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 ...
I have lived most of my life in Texas and the South. They've ALWAYS been Yankees.
Wow. To say I disagree strongly wiith your hateful and ignorant comment would be an understatement.
It's the culture of the old Deep South I hate, not the people. Even among the slaveowners themselves, there were those who had admirable personal qualities. In their own way, they too were victims of the rotton society our American army destroyed in the war.
Also, most Southerners did not own slaves, yet were part of the culture. Were they dirtbags too? Your comments just seem a little too simplistic and hateful, as if you read the Cliff Notes on the Civil War, but did not delve further.
I’ve got to wonder if some of these folks even read the post. Quite amazing.
bookmark for later reading
Fascinating.
But when it comes to the American Civil War, I have zero interest.
None
Whatever courage and heroism the Confederate Army showed on the battlefield is forever stained by Andersonville.
While the South may have had a right to rebel, or even a duty to do so, the conduct of their Army in that God Forsaken place can never be overcome.
And what threatened that economic survival?
And the myths are written by the losers. You gave two prime examples.
What clause in the Constitution gave South Carolina the right to bombard the crap out of Sumter? The fact is that the Lincoln administration had taken no steps to force the South back into the Union until the confederacy resorted to war to achieve their aims. Having chosen war, the South can hardly complain just because it didn't turn out the way that they had hoped.
Had you bothered to read the article, you would have found these parragraphs in the text:
The Republicans in the 36th Congress made it clear where the interest lay. Their private correspondence shows them interested in only the appearance of being open to compromise and discussion with the South, for the sake of public opinion. Crittenden's proposal was postponed again and again while the Republicans rushed off to take up the revived Morrill Tariff that had been the promise in exchange for Pennsylvania's votes in 1860, and which was brought up on the second day of the session, despite the secession crisis. The higher duties affected iron, cotton bagging, gunny cloth -- the kind of things that would dip directly into the pockets of Southern planters, big and small. The border state and upper South Congressmen who were risking their careers to keep their states in the union would get no help from that quarter.
"Our national property, our citizens, public officers, and rights must be protected in all the States, and our men-of-war must be stationed off the southern ports to collect the revenue."[5] Bingham of Ohio introduced a bill to authorize collection of U.S. customs from the decks of warships. To the Senate naval appropriations bill, introduced Feb. 11, the Republicans added money for seven new steam warships, light, fast, and heavily armed. Everyone knew what that was about. "It must not be forgotten," the New York Times wrote, "that the 'coercion' by which the Federal Government will seek to preserve the integrity of the Union and the supremacy of the Constitution, must be coercion by sea. It must be mainly a matter of blockades." [Feb. 8, 1861]. After much contention, the amendment passed, 27-17.
At the same time they were striving to enforce the onerous laws on the South, they were cutting off the beneficial services; the same Congress that was insisting the tariff continue to be paid was voting to authorize the U.S. postmaster general to cut off mail service in the South.
I did read the article, and it raised more questions than it answered. For example, why would it be necessary to station warships off Southern ports to collect the revenue when somthing approaching 95% of all tariff income was collected in Northern ports? I would also quote from Henry Benning of Georgia telling the Virginia secession convention that as far as tarrifs in the new confederacy were concerned “...I have no idea that the duties will be as low as 10 per cent. My own opinion is that we shall have as high duty as is now charged by the General Government at Washington. If that matter is regarded as important by this Convention, why the door is open for negotiation with us...If it be found that Virginia requires more protection than this upon any particular article of manufacture let her come in the spirit of a sister, to our Congress and say, we want more protection upon this or that article, and she will, I have no doubt, receive it. She will be met in the most fraternal and complying spirit.” In short, Mr. Benning was promising Virginia protective tariffs on whatever manufactured goods that the state might produce. So I would ask how could he do that if tariffs were such a major bone of contention? Southern supporters keep raising the tariff issue, but what was it that the South imported in such amounts that made the tariff a threat to their economic survival?
