of the earth in all the important branches of manufacture. Why? Because manufacturing has now been brought to such perfection by the invention of new machinery. The result will be the immigration of the best men of the North; skilled artizans and men of capital will come here and establish works among you. You have the advantage of longer days and shorter winters, and of being nearer to the raw material of a very important article of manufacture. I have no idea that the duties will be as low as 10 per cent. My own opinion is that we shall have as high duty as is now charged by the General Government at Washington. If that matter is regarded as important by this Convention, why the door is open for negotiation with us. We have but a provisional and temporary government so far. If it be found that Virginia requires more protection than this upon any particular article of manufacture let her come in the spirit of a sister, to our Congress and say, we want more protection upon this or that article, and she will, I have no doubt, receive it. She will be met in the most fraternal and complying spirit.
What is the state of the cotton trade? The North by virtue of their manufactures buy our cotton. They then take our cotton to Europe; they buy for it European manufactures; they take these manufactures and carry them to Boston, New York or Philadelphia, whence they distribute to us and all over the continent. But this all depends on the fact that they have manufactures to buy the cotton with. New York, Boston and Philadelphia, in fact, fatten upon the handling of cotton, and I ask why it is you do not avail yourselves of the advantages which these possess; why do you not take the place of New York, engage in manufactures, sell us your goods, take our cotton and send it to Europe for goods, and thus make this city the centre of the earth? I know that in the outset foreign imports would come direct to our ports, because you have not the manufactured goods to buy the cotton with, and we would have to send the cotton direct to Europe. But after a while you would have a monopoly of our trade having all the facilities to build up a manufacturing business extensive enough for the requirements of the whole country.
What would be the effect of this? Your villages would grow into towns, and your towns would grow into cities. Your mines would begin to be developed, and would throw their riches over the whole land; and you would see those lands enhanced, which you have now to give away, almost, for nothing.
I say, then, it is in your power, by joining our Southern Confederacy, to become a great manufacturing empire. If you do not consider our organization as it is now made good enough, go down to Montgomery, and say, change this in such and such a form, and I venture to assert that they will meet you in the spirit in which you go. As things now stand, there is a great drain of wealth from the South to the North. The operation of the tariff, which at present averages about 20 per cent, is to enhance the prices of foreign goods upon us to that extent; and not only foreign goods, but domestic goods, as they will always preserve a strict ratio with the price charged for foreign imports. The South is thus heavily taxed. What the amount of tribute is which she pays to the North in this form, I have not accurately ascertained. It is difficult to find out how much tribute she pays in this form, but, from a rough estimate which I have made out myself, putting the amount of goods consumed by the South at $250,000,000 annually, though a Northern gentleman puts it at $300,000,000; but putting it at $250,000,000, the tribute which the South pays to the North annually, according to the present tariff [20 per cent] amounts to $50,000,000. Then there are the navigation laws which give the North a monopoly of the coasting trade. The consequence of this monopoly is that it raises freights, and to that extent enhances the price of goods upon us. There is the indirect carrying trade, in which they also have a monopoly. Instead of our goods coming to us direct, they now come by New York, Philadelphia or Boston. Last year the amount of goods that came to the South by this indirect route was about $72,000,000 which were not carried at a less cost than $5,000,000, which, of course, had to be paid by us. In the matter of expenditures we have not more than one fifth allotted to us, whereas we ought to have one-third. In 1860 the expenditures were $80,000,000, and the proportion of this which is lost to us by an unjust system of discrimination amounts to nearly $20,000,000. This is a perpetual drain upon us.
Mr. BFNNING then referred to the drain in the matter of fugitive slaves, and proceeded to ask what would Virginia gain by joining the Southern Confederacy? What, said he, is the state of things now on the border? Is it such as to prevent the escape of slaves? It is not. There is a remedy for this. The state of things on the other side of the line should be such that slaves would not be induced voluntarily to run off, and if they did, that they would again soon gladly return. If you were with us, it would become necessary, in order to collect our revenue, to station police officers all along the border, and have there bodies of troops. It could be easily made part of the duty of these officers to keep strict watch along there and intercept every slave, and keep proper surveillance on all who may come within the line of particular localities. Is not that arrangement better than any fugitive slave law that you could get? Most assuredly it is. If we were separated from the North, the escape of a fugitive slave into their territory would be but the addition of one savage to the number they have already. [Laughter.]
Separate us from the North, and the North will be no attraction to the black man-no attraction to the slaves. It is not from a love for the black man that they receive him now; but it is from a hatred to slavery. and from a hatred to the owners of slaves.
Is not this a better remedy than anything that you can get out o Congress or in any form of legislation?
As regards the Territorial evil, I will show that the remedy for that too, is in separation. We want land, and have a right to it. How are we to get our share of it? Can we get it in the Union? Never. Put what you please in the Constitution, you never can get one foot of that land to which you have so just a claim. Why Kansas tells the reason. The policy of the Black Republican party is to have this land settled up by those who do not own slaves. Their policy is the Homestead bill. You can enjoy all these things if you join us; and not only that, but you can enjoy them in peace. Cotton is peace. It is an article of indispensable necessity to the nations of the world, and they cannot obtain it without peace. Whenever there is war they cannot have it, and will therefore have peace. join us, therefore, and you will have the advantage of enjoying all those benefits in peace.
