“Their philanthropy yields to their interests. Notwithstanding their professions of humanity, they are disinclined to give up the benefits they derive from slave labor…The idea of enforcing the laws, has but one object, and that is collection of the taxes, raised by slave labor to swell the fund necessary to meet their heavy appropriations. The spoils is what they are after – though they come from the labor of the slave.”
Is that irrefutable gospel truth pulled straight out of a burning bush too.....or is it all false and propaganda now that he said something very inconvenient for their argument?
Here is what Rhett said in his address which was attached to and sent out along with South Carolina's Declaration of Causes: And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures.
There is another evil, in the condition of the Southern toward the Northern States, which our ancestors refused to bear toward Great Britain. Our ancestors not only taxed themselves, but all the taxes collected from them, were expended among them. Had they submitted to the pretensions of the British Government, the taxes collected from them, would have been expended in other parts of the British Empire. They were fully aware of the effect of such a policy in impoverishing the people from whom taxes are collected, and in enriching those who receive the benefit of their expenditure. To prevent the evils of such a policy, was one of the motives which drove them on to Revolution. Yet this British policy, has been fully realized towards the Southern States, by the Northern States. The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three fourths of them are expended at the North. This cause, with others, connected with the operation of the General Government, has made the cities of the South provincial. Their growth is paralyzed; they are mere suburbs of Northern cities. The agricultural productions of the South are the basis of the foreign commerce of the United States; yet Southern cities do not carry it on. Our foreign trade, is almost annihilated…… To make, however, their numerical power available to rule the Union, the North must consolidate their power. It would not be united, on any matter common to the whole Union in other words, on any constitutional subject for on such subjects divisions are as likely to exist in the North as in the South. Slavery was strictly, a sectional interest. If this could be made the criterion of parties at the North, the North could be united in its power; and thus carry out its measures of sectional ambition, encroachment, and aggrandizement. 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......."
A book I would recommend would be Complicity: how the North promoted, prolonged and profited from slavery written by 3 New England Journalists. They too point out like many others that it was actually the North
- via servicing exports
- via tariffs on imports (since it was Southerners doing the importing)
- via unequal federal subsidies for companies and infrastructure projects to benefit primarily the North
which was deriving the most economic benefit from slavery. Their comment was "this was slavery the way the North liked it - most of the profits and none of the screams."
- via tariffs on imports (since it was Southerners doing the importing)
- via unequal federal subsidies for companies and infrastructure projects to benefit primarily the North
which was deriving the most economic benefit from slavery. Their comment was "this was slavery the way the North liked it - most of the profits and none of the screams."
Ditto asked me to explain how the North was getting 60% of the profits from slavery. I didn't feel like trying to explain it to him because he can't seem to understand how the South was producing 75% of the tax revenue.
How the North was making so much money off of slavery is probably beyond his ability to grasp.