Kalamata: "The bottom line is, the South was for peace, but Lincoln was for war.
That reminds me of this scripture:"
Confederates began provoking war in December 1860, eventually seizing dozens of Federal properties -- forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc. -- threatening Union officials and firing on Union ships.
At the same time they began preparing to start war at Fort Sumter, in the event Maj. Anderson didn't surrender soon enough.
Simultaneously, Jefferson Davis ordered Confederate General Bragg to start war at Fort Pickens, Pensacola.
Kalamata: "Blah, blah, blah . . ."
Right, just as you Democrats think you can impeach our President by throwing words at him like "Quid Pro Quo" and "personal benefit", so our old-time Pro-Confederate Democrats hope to re-assassinate President Lincoln with words like "tyrant" and "crony capitalist".
Kalamata: "Name-dropping Jefferson is a political trick typically used by progressives, like Joey."
Our Danny-child is unashamed to hijack Jefferson for his own nefarious purposes, but goes all postal when Jefferson is shown to oppose pro-Confederates.
Kalamata: "The legal document called the Constitution states, by omission, that when states exercise their constitutional authority to secede, they are no longer States or Territories of the Union, but sovereign states – or sovereign nations."
And by that same spirit of "omission" the Constitution clearly states that Danny-child Kalamata and his fellow pro-Confederates are absolute blithering idiots!
See... anybody can play that "omission" game, fool.
Kalamata: "If the constructors of the Constitution had intended the states to lose their sovereignty upon ratification, it would have explicitly said so within the powers authorized to the general government in Article I, Section 8, or, negatively, in the prohibited powers of Article I, Section 9. "
Rubbish.
Our Founders in 1776 considered their Union "perpetual" and nothing in the 1787 Constitution changed that.
So every Founder believed disunion could only come through mutual consent (as in 1787) or through necessity (as in 1776).
No Founder ever supported unilateral declaration of secession at pleasure.
The recognized Father of the Constitution, James Madison, explained exactly why, here.
Kalamata: "Jefferson not only understood that fact, but enshrined the right of the states to secede from the Union in his legacy works and writings, many times."
Every Founding President, including Jefferson, faced threats of rebellion, insurrection, secession & treason.
In President Jefferson's case, he had the secessionist (Aaron Burr) hunted down & arrested by the US Army and tried for treason.
No Founder ever supported unilateral unapproved secession, at pleasure.
Kalamata on the term "Lost Causers": "The term would be accurate if it were renamed to "Lost Constitutioners"."
I prefer the term "Lost & Confused Fantasizers", but "Lost Cause" is OK for short.
Kalamata: "You cannot hide Lincoln words by pretending they don't say what they say."
Danny-child, you cannot change Lincoln's words by pretending they say something he never intended.
Kalamata: "You are confused, Joey.
Raw cotton was an export.
The constitution disallowed duties on exports:"
Sorry, Danny-child, but you are the one lost & confused here because cotton was not just the US's #1 export, it was also our #3 tariffed import!
Cotton import revenues ranked behind only Woolens and Brown Sugar in dollar volumes and was imported to supply New England cotton mills, clothiers & garment makers.
So imported cotton was tariffed, as was sugar, tobacco and every other Southern export.
It's why the political issue was: some Southerners wanted to maintain high tariffs on their own exports, while reducing tariffs on foreign products they wanted to import.
Here is a listing of the 1860 top ten import tariff items:
| Commodity | 1860 tariff $ |
|---|---|
| Woolens | 8,155,000 |
| Brown Sugar | 7,430,000 |
| Cotton | 6,500,000 |
| Silks | 5,589,000 |
| Iron & Iron mfg | 4,458,000 |
| Coffee | 3,962,000 |
| Molasses | 1,800,000 |
| Flax & Hemp | 1,728,000 |
| Tea | 1,339,000 |
| Wines | 1,134,000 |
Cotton growers were hurt mostly by: 1) reciprocal tariffs placed by foreign trading partners, which lowered their incomes, and 2) higher prices for imported items.
