Other way around. The North had something like three times the income of the South.
Posted on 09/02/2019 4:35:14 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
See the Lincoln-Douglas debate #6.
Stephen Douglas:
We then adopted a free State Constitution, as we had a right to do. In this State we have declared that a negro shall not be a citizen, and we have also declared that he shall not be a slave. We had a right to adopt that policy. Missouri has just as good a right to adopt the other policy. I am now speaking of rights under the Constitution, and not of moral or religious rights. I do not discuss the morals of the people of Missouri, but let them settle that matter for themselves. I hold that the people of the slaveholding States are civilized men as well as ourselves; that they bear consciences as well as we, and that they are accountable to God and their posterity, and not to us. It is for them to decide, therefore, the moral and religious right of the slavery question for themselves within their own limits. I assert that they had as much right under the Constitution to adopt the system of policy which they have as we had to adopt ours. So it is with every other State in this Union. Let each State stand firmly by that great Constitutional right, let each State mind its own business and let its neighbors alone, and there will be no trouble on this question. If we will stand by that principle, then Mr. Lincoln will find that this Republic can exist forever divided into free and slave States, as our fathers made it and the people of each State have decided. Stand by that great principle, and we can go on as we have done, increasing in wealth, in population, in power, and in all the elements of greatness, until we shall be the admiration and terror of the world. We can go on and enlarge as our population increase, require more room, until we make this continent one ocean-bound republic.
Abraham Lincoln:
Judge Douglas asks you, "Why cannot the institution of slavery, or rather, why cannot the nation, part slave and part free, continue as our fathers made it forever?" In the first place, I insist that our fathers did not make this nation half slave and half free, or part slave and part free. I insist that they found the institution of slavery existing here. They did not make it so, but they left it so because they knew of no way to get rid of it at that time. When Judge Douglas undertakes to say that, as a matter of choice, the fathers of the Government made this nation part slave and part free, he assumes what is historically a falsehood. More than that: when the fathers of the Government cut off the source of slavery by the abolition of the slave-trade, and adopted a system of restricting it from the new Territories where it had not existed, I maintain that they placed it where they understood, and all sensible men understood, it was in the course of ultimate extinction; and when Judge Douglas asks me why it cannot continue as our fathers made it, I ask him why he and his friends could not let it remain as our fathers made it?
The Founding Fathers could not undo in just a few short years what the King spent over a century doing.
Because of the false teachings of progressivism, it has become one of the greatest of ironies that the "Great Emancipator" was also one of the most ardent defenders of the Founding Fathers - specifically on the topic of slavery.
Lincoln’s Inaugural address.
Fellow-Citizens of the United States:
IN compliance with a custom as old as the Government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President “before he enters on the execution of this office.” 1
I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement. 2
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that—
I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.
3
Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:
Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.
4
I now reiterate these sentiments, and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause—as cheerfully to one section as to another. 5
There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.
6
It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution—to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause “shall be delivered up” their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath? 7
There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State authority, but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should anyone in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept? 8
Again: In any law upon this subject ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not in any case surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that “the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States”? 9
I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules; and while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed than to violate any of them trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional. 10
It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our National Constitution. During that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens have in succession administered the executive branch of the Government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional term of four years under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted. 11
I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself. 12
Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak—but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it? 13
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was “to form a more perfect Union.” 14
But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity. 15
It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. 16
I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself. 17
In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices. 18
The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and reflection. The course here indicated will be followed unless current events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper, and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised, according to circumstances actually existing and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections. 19
That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events and are glad of any pretext to do it I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak? 20
Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from, will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake? 21
All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right plainly written in the Constitution has been denied? I think not. Happily, the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution; certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. 22
From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease. There is no other alternative, for continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them, for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this. 23
Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new union as to produce harmony only and prevent renewed secession? 24
Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left. 25
I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes. 26
One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, can not be perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other. 27
Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you. 28
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I can not be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable. 29
The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have referred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this if also they choose, but the Executive as such has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present Government as it came to his hands and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor. 30
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people. 31
By the frame of the Government under which we live this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance no Administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years. 32
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty. 33
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it.” 34
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
If you do not have the mental capacity to understand complex concepts, then you should just say so, and i'll quite trying to pour a gallon of knowledge into your little thimble head.
