[FLT-bird]

BroJoeK: That is a total Lost Cause lie,

Nope! its the reality. The denial of it is the lie.

BroJoeK: First, how many slaveholders were there? In 1860, 15 slaveholding states with roughly 8 million whites (plus 4 million slaves), about half were males and half of those adults (the median age in 1860 was 19), of whom about half were relatively prosperous -- so, in 1860 the entire South included about one million prosperous adult white men. According to the 1860 census, ~400,000 were slaveholders, meaning circa 40% of prosperous white men. But slaveholders and slaves were far from evenly distributed over the South, about half of all slaveholders lived in the seven Deep South states, meaning, of ~300,000 prosperous adult white men in the Deep South, nearly 200,000 owned slaves. Further, everybody in those days had very large families and communities of close friends -- meaning everyone was closely related or associated with slaveholders. So, nearly anyone who didn't themselves hold slaves was closely related to others who did.

Its true that the Wealthy owned a grossly disproportionate share of the slaves. Of that 5.63% of all White Southerners who owned slaves, half owned 5 or fewer. Meaning, about 2.8% owned a LOT of them. Of course, in those wealthy families which owned a lot of slaves, it was quite common for the husband to own slaves, the wife to have inherited slaves from her family (like Lee's Wife, Grant's Wife, etc), adult children would be given slaves (eg a childhood playmate they were close to, a personal servant, etc) so having multiple slave owners in one family was common for those wealthy families.

BroJoeK: That meant only in relatively "backward" regions -- i.e., Appalachia, northern Alabama, central & northern Texas -- where few or no slaves were held, could communities be found to actually oppose slavery, secession and civil war against "the North".

The percentage of White families which owned slaves was relatively small and this was more true in the Upper South where industrialization was more advanced and where for the most part the land was less suited to growing cash crops like cotton and tobacco.

BroJoeK: Slaveholders in the Confederate Army: "Historian Joseph Glatthaar’s statistical analysis of the 1861 volunteers in what would become the Army of Northern Virginia reveals that one in 10 owned a slave and that one in four lived with parents who were slave-owners. Both exceeded ratios in the general population, in which one in 20 owned a slave and one in five lived in a slaveholding household. “Thus,” Glatthaar notes, “volunteers in 1861 were 42 percent more likely to own slaves themselves or to live with family members who owned slaves than the general population.” In short, Confederate volunteers actually owned more slaves than the general population." It's important to remember that these percentages varied widely among different regions of the South.

That was volunteers at the beginning....which makes sense given that a lot of family farmers couldn't afford nearly so easily to take time away from the farm to go off to fight. Ergo, the volunteers at the start tended to be more from the wealthier strata which could afford to send the men off to fight more easily.

BroJoeK: Historian James McPherson estimates 1/3 of Confederate soldiers came from slaveholding families, and doubtless that's true of some regions, not true of others.

Yeah I've seen his claims here and don't find them credible. He doesn't provide much evidence for his guesstimate.

BroJoeK: How important were tariffs in the 1860 presidential election? The 1860 Southern Democrat Party (Breckenridge) platform said not one word about tariffs. The 1860 Northern Democrat Party (Douglas) platform said not one word about tariffs. The 1860 Constitutional Union Party (Bell) platform said not one word about tariffs. The 1860 Republican Party platform said this about tariffs: "12. That, while providing revenue for the support of the general government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these imports as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country; and we commend that policy of national exchanges, which secures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerative prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor, and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence -- in other words, Line the pockets of our coporate fatcat supporters and appeal to Northern factory workers too since they stand to benefit from the competition being priced out of the market."

Gosh, how did these parties do in the Deep South? Oh that's right! They were complete non entities. The Southern Democrats utterly dominated the South - most especially the Deep South and they were not at all shy in their complaints about the Tariff or about the totally unequal federal government expenditures. They had not been shy about complaining about it bitterly for years and years.