It is simple economics, Joey."
First, notice 1860 Southern textile manufacturers in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia & Maryland.
So obviously such economics are not simple enough for your mind, Danny-child.
But this should be simple enough: every item exported by Southerners was protected by tariffs on imports of such products from foreign countries.
The simple purpose of all such tariffs was to encourage Americans to buy American -- in our language, to make America great by putting Americans first.
Kalamata: "As aforementioned (several times,) free trade through southern ports would have destroyed the Lincoln's crony-capitalistic schemes."
But there was never "free trade" even contemplated by Confederates, so somebody was panic rapid-breathing over their own fantasms.
Kalamata quoting a Northern newspaper: "...The difference is so great between the tariff of the Union and that of the Confederated States, that the entire Northwest must find it to their advantage to purchase their imported goods at New Orleans rather than at New York...."
That's totally bogus, since importing through New Orleans would require paying two tariffs which, regardless of how much lower Confederates set theirs, would still be more than just the single tariff paid in, say, New York.
Kalamata: "The... [government] would be false to all its obligations, if this state of things were not provided against."
Right, like making sure there were customs houses along the Mississippi River and any railroads connecting North to South.
There is no suggestion here that war is the only solution to their economic concerns.
Kalamata: "Yeah, everyone who doesn't kiss Lincoln's ring is a liar. I get it . . ."
No, not every former Confederate official was a liar, some honest Confederates have been quoted in these threads.
But many former Confederates were big liars, as are all of our current Lost Causers.
Remember, Confederates were Democrats and Democrats are all about their Big Lies, Danny-child.
Kalamata: "I mentioned that in one of my earlier posts on this thread, but it didn't go over very well.
The secession was for economic reasons, no matter how it is spun."
Certainly, the economics of slavery, as secessionists themselves proudly proclaimed:
- "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.
These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.
That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation.
There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove...."
They would mock you modern-day Lost Causers as wimps & weaklings for your shameless pretenses otherwise.
Kalamata on slavery: "That is not all that was said, Joey.
Recall that Senator Toombs labeled the Morrill Tariff a "raid against the South": "It is true... that the present tariff was sustained by an almost unanimous vote of the South; but it was a reduction — a reduction necessary from the plethora of the revenue..."
Notice first that Georgia Democrat Senator Toombs here admits that Southerners supported the 1857 Tariff, because it was a reduction from the 1846 Walker Tariff.
He does not say that Southerners also supported the 1846 Walker Tariff.
Kalamata quoting Toombs: "...but the policy of the North soon made it inadequate to meet the public expenditure, by an enormous and profligate increase of the public expenditure;"
It's true, as Toombs implies, that Federal revenues & spending doubled between, say 1850 and 1860.
And national debt, while being reduced by half from 1850 to 1856 then doubled again by 1860.
Now, if you ask, where did most of that Federal money go to, the answer is: most went into increased military spending, including the Mormon Rebellion in Utah, the 1858 Paraguay Naval Expedition and in support of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis' deployment of Col. Robert E. Lee & other luminaries to the Texas frontier to battle against "Indian Savages" and "Mexican Banditti".
What Georgia Democrat Senator Toombs doesn't say is that all of this spending was under the absolute iron-fisted control of his fellow Southern Democrats, not "Northerners" and certainly not Black Republicans.
What, you ask, did Democrats lie and blame-shift?
Of course, that's the core essence of what it means to be a Democrat.
Kalamata quoting Toombs: "...and at the last session of Congress they brought in and passed through the House the most atrocious tariff bill that ever was enacted, raising the present duties from twenty to two hundred and fifty per cent above the existing rates of duty.
That bill now lies on the table of the Senate."
First, that Morrill Tariff was defeated by Southerners in 1860 and would have been defeated again in early 1861 had Southerners not seceded.