What you failed to grasp about my "waterway" point is that all these people have economics in common with New York. Their interests are New York's interests.
And that condition persists today.
Why were there free soilers in other Northern states that shared waterways with New York city? Because they are all part of the same economic coalition.
*I'm* not going to read it. Nobody on my side is going to read it. Very likely nobody on your side is going to read it either.
We've read it before. Reposting it as a wall of text does nobody any good.
The first thing most people do when they see a wall of text is just skip it.
Slo-Joe
Indeed, nobody here expects you to read it.
You have presented no evidence to-date of literacy.
So it would be far to much of us to expect that you would suddenly gained said ability.
We wish you the best of luck with your future studies. Perhaps, one day soon.
Your greatest intellectual contribution to the debate so far has been childish name calling, and so your departure will only improve the discussion.
Now get your last dig in before you complete your "strategic" retreat.
If you have decided that you are overmatched and cannot put up a decent fight to prove that what you wish to believe is in fact true, my response is "it's about time." Your greatest intellectual contribution to the debate so far has been childish name calling, and so your departure will only improve the discussion. Now get your last dig in before you complete your "strategic" retreat.
ROFLOL
I think the slaves had just as much right to freedom as anyone,but I am not going to pretend the laws or the people of that era agreed with me.
You're not being logical. You have a moral right to freedom and self-determination, but you don't have the right to take it by force if there are other means of redressing your grievances and attaining your goals. In other words, your moral right isn't a legal right, a distinction that you love to make in other contexts. Take up the gun and you risk losing by the gun, because you have violated the laws.
Now apply your idea to slaves.
By all means, let's.
My position is that slaves had a right to be free, even if it was beyond their power to defeat their masters. You see, their rights had nothing to do with their strength, and everything to do with their humanity.
I'm not sure that is your position. If you thought that the right of slaves to be free was on the same level as the right of slaveowners to have their own country it might lead you to be more critical of the whole secessionist/Confederate enterprise.
That's the short explanation, but I had time to write more last night:
Southern planters got money from exporting cotton. They could use that money to buy products from England or France, but at least as often they used to buy the things they wanted or needed from Northern merchants who could use the money earned to buy the things they wanted or needed, often from abroad. The people who bought the imported items paid the tariff in higher costs (or the importer had to swallow the cost if the goods wouldn't sell). It wasn't exporters who paid the tariff - or rather, they only paid the tariff in proportion to what they imported, not in proportion to what they exported.
Or the planters' money was invested in banks and corporations, mostly Northern, to provide them interest. Most of the time the foreign currency remained in banks in the cities, domestic or foreign, and never made its way to the plantations. It would be foolish to think that the smaller number of cotton planters bought enough imported goods to outbalance the much larger population of Northern merchants, manufacturers and consumers. But you know all that by now if you've been paying attention.
Let's say that you are the king of Saudi Arabia, or maybe a sultan or emir of some Persian Gulf state. You think that the oil that you personally own is the basis of all the prosperity of your state. If nobody grows food or makes the tools they use or the cars they drive - if all that has to be imported - you might well be right. Colonial plantation societies tend to follow the same model: they produce oil or sugar or cotton or rubber or coffee, ship it to the colonial power and use the money they get to buy the imported goods that they need.
The US in the 1850s was far from following that model. We grew our own food. We made things, big and small, and we could export them to earn money abroad. We weren't dependent on cotton or some other export crop. We weren't just some colony exporting products to the mother country and importing its finished goods. We could survive a dip in cotton prices, because we produced other things.