BroJoeK: 95% of Southerners never saw a tariff and never paid a tariff, so tariffs were irrelevant to their lives except in a vague sense of everybody grumbles about high prices.

This is 100% pure unadulterated BS. Southerners saw the effects of the tariff when they got less money from Wholesalers for their cash crops. They saw the effects of the tariff when they saw sales of their cash crops decline in foreign markets. They saw the effects of the tariff when the price of the manufactured goods they needed to buy went up considerably. They knew full well exactly what caused all of this - high tariffs. That's what caused the Nullification Crisis after all.

BroJoeK: But this was not a political issue in 1860, nor did any Southern politician threaten secession over tariffs.

More complete and utter BS. It was a political issue in the 1820s. It was a political issue during the Nullification Crisis. It had been an ongoing political issue ever since then. Multiple Southern politicians said quite openly that the ruinously high tariffs were ample ground for them to secede. They had been saying similar things for a long time.

BroJoeK: Not a single 1860 or 1861 "Reasons for Secession" document mentioned the Morrill Tariff specifically, or even high tariffs generally as their reason for secession.

They didn't say "Morrill" Tariff specifically but they said "they drain our substance via sectional partisan legislation" (Texas), they complained bitterly about tariffs and the grossly unequal federal expenditures which benefitted the North at the South's expense (Georgia) or they complained bitterly about both the Tariff and the grossly unequal federal expenditures which benefitted the North at the South's expense (Rhett's address attached to and sent out with South Carolina's declaration of Causes).

BroJoeK: Some of that is fake history, beginning here: the 1860 proposed Morrill Tariff did not restore 1828 Tariff of Abominations rates, but rather those of the much lower 1846 Walker Tariff.

No, that is false. Everybody knew the first round of the Morrill Tariff would not be the last. They "only" proposed to double tariff rates but once they pushed that through, they weren't going to stop. They'd keep pushing until the Tariff rates were pushed to the stratosphere as indeed they were going to an incredible 53% where they stayed until passage of the 16th amendment in 1913. The Walker Tariff was 25%. That was already WAY higher than the Southern states wanted. Remember the MAXIMUM tariff allowed under the Confederate Constitution was 10%.

These Walker rates had been approved by Southerners in 1846, were even commended in Georgia's "Reasons for Secession" document of January 1861, and as predicted at the time (1846), produced an economic boom throughout the country.

Southerners agreed to the Walker Tariff because that was as low as they could get the tariff rates and they knew it. It was still far far higher than would have been appropriate to meet their needs. Free to set their own tariff rates in the Confederate Constitution they set their maximum at 10%. What you're acting like was a compromise and such a great deal for the Southern states was just getting screwed not quite as hard as they'd been getting screwed before. It was a LONG way from being a tariff rate that would be beneficial to them.

BroJoeK: The problem in 1860 was (as always) Democrat government overspending, which doubled the national debt in just the four years of the Buchanan administration. The Democrat government needed more revenues to pay its bills, and that was the origin of the Morrill Tariff.

LOL! Pure BS. The Tariff was raised because corporate interests had been screaming for it for commercial reasons. A higher tariff meant they could raise price and still gain market share. Similarly, who were the ones who had their greedy hands out grasping for ever more federal pork paid for mostly by Southerners? Why that would be Northerners yet again. It was they who got all kinds of subsidies for their fishing fleets, for mining, for public works like the Erie Canal and the Sewer system for NYC and especially for Railroads.

After the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations", Congress reduced tariffs four different times: 1832 Tariff -- from >50% to ~40% 1833 Tariff -- from 40% to ~20% 1842 "Black Tariff" -- increased from 20% to 32% 1846 Walker Tariff -- from 32% to 25% 1857 Tariff -- from 25% to ~16% 1860 Proposed Morrill -- from 16% to ~26% So, the entire Lost Causer claim that anything remotely resembling a majority of Southerners could be persuaded to declare secession and civil war against the United States over minor fluctuations in tariff rates is just absurd, ridiculous and 100% counter-factual.

