Finally, an honest Abe

Director Steven Spielberg, whom I introduced last week [in 2012] at Gettysburg at ceremonies marking the 149th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s greatest speech, said he was deeply humbled to be delivering an address on that history-making spot.

… Daniel Day-Lewis gives the definitive portrayal of our time, perhaps ever, of Honest Abe.

For people like me, who have spent their lives studying Abraham Lincoln, the film is chilling — as if he’s really come to life.

Day-Lewis does it by avoiding the traps most Lincoln actors fall into, the stoic, “Hall of Presidents”-esque stereotype that probably most Americans imagine.

There are no moving pictures of Lincoln, no recordings of his voice. But after his death, everyone was Lincoln’s best friend, and there are descriptions of everything from his accent to his gait.

The most important thing is the voice. Far from having a stentorian, Gregory Peck-like bass, Lincoln’s was a high, piercing tenor. Those who attended his speeches even described it as shrill and unpleasant for the first 10 minutes, until he got warmed up (or his endless stories managed to cow them into submission).

Few great people are appreciated in their time. And it’s good to remember that, no matter how right the decisions seem now, they were hard-fought then.

“I wanted — impossibly — to bring Lincoln back from his sleep of one-and-a-half centuries,” Steven Spielberg said at Gettysburg, “even if only for two-and-one-half hours, and even if only in a cinematic dream.”

Harold Holzer is one of the country’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln. ...

[At the end of the article Holzer gives thumbnail reviews of all prior Lincoln films, ranking them from worst to best, which Holzer considers to be Spielberg’s.]

Oh wow. Lots of NYC newspapers who loved slavery and profits...

Pretty sure there was a lot more than just New York newspapers in there, but if there isn't, let me assure you there are Boston and Chicago newspapers that make the same points as well.

Hear that FLT-Bird? He doesn't like New York (the place making the most profits from international trade) because it is too pro-slavery. He wants to see what Newspapers in other states thought. Can you oblige him?

... and Charles Dickens who hated everything about the United States.

You have evidence Charles Dickens hated the United States? From what I have read of his "Notes on America", he very much liked the United States. He spent a year touring the country, giving speeches and whatnot.

He was a staunch abolitionists and hated slavery, and during his tour of the South he urged slaveowners to give it up!

So you don't like what he says unless it agrees with you?

So if the Union side didn’t care one whit about slavery, why were the slaves freed?

Don't add more complexity to something you already don't understand. We'll get to that topic later. First you got to grasp the economics of the situation, then later we can get into the politics of the situation.

If they just wanted to make money off the South, why did they nearly destroy it?

We'll get to that later.

If the North were such mean, heartless bastards, why didn’t they hang Davis, Lee and every other high ranking Confederate?

We'll get to that later. Clearly you haven't read what Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase said on the matter.

You have a lot to learn before you can competently discuss this issue.

To all: DiogenesLamp's endlessly repeated claim that "the South" "paid for" 72% of Federal revenues is, of course, complete nonsense.
However, Southerners absolutely did contribute economically to the Union, circa 15% to 20% of total US GDP, and the loss of Southern exports did affect the Union economy, just not as much as our Lost Cause apologists like to pretend.

How much?

The table below represents the best summary I can find of US & CSA economics during the years 1860-1865:

DiogenesLamp: "72% of Federal revenue came from export products from the South.
If PEACE had maintained, those products would have eventually shipped directly from the South to Europe, and Northern Factors wouldn't have been involved.
Northern businesses would not have been involved.
That 200 million dollars per year [Southern Products
exports] would have been completely removed from the Northern economy.
The 500 million in direct trade with the North would also become less and less, because Southerners would be buying cheaper and better quality products directly from Europe."

Yes, DiogenesLamp's basic claim that the Union economy would (& did) suffer from removal of Confederate state exports & trade with the Union is valid -- that did happen to some degree, arguably circa 15%-20% overall.
However, the net result in 1861 was not a reduction in Union GDP -- even when adjusted for inflation, Union GDP continued to grow throughout the Civil War.
So, while the loss of Confederate state exports did hurt the Union economically, it was not the devastation our Lost Cause apologists like to pretend.

However, secession was absolutely devastating to the Confederate economy, which had contracted 65% in 1865, compared to 1860, in constant dollars.