Now let's say that as king, or sultan or emir you impose income and import taxes on your people. How do you get any money from those taxes? The money is all yours, right? Well, you have to pay people to drill the oil, barrel it, transport it to your harbor, ship it overseas, and deal with all the financial and insurance and legal aspects. You pay those people and they have income, which you can tax and they can use to buy imports, which you can also tax.
Is all the money that makes its way into your pockets in taxes, just coming out of your own pocket from the money you earn from exporting oil? I don't think so. There's something called value added. I think it goes like this. You can produce a lot of cotton or lumber or iron ore, but it's not worth that much if it just sits there on your plantation or forest or mine, unprocessed. You'd have to have that cotton ginned and then you'd have to have the cotton or wood or iron transported to some place where it can be spun and loomed or cut or smelted. And then you'd have to have it transported to wholesalers, retailers and eventually consumers. And those steps would come with various financial and legal and insurance costs, and all those costs add to the value of the raw cotton. All the people who contribute to processing the cotton or wood or metal and taking it to the consumer contribute to its value and have earned and taken a share of the eventual price of the cotton.
We can consider all those involved as making an input to the eventual price of the good: factory owners and workers, truckers and shippers, banks, insurance companies, law firms, and the people who actually and physically get the cotton or timber or iron ore for you. Who might they be? ... If you are a slaveowner, it doesn't matter. Your slaves don't get a share of the profits, and they don't get wages. If you are a slaveowner you are used to not assigning a cost to your labor force. True, you have to consider the cost of your keeping them, but they don't make cash demands on your money for their own use, so it's easy to overlook their contribution to the cotton growing process.
If you are a slaveowner and habitually ignore the imput of labor to your product's costs and profits, you are that much more unlikely to seriously consider the contribution - the value added - made by the other imputs. You buy tools to plant and hoe and harvest and deseed the cotton. You may have to borrow money from banks to tide you over from harvest to harvest. You may have to ensure your crops and your shipments against misfortune. You may have money invested in places - not strictly speaking a contribution to the value of the cotton, but a contribution to your own bottom line. And you forget about the money you pay to those people to make your plantation profitable like you forget about the money you aren't paying to your slaves, and just think you are getting a raw deal. How hard it is - the life of a slave owner.
P.S. Save this. I don't want to have to keep repeating it until it sinks in.
In the same manner it stands to reason that people in India buy more imported wine, spices, coffee, tea, fabric and other products than Americans.
I understand the difference between moral and legal. We would all wish that laws are moral, but anyone who has looked at history quickly understands that this is not the case.
The slaves had a moral right to be free, but at that time they didn't have a legal right.
The Confederates had both a moral and legal right to their independence. Now you might argue that their immorality in holding slaves justifies another immorality in conquering them and denying them their own rights, and this argument might hold more weight were it not for the fact that the conquering power had every intention of keeping those slaves in slavery when they launched their war against the South.
When you clearly understand that neither side was being motivated by what was morally proper towards the slaves, then you have to take that off of the table, and judge the matter on what is left.
What is left is the South adhering to the original founding principle of self determination, and the North determining to subjugate them to keep control of their economic activity.
The South had no obligation to keep allowing New York and Washington to siphon off so much of their economic activity, but because of the laws of the Union, they could not stop it so long as they remained constrained by the Union, and so they were left with the option of striking out on their own and handling their own economic affairs.
Trouble was, the powers that were making money off of them, didn't like the threat they posed, and so with the influence they possessed with the government, they launched a war to stop the South from taking away their business.
I would have been happier with a number. I gave you a number, and that number is 73%. (Some say as high as 85%)
Now you say that number is wrong. Fine. What is the correct number? I've gotten BroJoeK to admit the South produced about 50% of the exports, and I think on another occasion I got him to raise it to 60%, so at least he has given me some numbers that we can argue over.
