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FLT-bird:
"Contrary to the laughable Northern propaganda posted here,"The Confederate States accounted for 70% of total US exports by dollar value.
Cotton was the primary export, accounting for 75% of Southern trade in 1860."
Stanley Lebergott 'Why the South Lost:Commercial Purpose in the Confederacy' pp. 59–60"
So everyone can see the fake math at work, here's how you get from accurate, roughly 50% of US exports being "Southern Products", to the exaggerated 70% or more as claimed by our pro-Confederate propagandists:
- $400 million actual total US exports in 1860
minus $58 million net specie (gold & silver) exports
= $342 million US merchandise exports $342 million is revised from $316 million as incompletely reported on earlier documents.
- $229 million in claimed "Southern Products" exports
including $11 million in manufactured cotton products -- Northern Products and
including $12 million in tobacco produced (of $19 million total) in Union states like Kentucky, Missouri and Indiana. - $229 million "Southern Products" divided by $342 million total exports = 67%,
or $229 million divided by originally reported $316 million = 72%.
That's how they arrive at 70%.
The true number is approximately 50%.
FLT-bird quoting:
"by 1860 the Southern states were paying in excess of 80 percent of all tariffs”
The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War; by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, 2002, ISBN 0-7615-3641-8, page 135-126:"
That is so mind-bogglingly false, it deserves a
Goebbels' Propaganda Award because, in fact:
- No Southern state ever paid even one penny of any US tariff.
- All tariffs were paid by citizens, not by states.
Those citizens might live in the North, South, East or West, but none were acting as officials of their state governments. - Over 90% of import tariffs were paid in major Union ports like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and San Francisco.
5% was paid at New Orleans, the largest Confederate state port
1% was paid at all other Confederate ports combined. - Suggestions that, somehow, magically -- it was actually Southerners living in Union ports who "paid for" import tariffs -- that's not supported by any evidence or logic, especially when you consider, virtually all imports were bulk raw materials whose customers were manufacturers of woolen, cotton, silk, iron and food products, the vast majority of those in Union states.
- How then, exactly, do our pro-Confederates claim "the South" paid for import tariffs?
Well, obviously, you need exports to "pay for" imports, however "Southern products" "paid for" virtually no imports from overseas. - By all logic and evidence, nearly 100% of "Southern Products" export income was used to pay directly for "imports" from the North and Western US.
- Southern "Imports" from the Union consisted mainly of "made in America" commodities:
- Woolen manufactures
- Shoes & other leather goods
- Cotton manufactures
- Silk products
- Iron products -- i.e., stoves, farm equipment, railroad
- Paper
- Soap and candles
- Tea
- Smoked fish
- Musical instruments
- Furniture
- However, in nearly every commodity, Southerners did their own manufacturing as well, including:
- Flour Mills
- Carpenters, builders, lumber & cabinet makers
- Iron workers, including casters & forgers -- i.e., Tredegar (Richmond), Cumberland Furnace (Nashville) and E. Tennessee Iron (Chattanooga).
- Clothing manufactures from cotton and woolens
- Hemp products including rope, sacks and paper.
- Shoes and other leather products
- Additionally, Southerners "exported" many items to the North, including:
- Raw cotton
- Tobacco
- Sugar
- Rice
- Turpentine and other naval stores
- Hemp products including rope, cloth and paper
- Livestock
Bottom line: in the years before 1861 there were huge volumes of interstate and inter-regional "exports" and "imports" which thoroughly mixed the earnings of one region with those of the others, such that there's no logical way to claim "The South" (or any other region)
"paid for" Federal import tariffs which funded government in Washington, DC.
Finally, before we (thankfully) leave DiLorenzo entirely, we should notice that even he was so embarrassed by the laughable absurdity of this 80% claim that, in later versions of his book, he changed the wording to: Southern states "were paying the Lion's share of all tariffs".
So, it appears that even though DiLorenzo himself is too embarrassed to repeat his absurd 80% claim, our good FRiend FLT-bird is not.
FLT-bird: "The following are what lawyers call "Statements Against Interest"...ie frank admissions by Northern newspapers at the time admitting that the Southern states are providing the overwhelming share of all exports/imports."
In fact, those quotes do no such thing.
FLT-bird quoting: "The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods.
What is our shipping without it?
Literally nothing.
The transportation of cotton and its fabrics employs more than all other trade.