Firstly, the Morrill Tariff would not raise rates from 16% to 26% as you claim. It would DOUBLE tariffs to 32% and as I've said before, everybody knew that was just the first bite of the apple and they would be back again for more. As indeed they DID come back for more jacking rates all the way to 53% and leaving them there for over FIFTY YEARS.

That puts the lie to the myth that it was just "minor fluctuations" in tariff rates. While Tariffs and grossly unequal federal government expenditures (you conveniently leave that part out) were part of the complaints Southerners had, the centralization of power in Washington DC....aka the usurpation of power by the federal government never granted to it by the states was another bitter bone of contention. Southerners hated "centralism" as they called it. They hated it at the time the Constitution was ratified. They still hate it.

So the entire PC Revisionist claim that it was "all about slavery" is shown once again to be nothing more than antihistorical, unfactual, propaganda and lies.

BroJoeK: No, Morrill didn't double average rates, but those did rise from the record low 1857 levels of ~16% to around the Tariff of 1846 rates -- 26% -- which were about half of 1828 "Tariff of Abomination" rates, over 50%.

32% initially...and of course after the first bite of the apple they came back for more and raised rates to over 50% - as everybody knew they would. That was their aim all along. Kinda like when the gun grabbers say "we only want to ban this set of guns here....the rest will be fine, don't worry about it". Bullshit. They want to ban them all. That is their endgame and everybody knows it. Same deal here.

BroJoeK: Remember, Morrill was defeated in 1860 and only passed in 1861 because Southern Democrats walked out of Congress, thus letting Republicans call the shots on tariffs.

Remember Morrill passed the House in 1860 and everybody knew it was going to pass the Senate. All that was needed was to pick off one or two Senators and that could easily be done by offering a sweetener for this industry or that which happened to be in one Senators' district or another.....and better hurry up and accept our deal or one of your colleagues will accept the deal we offered him and you'll be left out in the cold." ie log rolling.

BroJoeK: Had Democrats remained in Congress in 1861 they could have again defeated Morrill, or at least modified it more to their liking.,/P>

Nah. A Senator or two would have been picked off as I described above and given their majority due to their larger population, the Northern states could have then passed it.

BroJoeK: Morrill could not even pass the House in 1860, had Democrats remained solid in opposition, but they weren't -- a huge number even abstained from voting.

It DID pass the House in 1860.

BroJoeK: In the Senate, even in 1861, Morrill could only pass after Southern Democrats left Congress.

It could have been passed in the Senate by picking off one or two Senators. Remember when they exempted the entire state of Nebraska to get a Senator to vote for Obamacare? If they need to pick off one or two Senators, they can cut a sweetheart deal for him and threaten him that if he doesn't accept and somebody else jumps at the deal they were offered, he and his constituents will be screwed and get nothing. That kind of arm twisting pretty much always works if all you need is one or two.

BroJoeK: First of all, the 1846 Walker Tariff reduced the "Black Tariff" of 1842 from 32% to 25%. The Tariff of 1857 further reduced rates to ~16%, contributing to a doubling of the US national debt during the four years of the Buchanan administration.

Well gosh. Just stop giving Northern corporations and special interest groups so much money from the federal treasury and there won't be any budgetary problems. Its not like the US was spending much on its military or like it was spending on social programs since there were none. But no. Northern special interest groups couldn't take their snouts out of the public trough even a little bit for any length of time.

That's why the Morrill Tariff was proposed to restore the old Walker Tariff rates of 1846.,/p>

No it wasn't. Northern Manufacturers had been clamoring for ever higher tariffs for a long time. They had difficulty competing with Britain and France which had first mover advantages and economies of scale. They knew the only way they could really make inroads into their market share was to jack tariffs way up and have a captive market.

BroJoeK: Second, your 10% rate is pure fantasy that had never been achieved, was never even proposed, not even in the Confederate Congress.