Further, by 1863 Federal tariff revenues in nominal terms exceeded 1860's, and by 1864 even in inflation adjusted terms.
So all pretenses that "the South" "paid for" any number remotely resembling 72% of Federal revenues are just nonsense.

Here are the real numbers:

**USA & CSA GDPs, Exports, Imports & Tariffs (1860–1865)**
**All figures in millions of dollars, inflation-adjusted to 1860 dollars (except specie)**.
Sources: [1][2][3][4][5][6]
Year	USA Nominal GDP	Inflation-Adjusted GDP (1860$)	Union GDP	CSA GDP	Total Exports	Southern Exports	Specie Exports**	Total Imports	Tariff Revenues	Average Tariff %*
1860	4,410	4,316	3,546	770	400	208	67	354	53	15%
1861	4,673	4,398	3,738	660	209	63	24	272	38	14%
1862	5,881	4,945	4,435	510	159		12	159	41	26%
1863	7,746	5,323	4,908	415	142		17	167	47	28%
1864	9,600	5,379	5,064	315	144		25	177	57	32%
1865	10,012	5,523	5,248	275	143		30	132	47	36%
Notes: Union GDP calculated as total U.S. GDP minus estimated CSA GDP. Non-GDP series deflated using implied GDP deflators derived from Officer–Williamson. Southern exports available only for 1860–1861. * Tariffs after 1861 are Morrill Tariff rates. ** Specie exports are reported in nominal values and are not inflation‑adjusted, as they represent physical transfers of gold and silver rather than transactions settled in depreciated paper currency.

Sources
[1] Nominal U.S. GDP (Officer–Williamson / MeasuringWorth):
https://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/usgdp/result.php

[2] GDP methodology:
https://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/usgdp/constructiongdp.php

[3] Inflation-adjusted GDP series:
https://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/usgdp/sourcegdppre29.php

[4] Confederate States GDP estimates:
Historical Statistics of the United States
Schwab (1901), Confederate States of America

[5] U.S. exports, imports, and specie:
Scientific American Reference Book
U.S. Census foreign trade history

[6] U.S. tariff revenues:
Trescott, “Federal Government Receipts and Expenditures, 1861–1875” (JSTOR)

Pretty sure there was a lot more than just New York newspapers in there, but if there isn't, let me assure you there are Boston and Chicago newspapers that make the same points as well.

I hate to break it to you, but newspapers back then made zero effort at being impartial observers. The Democrat papers were going to damn the Lincoln administration regardless of what they did. Kind of like PMSNBC does with Trump today .

As to Charles Dickens “Notes on America” saying nice things, you could not be more wrong.

Charles Dickens came away from his American experience with a sense of disappointment. To his friend William Macready he wrote "this is not the republic I came to see; this is not the republic of my imagination" (Letters, 1974, v. 3, p. 156). On returning to England Dickens began an account of his American trip which he completed in four months. Not only did Dickens attack slavery in American Notes, he also attacked the American press whom he blamed for the American's lack of general information. In Dickens' next novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, he sends young Martin to America where he continues to vent his feelings for the young republic. American response to both books was extremely negative and passions flared.
Source: https://www.charlesdickenspage.com/charles-dickens-in-america.html

No, you are just nuts. A few posts ago, you admitted that the cotton planters did not pay any tax and that they didn’t even sell the cotton to the Europeans, the cotton factors did. You also agreed that the cotton factors were mostly Northern banks. It was those same banks that financed the importation of goods into the United States and thereby paid the Federal tariffs. And you agree that the vast majority of those imports were in Northern ports and were sold to Northern citizens. But somehow you insist that the South paid 72% of Federal taxes. Like I said, you are nuts. Really nuts.

You clearly don't understand how the economy worked. The South produced the cash crops that were exported. The North serviced those crops in the form of factors, insurers, bankers and shippers and ship builders. The goods were gathered on packet ships, handled through warehouses in NYC, then shipped across the Atlantic to European markets. The Southerners who produced and owned the cotton contracted with Northern shippers to do so. They had to pay insurance, the fee for use of the ships, the crews' wages, etc. If you know anything about shipping, the last thing you ever want to do is have them sail empty - that just costs money and delivers no value in return.

