Posted on 07/26/2021 4:33:01 PM PDT by ammodotcom
The Battle of Appomattox Courthouse is considered by many historians the end of the Civil War and the start of post-Civil War America. The events of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General and future President Ulysses S. Grant at a small town courthouse in Central Virginia put into effect much of what was to follow.
The surrender at Appomattox Courthouse was about reconciliation, healing, and restoring the Union. While the Radical Republicans had their mercifully brief time in the sun rubbing defeated Dixie’s nose in it, they represented the bleeding edge of Northern radicalism that wanted to punish the South, not reintegrate it into the Union as an equal partner.
The sentiment of actual Civil War veterans is far removed from the attitude of the far left in America today. Modern day “woke-Americans” clamor for the removal of Confederate statues in the South, the lion’s share of which were erected while Civil War veterans were still alive. There was little objection to these statues at the time because it was considered an important part of the national reconciliation to allow the defeated South to honor its wartime dead and because there is a longstanding tradition of memorializing defeated foes in honor cultures.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammo.com ...
The Constitution is always superior to the political expediency class.
It was one of the reasons cited in several of the Secession documents. Yes it became moot, only because none of the territories belonged to the Confederate states.
Yes, tariffs would apply above the City of St Louis, MO. DL’s theory is that the riverboats carrying the cargo would stop short of the U.S. border, discharge their cargos to hundreds of waiting wagons. These would then smuggle the goods into MO, KY and other points North. Thus avoiding the tariffs. There would be not legal way to bring those goods into the United States from the Confederacy unless the U.S. tariff was paid.
And yet you keep responding funny. I think you read every last syllable and are seething with steam coming out of your ears. You are nothing and have shown you are nothing. You need to look more at what was said than your biased closed minded view. Because you are and have been wrong since before you opened your mouth.
You could use practice in keeping your arse out of other people’s business.
As he has stated time and time again. Apparently the idea of what smuggling the goods across the border in small batches would do to the price of the goods, compared with just paying the tariff, hasn't occurred to him.
To repeat, after secession, the “hot” issue for so many northern newspapers and activist groups (wide awakes) was no longer an issue....slavery expansion was then no threat at all...just a red meat bone for the hostile crowd.
True, but before secession it was a hot issue with some
Southerners.
The following newspaper excerpts from the antebellum period clearly refute the idea that any legislation forced Southern business interests to use Northern shipping. The newspapers of the era are filled with notices of ships arriving from around the globe bringing goods and leaving with cotton and other crops heading back to their home ports.
Simply put, that old canard is a boldfaced lie.
“Business has continued on a limited scale the last three days, and the only new engagements we have to report are two ships for Havre at 1 3/8 cent and one for Trieste at 1 1/2 cent. Some shipments of Cotton have been made in vessels on the berth for Liverpool at 21-32 @ 11-16d, and we hear of a few hundred bales shipped in a second class British ship at 3/4d, but this figure is generally refused.”
New Orleans Price-Current
Commercial Intelligencer and Merchant’s Transcript
March 22, 1856
“Freights- An American ship taken for Liverpool for 3s for flour and 3/8d for Cotton. In British ships Cotton is freely taken at 5-16d.”
“Port of New Orleans Exports
Liverpool- Per ship Merlin: 2817 bales cotton, 5000 staves.
Liverpool- Per ship Africa: 4330 bales cotton.”
RMS Merlin was a British ship.
SS Africa was a side wheel steamship built by Messrs. Robert Steele and Co. of Glasgow and operated by Cunard Line of Southhampton.
New Orleans Crescent
March 8, 1852
“British ships took Cotton freely on Saturday at 11-16 for Liverpool, but within the last two days there has not been much offering.”
Charleston Mercury
March 24, 1856
“Ship-Ships
For Liverpool- The new A1 British ship (name obscured). Capt Bernie wants 300 bales cotton to fill up. For freight contact J.H. Ashridge & Co. 53 St Charles st
For Liverpool- The first classified fast sailing ship British Arab, Graham, Master. For freight contact Hoghton, Rank & Co. 125 Common St.