The 10% maximum tariff was eminently achievable. Remember that Southern state governments had very small budgets at the time. They also didn't spend much. The South HATED pork barrel spending. They required that bills can only be about one thing and it must state what it is about in the title as part of the Confederate Constitution. They gave the president a line item veto to allow him to cut pork barrel spending. The ONLY reason the Confederate Congress was not able to have tariff rates as low as they would have preferred is they had to raise money to defend themselves from the war of aggression Lincoln started.

BroJoeK: Third, no politician in the 1860 election ever threatened to secede over tariffs -- that's a fact.

There was no maximum tariff in the US Constitution. Jacking tariffs to the stratosphere was perfectly legal no matter how much Southerners hated it. They knew that.

BroJoeK: Finally, here are the average total tariff rates per presidential administration (source 1), (source 2): Washington: 21% (Tariff of 1792) John Adams: 24% Jefferson 32% Madison: 31% Monroe: 35% (Tariff of 1816) J.Q. Adams: 47% (Tariff of 1824) Jackson (1): 48% ("Tariff of Abominations") Jackson (2): 23% (Tariff of 1833) Van Buren: 19% Harrison/Tyler: 22% ("Black Tariff" effective 1844) Polk: 26% (1846 Walker Tariff) Taylor/Fillmore: 24% Pierce: 26% Buchanan: 17% (Tariff of 1857) Lincoln (1): 25% (Morrill Tariff) Lincoln/Johnson (2): 43%

Lincoln 25%???? ROTFLMAO!!! They jacked up the average rate to 47% (53% for some items) and left it there for decades. As several documents said, Southerners agreed to higher tariffs than they would have liked in the early years of the Republic because the Southern Colonies were far and away the richer colonies. Northern politicians pleaded for support for infant industries like shipbuilding, mining, etc. Southerners saw some sense in building up these industries for national security so they readily agreed. But of course once given Northerners only ever clamored for MORE! MORE! MORE! even when those industries were far from infant any more. Its always sweet when you can get the government to give you other people's money. Nobody ever wants to give that up.

BroJoeK: In fact, Rhett did not mention the Morrill Tariff, in his Address to the Slaveholding States, and only spoke vaguely and falsely about tariffs -- by claiming that only Northerners supported them and only Southerners opposed them.

In fact Rhett spoke explicitly about tariffs and spoke very truly. He admitted that Southerners were willing to support them initially for reasons I've outlined above but the greedy corporate interests in the North just kept demanding more.

BroJoeK: The truth is that both support for and opposition to protective tariffs was national and depended highly on how people made their livings.

Early on that was true. That was not really true anymore after the 1820s when Southerners saw just how damaging really high tariffs were to them economically.

BroJoeK: The actual rates then were the results of complicated political negotiations and varied depending on elections. In 1860 tariffs were the lowest they had been since the early years of Pres. Washington's administration.

And they were still considerably higher than Southerners wanted.

BroJoeK: And one fact which no Southern politician ever mentioned was that every Southern export -- cotton (25%), tobacco (40%), sugar (30%), rice, etc. -- was also highly protected by US import tariffs.

LOL! Irrelevant. The US was a large exporter of all the above. The British Empire had not yet developed extensive cotton production in their empire in places where it was suitable like the Nile Delta and India. The US was the world leader in production of Cotton and Tobacco. They weren't worried about foreign competition.

BroJoeK: Sure, after the November election, when Toombs was campaigning for secession, and as a result, Georgia was the only state to mention tariffs in its "Reasons for Secession" document. However, even Georgia did not mention the Morrill Tariff and, indeed, pointed to the Tariff of 1846 as their example of a "good tariff".,/P>

Of course Texas among its bill of particulars said they drain our substance through partisan sectional legislation (they meant tariffs) and South Carolina attached Rhett's address to their declaration of causes. Rhett's address talks in great detail about tariffs and grossly unequal federal expenditures.