So the ships that had been contracted to sail to Europe were then filled with manufactured goods made in Europe after the cotton had been sold. These manufactured goods were what was then hit with the tariff. The Southern owners of those goods paid the tariff - not the port where they landed. So no, the ships arriving in NYC does not mean NYC is generating all that economic activity. Nor does it mean NYC or even the North is buying all those manufactured goods. Just like the Cotton, the goods were then trans shipped up and down the cost and via inland waterways to everywhere. The exporters WERE the importers. They paid the tariff because they were the owners of the goods.....in the exact same way that WalMart and Target pay the tariff on every shipload of Chinese goods that arrives in Long Beach, California - not the port of Long Beach.

Factors? They were just middlemen. Banks? They charged a fee for lending money for business ventures then just as they do now. They didn't pay any of the tariff on the goods. That was up to the owners of the goods to pay. That's why all those newspapers and all those observers at the time said that Southerners were paying the tariff. ITs because they were.

You would be totally wrong on that point. It appears you think King Cotton was a real thing. Turns out it was just a myth. See Industry and Economy during the Civil War The Northern economy grew rapidly during the war while “King Cotton” proved to be nothing but a myth. The South could not even feed themselves. Again, you are pretty much ignorant of the facts.

No, You're ignorant of the facts. The facts are the South was paying between 70% and 75% of the tariff. Do you think you know better than all those newspapers and all those commentators from all sides at the time? The North went deeply into debt during the war. The South had difficulty feeding itself because it was not set up to grow food. It was set up to grow cash crops for export. That's what they invested their money in because that offered the highest return on investment. Its not that they were so poor they couldn't grow food or somehow lacked the ability. Given time they could have become self sufficient in food production. As it was they had an economy geared toward producing cash crops for export because that was the most profitable thing to do up to that point.

Keep all of what money? You already agreed they didn’t pay any Federal tax. .

The South paid the large majority of the tariff. There was no federal income tax at that time. The government got most of its money via tariffs.

Plus your genius Southern planters embargoed their own cotton when the war began looking to force England to get involved. The North didn’t need to blockade it. Instead of getting in a fight they didn’t want, England developed new sources of cotton in Egypt and India. Brilliant move that embargo was. They thought Cotton was King and they had the world by the balls. Turns out, that was not the case. And here we are 165 years later, and you still have not learned that.

A couple things were at work. Britain was paying a lot for Cotton.....practically the oil of its day....and didn't want to have to pay all that money to a foreign country. So they started developing sources of cotton within the British Empire such as the Nile Delta and India. They had plenty of dirt cheap coolie labor in their own empire to do the work. They were also fearful of a war in America so they stockpiled as much cotton as they could in advance. They still got hurt economically but by 1861, the economic damage they suffered was not as much as it would have been a few years earlier and was not enough to force their hand. Give them credit for adjusting in time. The strategy likely would have worked and would have forced their hand a few years earlier.

And historical details aside, how in the f**k can you show sympathy for a bunch of rouge aristocrats who championed slavery and attempted to destroy this nation all for their own enrichment? That’s just sick.

Its quite simple. Your characterization is totally wrong. Southerners VOTED for secession. The vast majority of them did not own any slaves. The Southern states seceding would not have destroyed the US. It simply would have been smaller. If anything, the example of them seceding would have reined in the imperial ambitions of and pruned the growth of imperial Washington. That would have probably made the union that remained that much better/freer than it ended up becoming.

You are the only one being stupid here. It’s been explained to you multiple times that the Federal government did not tax exports. I’ll say it again. The Federal Government did Not tax EXPORTS!

and I'll say again THE EXPORTERS WERE THE IMPORTERS!

They kept 40% of the profits from cotton. The "Factors" and Northern shipping companies, as well as the FedGov all took "their share", leaving the actual slaveholders to make less money from slavery than the Northern businesses and government. Where the hell did you get the 40% number. Show me the source for that lie. And what “share” did the Federal Government take. How did they take it. You know damn well you are just making this stuff up. Don’t you get tired of just making up Bull Shit?

Do you think all those people at the time were just making up everything they said and you understand how their economy worked better than they did?

