Kalamata to OIFVeteran:
"That is undisputable revisionist history." No, based on Confederate "Reasons for Secession" documents, the later revisionist claim is that secession was over something other than the threat to slavery represented by Lincoln's "Black Republicans".
Kalamata: "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."
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.
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.
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.
Kalamata: "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."
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.
Kalamata: "The United States went to war because Lincoln wanted to go to war, and he did everything he could think of to precipitate it."
The United States went to war because Jefferson Davis started it at Fort Sumter, then Confederates formally declared war on May 6, 1861.
Kalamata: "Lincolnites tend to forget that Lincoln promised war against any state that refused to collect tariffs for him:"
Indeed, Confederates at the time called Lincoln's First Inaugural a "declaration of war", but it wasn't.
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.
Kalamata: "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."
And still another lie straight from the Lost Causers' inventory.
No tariffs were collected at Fort Sumter.
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.
Kalamata: "Is there any reason to doubt why Lincoln attempted to re-supply Fort Sumter?
Not according to this letter:"
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.
Kalamata: "The bottom line is, Lincoln manipulated events that caused the bloodiest war in American history."
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."
Kalamata: "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."
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. ![]()
>>Kalamata to OIFVeteran: "That is undisputable revisionist history."
>>Joey wrote: "No, based on Confederate "Reasons for Secession" documents, the later revisionist claim is that secession was over something other than the threat to slavery represented by Lincoln's "Black Republicans".
Lincoln promised in his First Inaugural to protect slavery in the slave states, Joey. Are you insinuating Lincoln was a liar?
****************
>>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.
****************
>>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.
****************
>>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.
****************
>>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?
****************
>>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.
****************
>>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.
****************
>>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