BroJoeK: Of course, I understand your point here, however, the Compromise of 1850 took responsibility for enforcing Fugitive Slave Laws away from states and made that a Federal authority. In November 1860 there had been no complaints by Southerners against the Federal enforcement of Fugitive Slave Laws, nor could there be so long as Democrats were in charge, which they had been almost continuously since the election of 1800.

Northern STATES had violated the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution. There's no question here that they did.

BroJoeK: I agree with you that a very small number of South Carolina's richest globo-slaver elites had believed this ever since the Nullification Crisis of 1832.

oh it was FAR more than just "richest globo-slaver elites" who believed that - because it was true of course. There are numerous statements from other Southern political leaders from other areas who said much the same and the New Orleans paper I quoted said the same as well. Jefferson Davis in particular said the same many times before secession and after.

You note their dislike for centralized power as well. Though he's often quoted for the Cornerstone speech, here's what Stephens said about centralism: "If centralism is ultimately to prevail; if our entire system of free Institutions as established by our common ancestors is to be subverted, and an Empire is to be established in their stead; if that is to be the last scene of the great tragic drama now being enacted: then, be assured, that we of the South will be acquitted, not only in our own consciences, but in the judgment of mankind, of all responsibility for so terrible a catastrophe, and from all guilt of so great a crime against humanity."

“Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late… It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision… It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government,and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.” Maj. General Patrick R. Cleburne

BroJoeK: However, there was no possible way that a handful of South Carolina's wealthiest citizens could convince millions of loyal Southern citizens to declare secession and war on the United States over something as minor as small adjustments in the tariff rates.

We've already dealt with the false claim that it was "just" "minor adjustments" to the tariff rates. It was also grossly unequal federal expenditures....something you always leave out. It was also federal usurpation of ever more power. It was also arguments over slavery and as I've outlined before, the open support for John Brown and his fellow terrorists by prominent and wealthy backers in the North AND the Northern states' refusal to prosecute them. That event convinced a lot of fence sitters in the South that they weren't dealing with mere political opponents but actual enemies who genuinely meant them harm. Imagine if several prominent Saudis came forward after 9-11 and declared that they had provided financial backing to the terrorists AND the Saudi government refused to hand them over or prosecute them. Just imagine what the feeling in the US would have been toward Saudi Arabia. Now you can begin to understand how a lot of Southerners felt about the Northern states after John Brown's terrorist raid.

Southerners felt like they were being screwed over, that the federal government was becoming more and more tyrannical and those people up there in the Northern states had shown themselves to be enemies. Its not surprising they said "enough" and chose to leave. The war was strictly in self defense after Lincoln attacked them.

BroJoeK: So, whatever the SC elites believed and wanted, the masses of Southern citizens had to be convinced that their vital interests -- their way of life, their "peculiar institutions" -- were being assaulted by "evil Northerners".

See my answer above. It WAS NOT the continuation of slavery. That wasn't threatened. Most Southerners did not own any slaves anyway. It was everything I listed above. They had had enough by 1860-61 and were ready to get out of a toxic relationship.

BroJoeK: And that would require a massive campaign of propaganda, lies and deceptions the likes which this country had never seen before, and didn't see again until very recent years.

No. It just required Southerners to notice what had been happening. Trying to convince Americans in the late 20th and early 21st centuries that it was "all about slavery" despite the obvious facts showing it wasn't has been an ongoing massive campaign of propaganda, lies, half truths and deceptions by Leftists to first demonize the South and its history and culture and then to move on to demonizing the whole US and its history and culture. After all, the Founding Fathers were mostly the Fathers and Grandfathers of Southerners in 1861.

[BroJoeK]

FLR-bird: "Nope! its the reality.
The denial of it is the lie."