[To a Northern Congressman] "You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue laws, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay you to build up your great cities, your railroads, your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange, which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of Northern Capitalist. You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights and our institutions." Rep. John H. Reagan of Texas

"Before... the revolution [the South] was the seat of wealth, as well as hospitality....Wealth has fled from the South, and settled in regions north of the Potomac: and this in the face of the fact, that the South, in four staples alone, has exported produce, since the Revolution, to the value of eight hundred millions of dollars; and the North has exported comparatively nothing. Such an export would indicate unparalleled wealth, but what is the fact? ... Under Federal legislation, the exports of the South have been the basis of the Federal revenue.....Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia, may be said to defray three-fourths of the annual expense of supporting the Federal Government; and of this great sum, annually furnished by them, nothing or next to nothing is returned to them, in the shape of Government expenditures. That expenditure flows in an opposite direction - it flows northwardly, in one uniform, uninterrupted, and perennial stream. This is the reason why wealth disappears from the South and rises up in the North. Federal legislation does all this." ----Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton

"What were the causes of the Southern independence movement in 1860? . . . Northern commercial and manufacturing interests had forced through Congress taxes that oppressed Southern planters and made Northern manufacturers rich . . . the South paid about three-quarters of all federal taxes, most of which were spent in the North." - Charles Adams, "For Good and Evil. The impact of taxes on the course of civilization," 1993, Madison Books, Lanham, USA, pp. 325-327 incidentally, Charles Adams is a tax expert.

As Adams notes, the South paid an undue proportion of federal revenues derived from tariffs, and these were expended by the federal government more in the North than the South: in 1840, the South paid 84% of the tariffs, rising to 87% in 1860. They paid 83% of the $13 million federal fishing bounties paid to New England fishermen, and also paid $35 million to Northern shipping interests which had a monopoly on shipping from Southern ports. The South, in effect, was paying tribute to the North. When in the Course of Human Events: Charles Adams

"Next to the demands for safety and equality, the secessionist leaders emphasized familiar economic complaints. South Carolinians in particular were convinced of the general truth of Rhett's and Hammond's much publicized figures upon Southern tribute to Northern interests." (Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, Ordeal of the Union, Volume 2, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950, p. 332)

What were the causes of the Southern independence movement in 1860? . . . Northern commercial and manufacturing interests had forced through Congress taxes that oppressed Southern planters and made Northern manufacturers rich . . . the South paid about three-quarters of all federal taxes, most of which were spent in the North." - Charles Adams, "For Good and Evil. The impact of taxes on the course of civilization," 1993, Madison Books, Lanham, USA, pp. 325-327 incidentally, Charles Adams is a tax expert.

And he is totally full of crap on that point. He must be reading Neo confederate propaganda to come up with a bogus stat like that. I’ll post it again just for fun and ask you if the people shipping these good from Europe were stupid. Why ship all their stuff to New York when 3/4 of their customers were in the South. They could ship stuff to the South unload it and then pick up the cotton while they were there. Why didn’t they do that? Were they morons?

And no he's not. He's completely correct. He was reading the economic data. I'll say it again. WHERE THE SHIP LANDS IS IRRELEVANT. Do you think the city of Long Beach consumes vast amounts of goods from China? Duh. Of course not. That's just the single biggest port (by far) where most of the goods land. They are then trans shipped all over the place.

Nobody is saying 3/4s of their customers were in the South. Nor would they have to be. The goods were sold everywhere.

Why didn't they just ship directly ie from Southern ports to Europe and vice versa? Because that's not the way shipping/trade was organized. Because it was more economically efficient to have a central distribution hub then just as it is now. I might add Cotton was seasonal while other goods might not be etc etc.

Do you really think you....160 years later....understand how their economy works better than all those people at the time did?

Good work -- and definitive on the issue.

The South's large plantation owning slaveholders were not just wealthy but also astonishing in their pride and unreality about what secession would set in motion. Cotton and other plantation crops like tobacco and rice were so lucrative that British and US merchant banks had branches in the South's significant port cities. These included Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, Richmond, and New Orleans, of course, but also Pensacola, Wilmington, and Apalachicola.

So, with cash and access to credit, why didn't the Antebellum South also develop industry on a significant scale as the North did? Textile factories would have been a natural fit. Yet, aside from railroads, which served the transport needs of the plantation economy, there was little interest in industry because plantation slavery was so lucrative.

Eventually, during and after the Civil War, the South developed an industrial base. Yet, for decades, its growth was impeded by the South's endemic poverty, poor educational system, and the dismal effects of segregation. The modern South is different of course, and in many respects, a better place to live than the North.

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