I think as a starting point, taxation should be the same for everyone. If the North's population is four times that of the South, the North should be paying 80% of the taxes, and the South should be paying 20%.
Are you arguing that the South was in fact paying only 20% of the taxes?
Give me a number.
Those were among the most imported products by value in the US in 1860 (sugar, liquor, cocoa, hides, sardines too). Those were the products the most tariffs would be paid on.
Cotton planters would be very fat and drunk (and aromatic) if they consumed as much as Northerners.
What does India have to do with anything?
First, do you even know what you are talking about?
Imports or exports? Do you understand the difference?
I am not a statistician, but one doesn't have to be to understand that you are wrong.
Do me the courtesy of reading and trying to understand what I wrote and don't ask for numbers that only an expert could give you.
The Constitution is our founding document and supersedes wishes for breakaway independence. The idea that it was all about economics is your own idea. Northerners thought they were fighting for the country and its constitution. They had no objections to whatever economic activities Southerners wanted to engage in.
It was an analogy. India has a population about four times that of the US, so India is roughly akin to the North, and the US is roughly akin to the south, in terms of the ratios of their populations.
Clearly India does not purchase more of these various goods than the United States, so having a population four times larger does not automatically put money into their pockets to pay for imported goods.
The United States has money and so they buy imported goods.
In 1860, the South produced 73% of the exports, and it was those exports that actually paid for European goods. The North only produced 27% of the exports, so they could buy 27% of the European goods being imported.
Yes, this is a very simple way of looking at it, but it is roughly accurate.
You are trying to have me believe that the 20 million Northerners who only earned 27% of the income, were paying for the vast majority of the import goods.
You tell me they were getting the money through diffuse means, but which always end up somehow getting it out of Southern hands.
Yes, the North and South bought each others goods, and it was all a complex system, but ultimately the value created to purchase the European products had to come from the South at the rate of 73% of the total. (85% if you believe other sources.)
Hmmm... Some men are taller then others.. Some are heaver, and then again some are much wiser then their fellow man.. But, how much does the human soul weigh before God..?? I would think perhaps all souls are equal before God.. Maybe... :)
Yes. When trade is balanced, they are equal. I do know in fact that the Northern states tended to run a trade deficit, while the Southern states were usually balanced in trade debt.
We could go through all the trade deficits for the years from 1800 to 1860, (which I have done when BroJoeK brought it up a long time ago) but it all ends up being roughly equal over time.
No two nations are going to keep a large trade imbalance indefinitely. At some point, the nation that is getting the short end of the stick will object, and so trade imbalances roughly average out over time, especially in this era when real money meant something.
So can we dispense with hairsplitting on the difference between imports and exports? People who understand economics recognize that these numbers roughly balance over time, so one is a pretty good proxy for the other if you look at the larger picture.
I am not a statistician, but one doesn't have to be to understand that you are wrong.
That's because only someone who wasn't a statistician would think i'm wrong. statisticians understand that trade deficits average to zero over time.
We aren't trying to get down to dollars and cents here. We aren't even trying to get this accurate to a million dollars here. We are trying to get it roughly accurate for a ~300 million dollar per year trade exchange, so let's not focus on effects that have trivial consequences within the scope of the entire picture.
Do me the courtesy of reading and trying to understand what I wrote and don't ask for numbers that only an expert could give you.
How much of an expert do you have to be to total up trade deficits in an import/export exchange? Maybe BroJoeK will post a link to that book he posted a year or so ago, and we can go back through and look at the year to year totals.
I went through the whole thing, and the numbers did not yield the results BroJoeK was trying to argue for.
Now i'm kicking myself for not saving a link to it.
Hmmm... Some men are taller then others.. Some are heaver, and then again some are much wiser then their fellow man.. But, how much does the human soul weigh before God..?? I would think perhaps all souls are equal before God.. Maybe... :)
Other way around. The North had something like three times the income of the South.
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.