FRiend, you are here peddling Lost Cause propaganda, which by definition is a pack of lies.
Of course, any propaganda will include the occasional fact and truth, but only where those coincidentally support the overall fake narrative.
So, I'm happy to acknowledge occasional facts appearing in Lost Cause narratives, but by definition, those are not "Lost Cause", they are simply elements of history.

FLR-bird: "Its true that the Wealthy owned a grossly disproportionate share of the slaves.
Of that 5.63% of all White Southerners who owned slaves, half owned 5 or fewer."

Your 5.63% number comes from the 1860 census which reported 316,632 named slaveholders in the 11 Deep South and Upper South states, out of their 5,482,222 total free population.
Your suggestion -- that large numbers of these slaveholders were other than adult white men -- is not supported by any data, and all logic dictates that the adult male "head of household" was listed on the census as the named slaveholder regardless of whom the family itself may have considered "owned" each slave.

Further, where you could find multiple slaveholders listed on the census for one family -- if anywhere -- is among the 1% of slaveholders who owned circa 25% of all slaves, meaning statistically it's insignificant.

And we do have a number for the average household size in 1860 -- it was 5.5 members, meaning circa 300,000 slaveholder families represented 1,650,000 people, or 30% of all whites in Confederate states.
However, the distribution of slaves and slaveholders was highly uneven, ranging from over 50% in some counties to fewer than 1% in others.

FLR-bird: "The percentage of White families which owned slaves was relatively small and this was more true in the Upper South where industrialization was more advanced and where for the most part the land was less suited to growing cash crops like cotton and tobacco."

Any map of the time shows where slavery was concentrated (up to 50%) and where it was weakest (less than 1%).
In Southern regions where slavery was weakest, there anti-slavery Unionism was strongest.

FLR-bird on McPherson's estimate of 1/3 slaveholder families: "Yeah I've seen his claims here and don't find them credible.
He doesn't provide much evidence for his guesstimate."

Here is the truth of this matter -- McPherson could easily have estimated 20% or 25% or 40% and all of those numbers are correct for some Confederate Army units from some Confederate regions, but the "overall" estimate depends 100% on how you decide to calculate it.
Regardless, one thing we can be certain of -- almost 100% of Confederate army officers and political leaders were slaveholders, regardless of how many of their troops did, or did not, come from slaveholding families.

FLR-bird: "Gosh, how did these parties do in the Deep South?
Oh that's right!
They were complete non entities.
The Southern Democrats utterly dominated the South - most especially the Deep South and they were not at all shy in their complaints about the Tariff or about the totally unequal federal government expenditures.
They had not been shy about complaining about it bitterly for years and years."

1860 Presidential Election, green = Southern Democrats

And yet... and yet... all your endless nonsense notwithstanding, the 1860 Southern Democrat Party platform said... {wait for it...}... not one word about tariffs!!

Tariffs were a non-issue in the 1860 campaign.

FLR-bird: "This is 100% pure unadulterated BS.
Southerners saw the effects of the tariff when they got less money from Wholesalers for their cash crops."

That is such a bald-faced lie I can't even believe you'd claim it -- have you no intellectual honesty at all??

Import Tariffs -- over 90% paid in Northern ports like New York, Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco -- had nothing whatever, zero, zip, nada, zilch, to do with wholesale prices paid to cotton farmers in Mississippi, or anywhere else.

How can you conceivably not understand that??

FLR-bird: "They saw the effects of the tariff when they saw sales of their cash crops decline in foreign markets. "

And yet the value of Southern exports grew exponentially from, say, 1820 to 1860.
In 1860 the American South was among the most prosperous regions on earth.

FLR-bird: "They saw the effects of the tariff when the price of the manufactured goods they needed to buy went up considerably."

And still, you're talking nonsense because the top items "imported" by Southerners "from the North" were:

1. Clothing made from Southern Cotton

2. Woolen goods made from Northern Wool.

3. Shoes and other leather goods made from Western Leather.

Imported luxury goods like silk, linen, musical instruments and furniture were only purchased by the wealthiest of slaveholders, not average Southerners.