For Glascow- The A1fast sailing ship British bark California, Flower, master is now loading and will receive immediate dispatch. For 100 tons heavy freight or 300 bales cotton apply to J.P. Whitney &Co., 61 Camp St.”
New Orleans Times-Picayune
May 8, 1855
“We have only a limited business to report since our last issue, most of the engagements for Liverpool and havre fort Cotton being to fill up vessel on the berth, at 1/2d for Liverpool and 2/3 cent for Havre. We notice three ships taken for Corn to Liverpool at 12 1/2d per bushel, and a British ship for Cotton at 1/2d. Also a small bark taken for Hamburg at 1 3/8 cent, and a Bremen ship put on there berth for Bremen at 1 1/4 cent.”
New Orleans Price-Current
Commercial Intelligencer and Merchant’s Transcript
January 23, 1856
“Freights- A larger quantity of Cotton is offering for Liverpool than we have noticed before this season; and freights to that port have advanced to 3/4d in American and 11-32 d in British ships.”
The Daily Constituionalist and Republic
Augusta, Georgia
February 27, 1858
“The British cotton ships Amenia and Belmont were not greatly injured by fire at New Orleans, and the cotton being pressed, would not be damaged more than 20 percent.”
The Morning Post
London, England
April 1, 1853
“The Royal Mail steam-ship Arabia, Capt. Stone, has arrived in Liverpool with news from New York to the 18th instant. She brings 183,000 dollars in specie.”
Daily News, London England
January 30, 1860
“We notice two American ships taken for Liverpool at 19-32 d and several b British ships laid on and taken at 17-31 @ 9-16d.”
New Orleans Price-Current
Commercial Intelligencer and Merchant’s Transcript
January 7, 1860
All this citations are transcribed from scanned copies of the original newspaper notices at Newspapers.com. I had many, many more to choose from, and could find probably hundreds by using different search terms.
Upon secession, the reason for many abolitionist’s fervor no longer existed. and the entire idea of expansionism as a cause for the North to justify war evaporated.
The original levees surrounding this city below sea level were erected in 1718, the date of the foundation of the city, and they were vastly expanded to accommodate trade. It was in New Orleans that the barges from upstream were unloaded and their cargoes stored, sold and reloaded on ocean-going vessels. New Orleans was, in many ways, a key pivot of the American economy.
By 1860, New Orleans in terms of tonnage had become the forth largest port in the Union. The port city was a series of docks and warehouses stretching for miles that served as the staging and organizational point for the flow of wheat, flour, furs, corn, tobacco, minerals, and cotton flowing from Southern and Mid-western states and territories to the European markets.
If the Mississippi River was shut to Midwestern traffic, then the foundations of the Union economy would be shattered. The industrial minerals needed in the factories would not come in, and the agricultural wealth would not flow out under Federal control.
Compared to overland shipping, river transport was cheap, and most of the agricultural products had low value-to-weight ratios. The U.S. transport system serving the Midwest of the 1860s was built on the assumption that these commodities would travel to and from New Orleans by barge, where they would be loaded on ships or offloaded. If Louisiana left the Union, there were not enough wagons or rail cars to handle the long-distance hauling of these enormous quantities — assuming that the economics could be managed, which they could not be.
The United States historically depended on the Mississippi and its tributaries for transport. Barges navigate the river. Ships go on the ocean. The barges must offload to the ships and vice versa. There must be a facility to empower this exchange. It is also the facility where goods are stored in transit. Without this port, the river could not be used. Protecting that port has been, from the time of the Louisiana Purchase, a fundamental national security issue for the United States.
“The last Congress, in a spirit of mingled vengeance and fanaticism, enacted a tariff doubling the duties on many articles of foreign manufacture, and advancing them to a prohibitory point on others; and this was done to protect the manufacturing interests of the Northern States at the expense of the South.
”It is doubtful, however, if this blundering instrument can ever be intelligibly interpreted by any collector of custom, or enforced at all in its present shape.
”But at the same time the Congress of the Southern Confederacy has adopted a tariff reducing the duties on imports, the consequence of which will be that the importations will abandon the ports of the North and enter those of the South, and will then find their way to the interior by the Mississippi river and the railroads of the border States.