It is very clear the South gains by this process and we lose.
No, we must not let the South go."
The Manchester, New Hampshire Union Democrat Feb 19 1861"
There's no disputing that Southern cotton was important to New Hampshire textile mills, and so a New Hampshire newspaper will say whatever it needs to, to keep commerce flowing.
Of course, this had nothing directly to do with foreign
exports or imports.
Further, typical propagandist -- has taken the quote out of context and so reversed its original meaning.
Here is the real point of that quote:
"No—we must not "let the South go."
It is easy and honorable to keep her.
Simply recognize in the neighborhood of states those principles of equity and courtesy which we would scorn to violate in our social relations at home—that is all.
Let New Hampshire treat Virginia as we should treat our neighbors.
Do we vilify them, watch for chances to annoy them, clear up to the line of the law, and sometimes beyond it, and encourage hostile raids against them?
Is that good neighborhood?
Then, let not one state practice it against another."
So, the Manchester, NH, newspaper wants Northerners to make nice with Southerners, a sentiment we all share.
FLT-bird: "December 1860, before any secession, the Chicago Daily Times foretold the disaster that Southern free ports would bring to Northern commerce:
"In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is.
Our coastwide trade would pass into other hands.
One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves.
We should lose our trade with the South, with all of its immense profits.
Our manufactories would be in utter ruins.
Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue, and these results would likely follow."
Chicago Daily Times Dec 1860"
Our FRiend
x has already dealt with the fact that the Chicago Times was a pro-slavery, pro-South, Copperhead
Democrat newspaper, which is here hardly advising
"against interest".
Regardless of that, the Chicago Times in this quote exactly confirms my argument for many years that Southern exports accounted for roughly half of US total exports, not 70% or 80% or any other such ridiculous number.
FLT-bird quoting:
"It is not a war for Negro Liberty, but for national despotism.
It is a tariff war, an aristocratic war, a pro-slavery war."
Abolitionist George Basset May 1861 American Missionary Association"
This quote, if accurate (I can't confirm it), would be from Bassett's second pamphlet,
"A Discourse on the Wickedness and Folly of the Present War, 24p., August 11, 1861".
Bassett was a rare combination of abolitionist and secessionist.
In 1860 there were several notable pro-secession abolitionists, including William Lloyd Garrison and Horace Greely.
After Fort Sumter in 1861, there were none that I can find beyond this George W. Bassett, and even he seem rather... ah... elusive.
FLT-bird: "Even after the fact, Northerners were saying the same things:
'This question of tariffs and taxation, and not the negro question, keeps our country divided....the men of New York were called upon to keep out the Southern members because if they were admitted they would uphold [ie hold up or obstruct] our commercial greatness.'
Governor of New York Horatio Seymour on not readmitting Southern representatives to Congress 1866"
This alleged proof-text doesn't seem to prove anything except, perhaps, that tariffs were always, politically as controversial as they were necessary.
FLT-bird: "Foreign sources noticed the same thing:
"If it be not slavery, where lies the partition of the interests that has led at last to actual separation of the Southern from the Northern States? …
Every year, for some years back, this or that Southern state had declared that it would submit to this extortion only while it had not the strength for resistance.
With the election of Lincoln and an exclusive Northern party taking over the federal government, the time for withdrawal had arrived …'
– Charles Dickens, as editor of All the Year Round, a British periodical in 1862"
Charles Dickens is often quoted on these CW threads and almost as often it's noted that while Dickens opposed slavery in theory, he also hated Northerners (because they had cheated him of royalties) and admired aristocratic Southerners.
In this particular quote, Dickens ties secession to the election of Republican Lincoln, an action which was also threatened in the election of 1856, and for the same reasons -- "Black Republicans' " threats to slavery.
FLT-bird: "But hey, who ya gonna believe - Observers on all sides at the time as well as economists and tax experts who have studied the period....or a PC Revisionist with his little fantasies about how taxes and the economy really work?"