Yes, cast iron stoves, railroad iron, bar, sheet and iron nails -- all those were slightly more expensive due to tariffs on iron imports.
But those tariffs were the same as tariffs on Southern exports of cotton, tobacco and sugar, so surely, what was good for the goose should be good for the entire flock, right?

FLR-bird: "They knew full well exactly what caused all of this - high tariffs.
That's what caused the Nullification Crisis after all."

The 1832 Nullification Crisis was caused by the 1828 Tariff of Abominations which had been supported by many Southerners including, most famously, Democrat Pres. Andrew Jackson.

The 1832 Nullification Crisis resulted in drastic tariff reductions in 1832, 1833, 1846 and 1857.
As a result of the 1857 Tariff reductions, the US national debt doubled under Democrat Pres. Buchanan, which led to Morrill's proposal to increase tariffs back to their 1846 Walker levels.

Tariffs were not a political issue in the South or anywhere else in 1860.

FLR-bird: "More complete and utter BS.
It was a political issue in the 1820s.
It was a political issue during the Nullification Crisis.
It had been an ongoing political issue ever since then.
Multiple Southern politicians said quite openly that the ruinously high tariffs were ample ground for them to secede.
They had been saying similar things for a long time."

Sure, Southern Democrat Fire Eaters (Yancey, Wigfall, Rhett, etc.) grasping at every straw they could find to justify secession and war against the USA -- however, even they well understood that Tariffs were a non-issue among the vast majority of Southern voters, which is why they stayed focused on slavery, slavery, slavery.

Tariffs were a non-issue in the 1860 election.

FLR-bird: "They didn't say "Morrill" Tariff specifically but they said "they drain our substance via sectional partisan legislation" (Texas)..."

Well, first of all, you've misquoted, the actual words are:

"They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance."

Those words are vague enough to mean anything, or nothing at all -- they don't mention either tariffs or duties, much less the Morrill Tariff specifically -- plus, they are flatly untrue, since in 1860 few regions on earth were more prosperous than the American South.

FLR-bird: "they complained bitterly about tariffs and the grossly unequal federal expenditures which benefitted the North at the South's expense (Georgia)"

No, in fact, the Georgia "Reasons for Secession" commended the Walker Tariff of 1846, which are just the rates Morrill was intending to restore.

"After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed.
It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people.
The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy."

FLR-bird: "...or they complained bitterly about both the Tariff and the grossly unequal federal expenditures which benefitted the North at the South's expense (Rhett's address attached to and sent out with South Carolina's declaration of Causes)."

There's no doubt, of the seven documents which provided Reasons for Secession before Fort Sumter (SC, GA, MS, TX, AL, Rhett & Stephens), Rhett (from 1832 Nullifier South Carolina) put more words into his complaints about tariffs than any other.
However, even Rhett paired his economic complaints together with slavery:

1. "It cannot be believed that our ancestors would have assented to any union whatever with the people of the North if the feelings and opinions now existing among them had existed when the Constitution was framed.
   There was then no tariff -- no negro fanaticism."

   Here Rhett is simply wrong because our Founders well intended both tariffs and "negro fanaticism", meaning abolition wherever possible.

2. "To build up their sectional predominance in the Union, the Constitution must be first abolished by constructions; but that being done, the consolidation of the North to rule the South, by the tariff and Slavery issues, was in the obvious course of things."

   Again, notice that even Rhett, from tariff nullifying South Carolina, pairs tariffs and slavery as equal issues.
   No other "Reasons for Secession" gives such prominence to complaints over tariffs.

   And even Rhett does not mention the Morrill Tariff, for the perhaps obvious reason that as of December 14, 1860, the Morrill Tariff was dead in Congress -- Morrill was not an issue in the 1860 campaign nor at the time of South Carolina's declaration of secession.

FLR-bird: "No, that is false.
Everybody knew the first round of the Morrill Tariff would not be the last.
They "only" proposed to double tariff rates but once they pushed that through, they weren't going to stop."

