Posted on 06/02/2009 4:45:48 AM PDT by Davy Buck
No one can deny the importance of slavery to the feud that split the United States, or that the CSA states made protection of slavery one of their central purposes. But the Southern confederacy -- that is, the national government of the CSA -- was no more built on slavery than was the Northern Union . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com ...
You see what that bale is wrapped in? Guess what it is. Obviously you've never even laid eyes on a modern cotton bale let alone a replica or pictures of 1860 bales being loaded. My position that UNFAIR taxes targeted directly at southern farmers who were also faced with a majority in government that was hostile to their life-long method of making money (this is the slavery part) and who were not willing to moderate their demands, caused the south to secede. It's the WHOLE ball, not ONE item.
I’m not making excuses, none are needed, I’m stating facts as in the WHOLE truth of the war.
I think you're underestimating the lifespan, or overestimating the imports. In 1979, Thomas Huertas wrote a piece on the confederate tariff and its expected revenue for the "Journal of Economic History". In it he analyzed Southern imports from the North and abroad in the year prior to the rebellion. The South bought $4 million in farm implements from the North, and none from overseas, which comprised 1.7% of the total goods brought in. About half of all goods brought in - $131 million - was in the form of clothing, shoes, and fabric for making clothes.
The fact of the matter is that the South did consume a disproportionate percentage of imports - a disproportionately small percentage.
OK, so let's look at that. The Morrill Tariff provided a tariff "...on cotton bagging, or any other manufacture not otherwise provided for, suitable for the uses to which cotton bagging is applied, whether composed in whole or in part of hemp of flax, or any other material, or imported under the designation of gunny cloth, or any other appellation, two cents per square yard;" The confederate tariff, passed in May 1861 and enacted in August 1862, allowed a 15% tax on "...gunny cloth and India baggings and India mattings of all sorts, not otherwise provided for."
So the Northern tariff taxed gunny cloth at 2 cents per square yard. The confederate tariff taxed it at a flat 15%. Which tariff was more onerous on Southern plantation owners? And if gunny cloth was so important to Southern agriculture then why was it taxed at all?
There was the famous Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond which used slave labor, even in skilled positions.
yes...and Yankees much like today were so sweet, well mannered and polite...
I still call northerners I don’t like yankees...which includes a few dozen south haters here
good yankees like Ted Nugent and Kid Rock I call buddy or hoss
That’s why they called it the “civil” war.
lol
High protective tariffs on manufactured goods, designed to aid American manufacturing, had the effect of raising prices on goods purchased throughout the country, but needed most heavily in South. Support for manufacturing interests was strong in the north, where the population had grown faster, meaning that there were more members in the House of Representatives from the North then from the South. Thus high protective tariffs were regularly passed.
Source: http://www.sagehistory.net/jeffersonjackson/topics/nullification.htm
Now this was 30 years before secession, yet SC was stringently threatening secession based on protective tariffs.
I’m having a real hard time confirming your 60 million bushels. I found NY State Commerce report at :
http://books.google.com/books?id=NKcoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA100&lpg=PA100&dq=1860+crop+exports+to+europe&source=bl&ots=xk—DWVoMN&sig=KdmgPF2Zf8SicyX6WPopqj9ZIZ0&hl=en&ei=29knStzeGJCJtgeuwLG1Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA70,M1
I’m seeing for Exports:
Wheat - 1,880,908 Bushels
Wheat flour - 1,187,200 bbls
Indian corn - 1,580,019 Bushels
Indian meal - 86,073 bbls
I don’t see anything CLOSE to 60 million bushels of wheat when the number 1 exporting port to england is shipping less than 2 million Bushels.
You are going to have to show.
Tariffs had risen and tariffs had fallen and no Soutehrn state, other than South Carolina, had ever threatened secession. Even South Carolina was more nullification rather than secession. No serious threat...until a president was elected dedicated to halting the spread of slavery. And you don't see a connection in that?
Like what?
Of course I do, but you are completely and I think intentionally neglecting to notice that the balance in the number of slave/free states was already tilted toward the free states, and every new state added was debated between slave/free. The purpose of which was rooted in economics of the types of farming the southern infrastructure was set up for. Consider a radical shift in states free vs slave, and the imbalance this would bring to congress, add in tariffs protective of Northern industry, and you get a political/economic/social trifecta that assaulted the way of life for southern states. I've never failed to admit any CONNECTION, connection is my whole point. I have only asserted, as the author of the article here, that "Slavery" is the simpletons excuse for the war.
mark
That's funny, this: http://books.google.com/books?id=NKcoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA100&lpg=PA100&dq=1860+crop+exports+to+europe&source=bl&ots=xk--DWVoMN&sig=KdmgPF2Zf8SicyX6WPopqj9ZIZ0&hl=en&ei=29knStzeGJCJtgeuwLG1Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA225,M1 says Gunny is taxed at 5 cents/sqyd in 1842, 20 cents/squyd in 1846, and 15 cents/sqyd in 1847. Where are you getting your facts from?
Denying slavery as the single most important reason for Southern secession is revisionism at its worst. The simple fact is that take away slavery and leave every other reason you care to mention and the South does not rebel. Leave slavery and take away every other reason and the South does. It's as simple as that, and the speeches and writings of the Southern leaders of the time support it.
From the actual wording of the Morrill Tariff and the actual wording of the confederate tariff act of 1861.
New York Times, Sept. 27, 1861
Even your numbers, though, would seem to indicate something more important than the "jack chit" you described.
So then you are completely ignoring the previous years of protective Tariffs which the Morrill Tariff only mildly compromised in some areas, and raised on others.
Why don’t you try reading the Tariff accounting in the links I gave you which shows you more than your myopic source, like several years previous. The time that secession was building.
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.