Suppose you join the North, what can they give you? Nothing. They will maintain, in the matter of manufactures, a competition that will destroy you. You cannot go into any market in the world and compete with them. They have the start of you, and you cannot catch up. How will it be with agricultural enterprise? Manufactures give the most active stimulant to agriculture, and when you cannot build up manufactures, you must suffer in your agricultural pursuits. Then there is the social and religious aspect of the question. Go with us, and the irrepressible conflict is at an end. We are the same in our social and religious attributes. We have a common Bible; we kneel at the game altar, break bread together, and there can be no difficulty between us on this score.
Then there is the political question. Suppose you join us, and also the other border States, which they will, if you come in. We shall have a territory possessing an area of 850 or 900,000 square miles, with more advantages than any similar extent of territory on the face of the earth, lying as it is between the right parallels of latitude and longitude, having the right sort of coast facilities, and abounding in every production that can form the basis of prosperity and power.
Mr. BENNING referred to the probability of the Pacific States forming a distinct Confederacy after a separation shall once occur, and then discanted briefly on the general corruption which seems to exist at the North, where men make politics a profession, requiring property to be taxed for their support. He instanced the enormous burdens amounting to nearly $2,000,000 a year, to which the city of New York is subjected through the corrupting influences of politicians, and deduced from this state of things the decay and ultimate disintegration of the North after she shall have been cut off from the rest of the Union, and circumscribed with the narrow limits of her own unproductive inhospitable area.
If, said he, you join in the Southern Confederacy, you will become the leader of it as you are now. You will have the Presidency and Vice Presidency and other advantages which it is unnecessary here to mention.
Join the North, and what will become of you? In that, I say, you will find yourself much lower than you stand now. No doubt the North will now make fine promises, but when you are once in, they will give you but little quarter. They will hate you and your institutions as much as they do now, and treat you accordingly. Suppose they elevated Sumner to the Presidency? Suppose they elevated Fred. Douglas, your escaped slave, to the Presidency? And there are hundreds of thousands at the North who would do this for the purpose of humiliating and insulting the South. What would be your position in such an event? I say give me pestilence and famine sooner that that.
As regards the African slave trade, we have done what we could to expel the illusion which is said to deter some timid persons from uniting with us. Our State has given her voice against it, and so has Alabama, and finally the Convention at Montgomery has placed the ban upon it by a Constitutional provision. Suppose we re-open the African slave trade, what would be the result? Why, we would be soon drowned in a black pool, we would be literally overwhelmed with a black population. If you open it, where are you going to stop? There is no barrier to it but that of interest, and that will never be a barrier until there will be more slaves than we want. But go down to Montgomery and we will stipulate with you, and satisfy you, I have no doubt, upon that, as upon all other questions. What danger is there in your going with this Confederacy? You will have, with the other border States, a population of eight millions, while we will have only five. What danger is there then with such a preponderance in your favor?
I heard another objection urged to your joining us, and that is, that we held out a threat in the way of a provision in our Constitution that Congress shall have power to stop the inter-State slave trade. I do not hesitate to say to you, that in my opinion, if you do not join us but join the North, that provision would be put in force. I think that these States would do all in their power to keep the border States slave States. It would be a mere instinct of self-preservation to do that, and I think that it would be done. But is this to he regarded as a threat held out to deter you from joining the North? You might as well say that a provision in respect to a tax is a threat against you.
After meeting the objection urged against the seceding States for seceding without consultation with the border States, with the argument of necessity, he closed with an expression of thanks to the Convention, and submitted the Ordinance of Secession passed by Georgia, which was read by the Clerk.
“Paragraphs are your friend.”
It seems everyone now wants to be my friend.
So,......you agree. Lincoln was first and foremost concerned with preserving the Union. We only disagree on what his reasons were.
I’m not even going to read a wall of text.
He was willing to give up the "Union" in exchange for Virginia offering assurances that it would remain. Apparently "Preserving the Union" was negotiable regarding the 7 lesser seceded states.
You are trying to use "Preserving the Union" as a blanket cover for what his real specific goal was. Keeping the money. Yes, if he "preserved the Union" his wealthy and powerful allies would get to keep their income streams, and so too would his government in Washington DC.
Were the Southern states no economic threat to his allies best interests, I think he would have not cared at all about "Preserving the Union."
I am reminded of an abusive Husband who "preserves the Union" by beating near to death the wife that tried to leave him.
I can't speak for everyone else but for me it's just paragraphs.
You sound as if you are talking out-loud and trying to convince yourself of your own cockamamie notions that conflict with your own previous post to me. When you are merely talking out loud, there is really no reason to bounce it off me. Go study your pointy graph. You are not yourself today.
My father took my brothers and me to the Centennial at Gettysburg in 1963. I’ll never forget it. Saw Eisenhower there. Watched a re-enactment of Pickett’s Charge. It was a 10 day event. One of my brothers went back to the 150th.
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