Sorry, didn't mean to be snippy in my last reply. It wasn't so much what the South imported as it was what the economy in the South has traditionally been based upon - agriculture. Agriculture traditionally doesn't produce high profit margins per acre and, in those days, Southern farmers earned somewhere between 3 cents and a nickel per bushel of produce harvested. Since the traffic wouldn't bear more than that, to make more profit, they had to plant more acreage and planting more acreage meant they needed more hands.
The more money they made, the more they paid in taxes and tariffs, especially when exporting their produce to the North, Cuba, South America and the Caribbean in hopes of getting marginally higher prices than they could earn in America.
Notice that the bulk of the punitive taxes the South paid was introduced by Northern politicians who were less involved in agriculture and more invested in manufacturing. So the iron that the South needed for plows, etc., came from the North. The cotton bags and gunney sacks the southern farmers needed to pack their grain/produce in were made in the North from raw materials grown in the South. This is where the disparity arises between the North and the South and why the "Civil War" was about the South's economic survival.
Slavery was not a desireable industry, but was a means to an end that allowed Southern farmers to have an income from their land at a price they could afford. Had they been able to hire workers and pay them a reasonable wage for the day, the Southern farmers would have preferred to do so, but they were trapped by the practices of the day.
You claim offense after your post #11?
*snicker*
Well then, your zero interest equals zero knowledge when it comes to an issue that was a pivotal event in our history, and continues to affect millions of Americans to this day.
Oh, and the treatment of prisoners at Andersonville is neither here nor there. Both sides had horror stories, however both sides did not get to write the history book.
A murderous genocide was perpetrated against the South. I take offense at those that would defend that genocide. To this day the South suffers economically from the northern boot that was pressed against her neck for so long.
Next time, instead of "assclown", I will use the more accurate term "culture-destroying, genocidal murderers".
I've found various figures on line for cotton prices in the 1850s and 1860s. 10-12 cents per pound for upland cotton is a common figure. Prices and yields per acre and the ratio of lint to seed varied greatly. But we do know that planters with good land and many slaves could live quite well.
The more money they made, the more they paid in taxes and tariffs, especially when exporting their produce to the North, Cuba, South America and the Caribbean in hopes of getting marginally higher prices than they could earn in America.
Tariffs were imposed on exports. Our tariffs wouldn't affect how much money cotton planters got from exports. The main market was Britain. Cotton would have gone there, or to Europe or the North to be made into products like textiles, clothing, and blankets, rather than to South or Central America, which may have grown their own cotton, but weren't major producers of finished goods.
George William Brown tried to have the bridges and telegraph lines leading into Baltimore from the North destroyed.
It's pretty much accepted that Sumter and war increased support for secession the Upper South after they had rejected it earlier.
But to jump to the idea that slavery wasn't at the root of the North-South conflict is unwarranted.
Tariffs were only paid on Imports not on Exports like cotton. And if there were any taxes on agricultural products like cotton, (I don't know if their were) they would have been state taxes, not Federal. The only Federal tax then were custom duties.
To raise money for the War of 1812, Congress imposed additional excise taxes, raised certain customs duties, and raised money by issuing Treasury notes. In 1817 Congress repealed these taxes, and for the next 44 years the Federal Government collected no internal revenue. Instead, the Government received most of its revenue from high customs duties and through the sale of public land.Had they been able to hire workers and pay them a reasonable wage for the day, the Southern farmers would have preferred to do so.
I seriously doubt that. Slaves were a very valuable liquid asset. Unlike hired hands, slaves were used as collateral for loans, to pay off debts, to rent out to others for a fee, and you could even sell them or their children for a sizeable profit. You couldn't do that with hired labor.
Just because Lincoln (PiBUH) refused to swap POW's - for that the treatment of American soldiers was/is justified?
One of the (Many) reasons I didn't vote for for McCain was his zeal to end the questions about the guys who were left behind. Plus he was/is buddies with Kerry. Birds of a feather - them two.
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