Posted on 11/11/2002 1:23:27 PM PST by l8pilot
Evidence Builds for DiLorenzo’s Lincoln by Paul Craig Roberts
In an excellent piece of historical research and economic exposition, two economics professors, Robert A. McGuire of the University of Akron and T. Norman Van Cott of Ball State University, have provided independent evidence for Thomas J. Dilorenzo’s thesis that tariffs played a bigger role in causing the Civil War than slavery.
In The Real Lincoln, DiLorenzo argues that President Lincoln invaded the secessionist South in order to hold on to the tariff revenues with which to subsidize Northern industry and build an American Empire. In "The Confederate Constitution, Tariffs, and the Laffer Relationship" (Economic Inquiry, Vol. 40, No. 3, July 2002), McGuire and Van Cott show that the Confederate Constitution explicitly prohibits tariff revenues from being used "to promote or foster any branch of industry." By prohibiting subsidies to industries and tariffs high enough to be protective, the Confederates located their tax on the lower end of the "Laffer curve."
The Confederate Constitution reflected the argument of John C. Calhoun against the 1828 Tariff of Abominations. Calhoun argued that the U.S. Constitution granted the tariff "as a tax power for the sole purpose of revenue – a power in its nature essentially different from that of imposing protective or prohibitory duties."
McGuire and Van Cott conclude that the tariff issue was a major factor in North-South tensions. Higher tariffs were "a key plank in the August 1860 Republican party platform. . . . northern politicians overall wanted dramatically higher tariff rates; Southern politicians did not."
"The handwriting was on the wall for the South," which clearly understood that remaining in the union meant certain tax exploitation for the benefit of the north.
October 16, 2002
Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions Evidence Builds for DiLorenzo’s Lincoln by Paul Craig Roberts
In an excellent piece of historical research and economic exposition, two economics professors, Robert A. McGuire of the University of Akron and T. Norman Van Cott of Ball State University, have provided independent evidence for Thomas J. Dilorenzo’s thesis that tariffs played a bigger role in causing the Civil War than slavery.
In The Real Lincoln, DiLorenzo argues that President Lincoln invaded the secessionist South in order to hold on to the tariff revenues with which to subsidize Northern industry and build an American Empire. In "The Confederate Constitution, Tariffs, and the Laffer Relationship" (Economic Inquiry, Vol. 40, No. 3, July 2002), McGuire and Van Cott show that the Confederate Constitution explicitly prohibits tariff revenues from being used "to promote or foster any branch of industry." By prohibiting subsidies to industries and tariffs high enough to be protective, the Confederates located their tax on the lower end of the "Laffer curve."
The Confederate Constitution reflected the argument of John C. Calhoun against the 1828 Tariff of Abominations. Calhoun argued that the U.S. Constitution granted the tariff "as a tax power for the sole purpose of revenue – a power in its nature essentially different from that of imposing protective or prohibitory duties."
McGuire and Van Cott conclude that the tariff issue was a major factor in North-South tensions. Higher tariffs were "a key plank in the August 1860 Republican party platform. . . . northern politicians overall wanted dramatically higher tariff rates; Southern politicians did not."
"The handwriting was on the wall for the South," which clearly understood that remaining in the union meant certain tax exploitation for the benefit of the north.
October 16, 2002
Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions
I don't know about that. In 1832, President Andy Jackson made it very clear that he would be glad to personally lead the US Army into South Carolina and hang anyone who thought they could nullify US law or unilaterally secede. George Washington did lead the US Army into Western Pennsylvania in 1795 to put down a revolt of people who thought they could ignore US law and kill US government officials.
Touche. :)
Walt
And all you can say about George Washington is that he was the first person to show the Government (British) that it's power had limits.
Is that -all-? Poor ol' GW. The neo-rebs are so anxious to smush Lincoln they can't help but belittle G. Washington also.
Walt
It's a story as old as man himself. It still goes on today. The gathering (centralizing) of power in the Federal Government is the most alarming occurance of my lifetime.
You can say that all you like, but you'll have a hard time proving it in the record.
Walt
As Ditto suggested, George Washington was ready to use federal power in 1795 to put down those who opposed the federal government. His proclamation spoke of treason.
Now you can say that the government is out of control, has overstepped any reasonable boundary -- you can say that they replaced the fillings in your teeth with a machine to trace your movements, and you'll get no beef from me. But to trace all that to Abraham Lincoln is just ludicrous.
Walt
Show us where that happened. The New England textile mill owners were opposed to war --- they didn't want to see their cotton supplies interrupted. The mid west didn't like the idea of the Mississippi being closed. New Yorkers didn't like the idea of their ships being attacked by Confederate privateers.
Exactly what business interests where it that pushed Lincoln?
Check the Constitution.
I don't know about other States but I have looked at my State's (Indiana) Monument For Statehood, the request, and the Enabiling Act, the grant, and there is no language preventing Indiana from leaving the Union at any time.
What about some sort of common law? A government that consists of states that come and go as they please when they please couldn't be expected to be a very credible government, could it? Take marriage as an analogous relationship. One spouse can't unilaterally terminate the marriage. A divorce must be secured from the state. The Declaration of Independence acknowledges that the decision to "dissolve the political bands" is a monumental one; furthermore, the signers clearly understood that they were committing, in the eyes of the British, treason. I think a judge could easily be persuaded to conclude, on the basis of the common law at the time, that secession was treasonable at the time of the nation's founding and no law altered that afterwards; thus, a state has no right to secede without the blessing of the remainder of the nation. That doesn't mean a state can't try, but if you're going to overthrow the king, make sure you kill him.