That "PC Revisionist" posting here under the screen name of FLT-bird?
brojoeK: So everyone can see the fake math at work, here's how you get from accurate, roughly 50% of US exports being "Southern Products", to the exaggerated 70% or more as claimed by our pro-Confederate propagandists: $400 million actual total US exports in 1860 minus $58 million net specie (gold & silver) exports = $342 million US merchandise exports $342 million is revised from $316 million as incompletely reported on earlier documents. $229 million in claimed "Southern Products" exports including $11 million in manufactured cotton products -- Northern Products and including $12 million in tobacco produced (of $19 million total) in Union states like Kentucky, Missouri and Indiana. $229 million "Southern Products" divided by $342 million total exports = 67%, or $229 million divided by originally reported $316 million = 72%. That's how they arrive at 70%. The true number is approximately 50%.Gosh, it seems awfully strange that Southern politicians before the war, Northern politicians before the war, Foreign observers, Northern Newspapers, Southern Newspapers, Foreign Newspapers, Tax experts and Economists look at the trade flows before the war and all come to the conclusion that the Southern states were providing about 3/4s of all exports, yet some guy on a message board comes to a different conclusion ie that they were only providing 50%. LOL!
BroJoeK: That is so mind-bogglingly false, it deserves a Goebbels' Propaganda Award because, in fact: No Southern state ever paid even one penny of any US tariff. All tariffs were paid by citizens, not by states. Those citizens might live in the North, South, East or West, but none were acting as officials of their state governments.
People in those states who produced the exports, genius.
BroJoeK: Over 90% of import tariffs were paid in major Union ports like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and San Francisco. 5% was paid at New Orleans, the largest Confederate state port 1% was paid at all other Confederate ports combined. Suggestions that, somehow, magically -- it was actually Southerners living in Union ports who "paid for" import tariffs -- that's not supported by any evidence or logic, especially when you consider, virtually all imports were bulk raw materials whose customers were manufacturers of woolen, cotton, silk, iron and food products, the vast majority of those in Union states.
ROTF! Now you're trying to twist it to claim I've said Southerners living in those ports paid the tariff???? Nope. Never said any such thing. I said the OWNERS OF THE GOODS paid the tariff. Those Owners were Southerners....the very same Southerners who owned the exports those goods had been exchanged for.
BroJoeK: How then, exactly, do our pro-Confederates claim "the South" paid for import tariffs? Well, obviously, you need exports to "pay for" imports, however "Southern products" "paid for" virtually no imports from overseas.
Huh? This is laughably false. Southern Products like cotton, tobacco, etc were sold in those markets and the money used to buy manufactured goods which then filled the holds of the ships that had previously held the cotton and tobacco on their way across the Atlantic. What planet are you from?
BroJoeK: By all logic and evidence, nearly 100% of "Southern Products" export income was used to pay directly for "imports" from the North and Western US.
Again, LOL! No. It was used to buy European manufactured goods which were sold on the market all over the US. So SOME of what Southerners bought by way of manufactured goods came from Northern manufacturers, and SOME came from European manufacturers. It was the same all over the US.
BroJoeK: Southern "Imports" from the Union consisted mainly of "made in America" commodities: blah blah blah Bottom line: in the years before 1861 there were huge volumes of interstate and inter-regional "exports" and "imports" which thoroughly mixed the earnings of one region with those of the others, such that there's no logical way to claim "The South" (or any other region) "paid for" Federal import tariffs which funded government in Washington, DC.
Yeah...this is laughably false. The major exports were Cotton and Tobacco and to a lesser extent by the mid 19th century, grain primarily from the Midwest. The Northeast exported practically nothing and never had exported anything. The Cotton and Tobacco came from the South, were owned by Southerners, were exchanged for foreign manufactured goods and were then hit with the tariff when they made the journey back across the Atlantic.
BroJoek: Finally, before we (thankfully) leave DiLorenzo entirely, we should notice that even he was so embarrassed by the laughable absurdity of this 80% claim that, in later versions of his book, he changed the wording to: Southern states "were paying the Lion's share of all tariffs". So, it appears that even though DiLorenzo himself is too embarrassed to repeat his absurd 80% claim, our good FRiend FLT-bird is not.
We can argue over exact percentages. I've seen numerous authors say anywhere from 70% to 80%. It will depend on the year I suppose. The bottom line is that the Southern states provided the vast majority of all exports from the US and always had. The only one who even tries to dispute this obvious fact is you.
BroJoeK: In fact, those quotes do no such thing.
In fact, they do exactly that.
BroJoek: There's no disputing that Southern cotton was important to New Hampshire textile mills, and so a New Hampshire newspaper will say whatever it needs to, to keep commerce flowing. Of course, this had nothing directly to do with foreign exports or imports.