Second, possibly some rates did increase as much as Toombs claimed, but the major items simply returned to their levels of 1846, levels Southerners were happy to accept at the time and should never have been just-cause for secession in 1860.
Kalamata quoting Toombs: "It was a master stroke of abolition policy; it united cupidity to fanaticism, and thereby made a combination which has swept the country.
There were thousands of protectionists in Pennsylvania, New-Jersey, New-York, and in New-England, who were not abolitionists.
There were thousands of abolitionists who were free traders.
The mongers brought them together upon a mutual surrender of their principles.
The free-trade abolitionists became protectionists; the non-abolition protectionists became abolitionists.
The result of this coalition was the infamous Morrill bill — the robber and the incendiary struck hands, and united in joint raid against the South."
Let's be honest -- it is very seldom in United States history when us stupid Republicans have outsmarted evil Democrats at their own political games, and whenever we do, Democrats howl like mad-dogs, squeal like stuck pigs, and threaten everything in the book, from secession & assassination to impeachment.
Democrats have always played for blood -- "fairly" if they can, but however unfairly if they must.
So here in November 1860 Toombs complains that Republicans got the better of Democrats, but paints it in terms of typical Democrat hyperboles.
Kalamata quoting Toombs: "Under its ordinary and most favorable action, bounties and protection to every interest and every pursuit in the North, to the extent of at least fifty millions per annum, besides the expenditure of at least sixty millions out of every seventy of the public expenditure among them, thus making the treasury a perpetual fertilizing stream to them and their industry, and a suction-pump to drain away our substance and parch up our lands."
That is total nonsense.
In fact, about half (i.e., $40 million of $80 million total) of Federal spending went to the Army & Navy which had nothing to do with sectional politics.
The rest has been shown to be spread roughly proportionately among all the regions -- North, South, East & West -- with "the South" getting its "fair share".
Of course, typical of Democrats, if you are under the delusion that the South deserved 75% or 85% of Federal spending, then you might have reason for complaint.
But such complaints had no factual merit.
Kalamata: "Actually, I believe the newspaper said that slavery was merely a "mask," and that trade was "the controlling motive."
You are aware that some Northern newspapers were calling for a blockade of the South to prevent free trade, are you not?"
No, that's not exactly what they said, and two other things: first, it's not established that all such were Lincoln supporting Republican newspapers.
Second, again: "free trade" was a fantasm, conjured up by who knows who, but having nothing to do with actual Confederate tariffs.
The Confederate congress never contemplated "free trade".
Finally, we should notice that Lincoln's response to Fort Sumter was 1) to call up militia troops and 2) to announce a blockade of Confederate ports -- Gen. Scott's old Anaconda Plan.
However both those actions were first planned decades earlier as part of standard Federal responses to any potential rebellion or insurrection.
They had nothing to do with newspaper editorials in the spring of 1861.
Kalamata on alleged Confederate "free trade": "No, that would have been an economic reality under a non-protective tariff authorized by the Confederate Constitution.
They were not arm-chair historians, Joey: they were living it."
Danny-child, that's complete hogwash -- there was nothing "free trade" about Confederate tariffs.
Indeed, they were essentially the same as the Union tariffs of 1857, tariffs intended to protect American producers North and South.
So any talk of Confederate "free trade" was strictly "boogie man" political scare tactics.
Kalamata: "That is stupendously simple-minded, Joey.
Duty-free (or duty-light) imports would come through Southern ports.
The South and Territories would no longer be subject to the high prices of protected Northern goods."
Sorry, Danny-child, but you are the "stupendous" simpleton here, you have no real clue what you're talking about.
The fact is that any imports landing in, say, New Orleans would pay the Confederate tariff which was basically the old Union 1857 tariff.
Then, if that import shipped by steamboat or railroad north to, say, Union St. Louis, it would pay a second Union tariff, the new Morrill tariff -- there would be two tariffs, not one, and certainly not "free trade".
Enough for now, more later...