”The result of this proceeding will be of course to destroy the trade of the North; and the very first portions of it to suffer will be New York, New Jersey, and New “England. The imports here will be cut down to an insignificant figure; and the manufactures in the New England States will be seriously damaged; both business houses and factories will be transferred to the South; and, in fact, the northern tariff adopted to protect the manufacturing interests of the North will have no interests left to protect. The actual effect of the tariff, then, will be to reduce the revenues of the Government at Washington and increase the revenues of the Southern Government.
”The Congress at Washington may attempt to avert this course of affairs, even to the extent of inaugurating a blockade of all the southern ports; vessels of war have been ordered home from all the foreign stations to enable the Administration to be prepared for this policy; but to such an event France and England would act as they did with regard to Texas; they would acknowledge the independence of the Southern Confederacy, and send their fleets across the Atlantic to open every port in the South.
”Thus we find the country involved in a fearful commercial revolution through the policy of a fanatical party, which, for thirty years, has been endeavoring to overthrow all the best interests of the Republic for the sake of an abstraction. We see the whole current of commercial prosperity turned out of its channel, the wealth and importance of the northern cities struck down at a blow. We have experienced many commercial revulsions before now from time to time — in 1817, 1825, 1837 and 1857 — but these were the results of overtrading, of excessive speculation, and other financial causes which may produce like consequences in any country. The present revulsion, on the contrary, arises from purely political causes, and will be as disastrous in its effects as it is novel in its origin.
Of course not. The fact of the matter is that there wouldn't have been any reason to send goods destined for Northern consumers to New Orleans, as your editorial feared. Goods destined for Northern consumers would continue to go to Boston or New York or Philadelphia.
what you said is very true for the anti-bellum Midwest economy. What would happen, after secession, to the flow of goods up and down the Mississippi river is speculation.
Relatively sure the U.S. Government would make a strong attempt of collect tariffs where the Mississippi, Cumberland, Tennessee, and Arkansas rivers cross into the United States. Whether they could completely control the flow of goods out of the Confederacy to the Northern states is also speculation.
The people of the time would greatly disagree:
3/18/1861 It took only a week for Northern newspapers to understand the meaning of the low Confederate Tariff announced the week earlier in Montgomery.
The Boston Transcript wrote,
“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.
“Alleged grievances in regard to slavery were originally the causes for the separation of the cotton States; but it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding states are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centers 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 upon 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 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. In addition to this, the manufacturing interest of the country will suffer from the increased importations resulting from low duties.“
“The government would be false to its obligations if this state of things were not provided against.”
This problem prompted numerous politicians and businessmen to rush to Lincoln to advise him to invade the South.
You said, “Relatively sure the U.S. Government would make a strong attempt of collect tariffs where the Mississippi, Cumberland, Tennessee, and Arkansas rivers”
Wouldn’t happen if you went to Charleston, paid for your import, loaded it, and shipped North. No taxes due on private property. Don’t think that would happen? See this:
The same week, The New York Evening Post wrote,
“Allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten per cent, which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York; the railways would be supplied from the Southern ports.”
The Philadelphia Press said,
“Blockade Southern Ports. If not a series of customs houses will be required on the vast inland border from the Atlantic to West Texas. Worse still, with no protective tariff, European goods will under price Northern goods in Southern markets. Cotton for Northern mills will be charged an export tax. This will cripple the clothing industries, and make British mils prosper.
Finally, the great inland waterways, the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio Rivers will be subject to Southern tolls.”
“the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio Rivers will be subject to Southern tolls.” As would good moving north on these water routes.
Charleston would have been in a foreign port, anything coming from Charleston would have been subject to the U.S. tariff. if moved out of Charleston by ship to a Northern Port.
Iron rail off loaded at Savannah and shipped North would have to be off loaded and reloaded several times before it got out of the South, since there was no standard gauge to the rail system. Why would rail be imported to New York, the North could produce all the iron rail to support its railway system. Now the South on the other hand had one mill in the entire Confederacy that could produce iron rail.
Read the newspaper editorial and keep in mind that tariffs are charged on imports, not transports.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.