Notice, this quote says nothing about New Hampshire Textile Mills. It talks about shipping. "employ our ships" and "shipping".
BroJoeK: Further, typical propagandist -- has taken the quote out of context and so reversed its original meaning.
This from the guy who attempted to make it about textile mills when it did not say anything about that yet tries desperately to ignore shipping which it speaks of directly.
BroJoeK: Here is the real point of that quote: "No—we must not "let the South go." blah blah blah
So, the Manchester, NH, newspaper wants Northerners to make nice with Southerners, a sentiment we all share.
No. Its not really just "make nice". Its make any concession necessary with regard to slavery. That's really what they were urging. That was THE common sentiment in the North at the time. It is a sentiment Lincoln and the Republicans shared. That is why they were willing to offer express protections of slavery in the US Constitution effectively forever via the Corwin Amendment. The North didn't really care about slavery. They just wanted THE MONEY from the Southern states.
BroJoeK: Our FRiend x has already dealt with the fact that the Chicago Times was a pro-slavery, pro-South, Copperhead Democrat newspaper, which is here hardly advising "against interest". Regardless of that, the Chicago Times in this quote exactly confirms my argument for many years that Southern exports accounted for roughly half of US total exports, not 70% or 80% or any other such ridiculous number.
You persist in claiming that somehow Northern Democrats were not Northerners and did not represent Northern interests....even though they had to be elected by Northerners. ie, your claims are ridiculous. And the Chicago paper here said LESS THAN HALF. Not half. Less than. Read it again.
BroJoeK: This quote, if accurate (I can't confirm it), would be from Bassett's second pamphlet, "A Discourse on the Wickedness and Folly of the Present War, 24p., August 11, 1861". Bassett was a rare combination of abolitionist and secessionist. In 1860 there were several notable pro-secession abolitionists, including William Lloyd Garrison and Horace Greely. After Fort Sumter in 1861, there were none that I can find beyond this George W. Bassett, and even he seem rather... ah... elusive.
""The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals. No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle --- but only in degree --- between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure." – Lysander Spooner
"Notwithstanding all the proclamations we have made to mankind within the last 90 years — that our government rested on consent, and that that was the only rightful basis on which any government could rest — the late war has practically demonstrated that our government rests upon force: as much so as any government that ever existed. The North has thus virtually said to the world, "It was all very well to prate of consent, so long as the objects to be accomplished were to liberate ourselves from our connection with England, and also to coax a scattered and jealous people into a great national union. But now that those purposes have been accomplished, and the power of the North has become consolidated, it is sufficient for us — as for all governments — simply to say, Our power is our right." In proportion to her wealth and population, the North has probably expended more money and blood to maintain her power over an unwilling people than any other government ever did. And in her estimation, it is apparently the chief glory of her success, and an adequate compensation for all her own losses, and an ample justification for all her devastation and carnage of the South, that all pretence of any necessity for consent to the perpetuity or power of the government is (as she thinks) forever expunged from the minds of the people.
In short, the North exults beyond measure in the proof she has given that a government professedly resting on consent will expend more life and treasure in crushing dissent than any government openly founded on force has ever done.
And she claims that she has done all this on behalf of liberty! On behalf of free government! On behalf of the principle that government should rest on consent!" Lysander Spooner in No Treason
BroJoeK: This alleged proof-text doesn't seem to prove anything except, perhaps, that tariffs were always, politically as controversial as they were necessary.
What it proves is that the Tariff issue was always the real bone of contention between the regions - not slavery.
BroJoeK: Charles Dickens is often quoted on these CW threads and almost as often it's noted that while Dickens opposed slavery in theory, he also hated Northerners (because they had cheated him of royalties) and admired aristocratic Southerners. In this particular quote, Dickens ties secession to the election of Republican Lincoln, an action which was also threatened in the election of 1856, and for the same reasons -- "Black Republicans' " threats to slavery.
I love how everybody who provides a quote you don't like somehow has some sinister ulterior motive or personal grudge or some other reason. It can't possibly be that they are simply reflecting the reality. Only you have a total monopoly on that. LOL!
BroJoeK: That "PC Revisionist" posting here under the screen name of FLT-bird?,/p>
No, the PC Revisionist is obviously you. I don't spout Leftist dogma and historical revisionism here. I leave that to you.