Are you saying that Washington and Madison whited out the words, "this Constitution and the laws made in pursuance.......shall be the supreme law of the land..." on the copy of the document that people of the southern states ratified?
Walt
Have you ever heard of Chisholm v. Georgia?
From American Constitutional Law, A.T. Mason, et al, ed:
On October 31, 1777 the Executive Council of Georgia authorized state commissioners Thomas Stone and Edward Davies to purchase much needed supplies from Robert Farquahr, a Charleston, South Carolina merchant [Farquhar was killed in an accident, Georgia refused to pay...Chisholm, Farquahr's executor filed suit]. In 1792, Chisholm, nevertheless, filed suit in the Supreme Court...the decision came down February 19, 1793. All five justices delivered opinions; only Justice Iredell, holding to the view ithe circuit court opinion [no state was liable to be sued by an individual of another state], dissented. In the face of assurances made by Hamilton, Madison, and Marshall during the Ratification debates that a state could not, without its consent, be made party defedant in the federal courts by a citizen of another state, the Court took jurisdiction and decided against the state. {ed. note}
Excerpts from the Justices' opinions:
Wilson, Justice:--
This is a cause of uncommon magnitude. One of the parties to it is a state. certainly respectable, claiming to be sovereign. The question to be determined is whether this state, so respectable, and whose claim soars so high, is amenable to the jurisdiction of the supreme court of the United States? This question, important in itself, wil depend on others, more important still; and, may perhaps be resolved into one, no less radical than this--"do the people of the United States form a nation?"...
To the Constitution of the United States the term sovereign is totally unknown. There is but one place where it could have been used with propriety. But, even in that place it would not, perhaps, have comported tself with the delicacy of those who ordained and established that constitution. They might have announced themselves "sovereign" people of the United States; But serenely conscious of the fact, they avoided the ostentatious declaration...As to the purposes of the Union, therefore, Georgia is not a sovereign state...in almost every nation, which has been denominated free, the state has assumed a supercilious preeminence above the people who have formed it: Hence, the haughty notions of state independence, state sovereignty and state supremacy...Who were these people? They were the citizens of thirteen states, each of which had a separate constitution and government, and all of which were connected by articles of confederation. To the purposes of public strength and felicity the confederacy was totally inadequate. A requistion on the several states terminated its legislative authority; executive or judicial authority, it had none. In order, therefore, to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, to insure domestic tranquility, to provide for common defense and to secure the blessings of liberty, those people, among whom were the people of Georgia, ordained and established the present constitution. By that constitution, legislative power is vested, executive power is vested, judicial power is vested...We may then infer, that the people of the United States intended to bind the several states, by the legislative power of the national government...Whoever considers, in a combined and comprehensive view, the general texture of the constitution, wil be satisfied that the people of the United States intended to form themselves into a nation for national purposes. They instituted, for such purposes, a national government complete in all its parts, with powers legislative, executive and judiiciary, ad in all those powers extending over the whole nation."
Jay, Chief Justice:--
The question we are now to decide has been accurately stated, viz.: Is a state suable by individual citizens of another state?...
The revolution, or rather the Declaration of Independence, found the people already united for general purposes, and at the same time, providing for their more domestic concerns by state conventions, and other temporary arrangements. From the crown of Great Britain, the sovereignty of their country passed to the people of it; and it was then not an uncommon opinion, that the unappropriated lands, which belonged to that crown, passed, not to the people of the colony or states within whose limits they were situated, bt to the whole people; on whatever principles this opinion rested, it did not give way to the other, and thirteen sovereignties were considered as emerged from the principles of the revolution, combined with local convenience and considerations; the people nevertheless continued to consider themselves, in a national point of view, as one people; and they continued without interruption to manage their national concerns accordingly; afterwards, in the hurry of the war, and in the warmth of mutual confidence, they made a confederation of the States, the basis of a general Government. Experience disappointed the expectations they had formed from it; and then the people, in their collective and national capacity, established the present Constitution. It is remarkable that in establishing it, the people exercised their own rights and their own proper sovereignty, and conscious of the plenitude of it, they declared with becoming dignity, "We the people of the United States," "do ordain and establish this Constitution." Here we see the people acting as the sovereigns of the whole country; and in the language of sovereignty, establishing a Constitution by which it was their will, that the state governments should be bound, and to which the State Constitutions should be made to conform. Every State Constitution is a compact made by and between the citizens of a state to govern themeselves in a certain manner; and the Constitution of the United States is likewise a compact made by the people of the United States to govern themselves as to general objects, in a certain manner. By this great compact however, many prerogatives were transferred to the national Government, such as those of making war and peace, contracting alliances, coining money, etc."
THAT is some strong stuff:
"For the purposes of the Union therefore, Georgia is not a sovereign state."
"Sovereign powers transferred..."
"... the people of the United States intended to bind the several states, by the legislative power of the national government..."
Ouch, ouch, OUCH!
Now, Chisholm caused quite an uproar in 1793. The 11th emandment was added:
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.
And the states' response?
Nil.
Now, how is it that people in 1793 didn't know what they had gotten into?
There were no false pretenses, there is just poor analysis on your part.
Walt
Why is it when the record comes out, people have to start smearing George Washington along with poor old Lincoln?
Washington said in 1787 that the goal of every true American was the consolidation of the national Union.
You might can make the point that Madison was dancing around a bit, but I don't know if you can say that about GW.
Walt
The views I hold are spot on with the views of large numbers of Union soldiers. That is what matters.
Walt
Just say my support for the Constitution is unquestioned and I'll be happy.
Walt
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