Sorry, but now you are just babbling fact-free nonsense, since your "everybody knew" is nothing more than your own mythologizing fantasy.

The actual historical fact is that the Tariff of 1857 had reduced the previous 1846 Walker Tariff to levels lower than any since our first tariffs in 1790, and the predictable results were to double the national debt between 1857 and 1860.
That is exactly why Democrat Pres. Buchanan did not veto Morrill after Southern Democrat withdrawals from Congress finally let it pass on March 2, 1861.

All of your nonsense about a "round two" happened during the Civil War, when there were no revenues from Confederate ports and there was a war to be paid for -- not anticipated in 1860.

Finally, the original increase from Morrill in 1862 was to ~26% from the 1857 rate of 16% and compared to the 1846 Walker average rate of 25%.
Even at the peak of the Civil War, Morrill rates did not reach those of the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations".

FLR-bird: "They'd keep pushing until the Tariff rates were pushed to the stratosphere as indeed they were going to an incredible 53% where they stayed until passage of the 16th amendment in 1913.
The Walker Tariff was 25%."

No, overall tariff rates were reduced below 30% in 1873, where they remained in the high 20%s until 1888 when tariffs fell below 25% and then to 20% in 1911.

The number one reason for the high tariff rates was to generate surplus revenues used to pay down the Civil War national debt -- which over those years was reduced from 33% of GDP in 1865 to 8% of GDP in 1910.

Today's national debt is north of 122% of GDP.

FLR-bird: "Southerners agreed to the Walker Tariff because that was as low as they could get the tariff rates and they knew it.
It was still far far higher than would have been appropriate to meet their needs.
Free to set their own tariff rates in the Confederate Constitution they set their maximum at 10%."

That is a total myth.
The truth is that Confederates simply adopted the US 1857 Tariff rates with some minor adjustments, in February 1861.
Then on March 15:

"March 15, 1861.
"The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, That an ad valorem duty of fifteen per cent. shall be imposed on the following named articles imported from abroad into the Confederate States of America, in lieu of the duties now imposed by law, to wit: Coal, cheese, iron in blooms, pigs, bars, bolts and slabs, and on all iron in a less manufactured state; also on railroad rails, spikes, fishing plates, and chairs used in the construction of railroads; paper of all sorts and all manufactures of; wood, unmanufactured, of all sorts."

Then on May 21, 1861 Confederates published a new schedule of tariffs which ranged from zero to over 25% and which we discussed at great length here, in 2019

Those final Confederate tariffs were supposed to take effect on August 31, 1861, but in fact were never really paid, since by then the Union blockade had all but eliminated normal tariff revenue producing imports.
During the Civil War, Confederate blockade runners were not known for paying normal tariffs.

FLR-bird: "LOL!
Pure BS.
The Tariff was raised because corporate interests had been screaming for it for commercial reasons.
A higher tariff meant they could raise price and still gain market share.
Similarly, who were the ones who had their greedy hands out grasping for ever more federal pork paid for mostly by Southerners?
Why that would be Northerners yet again.
It was they who got all kinds of subsidies for their fishing fleets, for mining, for public works like the Erie Canal and the Sewer system for NYC and especially for Railroads."

Sorry, but all of that is fact-free nonsense unconnected to any historical records or reality.

The actual historical facts are simple -- when Southern Democrats had majorities in 1857, they reduced the 1846 Walker tariff from ~25% to 16%.
However, they did not correspondingly reduce profligate Federal spending (Democrats never do) and so the US national debt doubled from 1857 to 1860.
This created a perceived need for higher tariffs and Morrill's proposal was to, basically, return rates to the 25% Walker 1846 levels which Southern Democrats had previously proposed and approved.

That's why Democrat Pres. Buchanan did not veto the new Morrill Tariff when it finally passed Congress on March 2, 1861.

And this is a good place to stop for now...