[x]

The following are what lawyers call "Statements Against Interest"...ie frank admissions by Northern newspapers at the time admitting that the Southern states are providing the overwhelming share of all exports/imports.

By no means. "The Chicago Times" was a Democrat pro-slavery paper. Their predictions were based on their Southern sympathies and free trade beliefs and did not come to pass.

George Bassett was a "Jeffersonian radical" or militant anti-statist, opposed to government in general (beyond a very minimal state perhaps). He wasn't an economist. He was venting his wrath against government.

The point of the "We must not let the South go" editorial in the Union Democrat was that concessions would bring the slave states back into the union, not that the union should fight to keep the Southern states in the union. They believed that the wealth of their city and the country rested on cotton and textiles, so their stand wasn't "contrary to interest." As it turns out all their predictions were wrong.

Our city owes its origin and growth to the Southern trade—to the Union. We cannot afford to "let the South go," if she may be retained by any fair compromise, as we believe she may be. If the time shall come when the people realize the fact that the Union is permanently dissolved, real estate will depreciate one half in a single year.—Our population will decrease with the decline of business, and matters will go on in geometrical progression from bad to worse—until all of us will be swamped in utter ruin. Let men consider—apply the laws of business, and see if they can reach any different conclusion.

No—we must not "let the South go." It is easy and honorable to keep her. Simply recognize in the neighborhood of states those principles of equity and courtesy which we would scorn to violate in our social relations at home—that is all. Let New Hampshire treat Virginia as we should treat our neighbors. Do we vilify them, watch for chances to annoy them, clear up to the line of the law, and sometimes beyond it, and encourage hostile raids against them? Is that good neighborhood? Then, let not one state practice it against another.

Business, real estate and population didn't fall as a result of secession.

[FLT-bird]

X: By no means. "The Chicago Times" was a Democrat pro-slavery paper. Their predictions were based on their Southern sympathies and free trade beliefs and did not come to pass.

Were other Northern Newspapers which were pro Republican influenced by their sympathies to say very similar things about how it would spell economic ruin for the North if the Southern States became independent? I've posted several of them.

X: George Bassett was a "Jeffersonian radical" or militant anti-statist, opposed to government in general (beyond a very minimal state perhaps). He wasn't an economist. He was venting his wrath against government.

I never said George Bassett was an economist. I said he was an abolitionist.

X: The point of the "We must not let the South go" editorial in the Union Democrat was that concessions would bring the slave states back into the union, not that the union should fight to keep the Southern states in the union. They believed that the wealth of their city and the country rested on cotton and textiles, so their stand wasn't "contrary to interest." As it turns out all their predictions were wrong.

The "we must not let the South go" editorial makes it plain what the economic cost to the Northern States would be if the Southern states left. It plainly states that the Southern states would win economically and the Northern States would lose. *If* one is pushing the "all about slavery" argument then it is indeed a statement against interest. Here is a northern newspaper making the economic argument quite clearly.

X: "Our city owes its origin and growth to the Southern trade—to the Union. We cannot afford to "let the South go," if she may be retained by any fair compromise, as we believe she may be. If the time shall come when the people realize the fact that the Union is permanently dissolved, real estate will depreciate one half in a single year.—Our population will decrease with the decline of business, and matters will go on in geometrical progression from bad to worse—until all of us will be swamped in utter ruin. Let men consider—apply the laws of business, and see if they can reach any different conclusion.

"No—we must not "let the South go." It is easy and honorable to keep her. Simply recognize in the neighborhood of states those principles of equity and courtesy which we would scorn to violate in our social relations at home—that is all. Let New Hampshire treat Virginia as we should treat our neighbors. Do we vilify them, watch for chances to annoy them, clear up to the line of the law, and sometimes beyond it, and encourage hostile raids against them? Is that good neighborhood? Then, let not one state practice it against another.

Business, real estate and population didn't fall as a result of secession.

Two things: 1) they weren't cut off from the Southern states for very long and 2) they make the case as well as anyone that this was not "all about slavery". At the heart of Secession and the war lay the economic concerns of each region.

As the English pointed out: "For the contest on the part of the North is now undisguisedly for empire. The question of slavery is thrown to the winds. There is hardly any concession in its favor that the South could ask which the North would refuse provided only that the seceding states re-enter the Union.....Away with the pretence on the North to dignify its cause with the name of freedom to the slave!" London Quarterly Review 1862