Evidence Builds for DeLorenzo's Lincoln

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.

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

"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.

No one says the Union is not dissoluable. But it can only be desolved by amendment or revolution.
So what happened to the Articles

The Articles didn't work out. Haven't you heard?

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Do away with law and you can punt the Constitution.

I read somewhere that George Washington was practically worshipped by the young officers in the Continental Army. They knew that he was scrupulously fair.

That seems a pretty good character reference to me. And Washington thought the Articles had failed. Something stronger was needed. He wrote:

"Experience has taught us, that men will not adopt & carry into execution, measures the best calculated for their own good without a coercive power. I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation, without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner, as the authority of the different state governments extends over the several States. To be fearful of vesting Congress, constituted as that body is, with ample authorities for national purposes, appears to me the very climax of popular absurdity and madness."

George Washington to John Jay, August 19, 1786

But perhaps Mr. Lincoln said it best.

"And this issue embraces more than the fact of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man, the question, whether a constitutional republic, or a democracy--a government of the people, by the same people--can or cannot, maintain its territorial integtrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question, whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration, accroding to organic law, in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily, without any pretense, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: "Is there in all republics, this inherent, and fatal weakness?" "Must a government, of neccessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existance?"

A. Lincoln, 7/4/61

Washington wanted a stronger government and he got one.

You can't carp at President Lincoln unless you carp at the framers.

Walt

By your lights, secession is allowed because it is not specifically forbidden. Suspending the writ by the president is disallowed because it is not specifically made reference to. It is a double standard. It costs you all your credibility.
Nonsense. Secession is the act of a state, exercising reserved powers (that part if the Constitution you overlook).

Secession cannot be a reserved power because the Constitutition delegates to the Congress the power to provide for the common defense and general welfare. Unialteral state secession would be inimical to those interests.

Besides, no act, ordinance, resolution or statement of secession can have validity in law because it is a "thing" in the laws of a state that the Constitution clearly states cannot withstand the powers of the federal government.

Not only that, the Constitution also clearly states that the laws made in pursuance to the Constitution are also supreme, and one of those laws is the Militia Act of 1792 which requires that U.S. law operate in all the states.

You just look silly continuing with this crap.

This is another example where you disallow the most reasonable actions because you hate what they accomplished.

Even if the north had said good-bye and good riddance to the slave states, they couldn't ignore the fact that the so-called CSA was agressively arming itself. War was inevitable.

Suppose the rump USA passed an amendment that said "no state may leave the Union for any reason." That rump United States could still have slam dunked the so-called CSA any time they chose.

Don't forget that right after the first battle of Bull Run President Lincoln wrote out on one page some precepts that dis in fact bring the war to a successful conclusion. The idea of rebel military prowess is largely a myth.

Walt

Chief Justice Renquist, who has written extensively about this very issue, strongly disagrees with you. He said quite plainly that the power of the President to suspend the writ in times of emergency is still undecided by the courts. Ergo, the rest of your argument is your opinion only.
Rehnquist may disagree, and it is my understanding that he holds personally that the issue is debatable, but to say that the court has not ruled on it is to deny court precedent.

The court has ruled in Dred Scott and Plessey v. Furguson, to say nothing of Roe v. Wade. I guess you are coming down on the side of abortion on demand, simply because of court precedent. There are higher laws than U.S. law, but I digress.

Taney had no right deciding anything about Merryman. I found this online:

"Taney was aggressively pro-Southern. He has been described as a Jacksonian Unionist (Jackson appointed him), but his Unionism was not all that solid. In an 1856 letter to his son-in-law. Taney predicted the election of Fremont or Fillmore, and lamented that South would not successfully secede."

Taney went outside what he should have done in ruling on Merryman.

I don't know what Chief Justice Rehnquist's thought process in saying that the issue of the president's power to suspend the Writ has never yet been authoritatively decided.

But I know this whole thing comes down to his opinion versus yours. And your's is just as partisan as anything Taney ever did.

Walt

Regarding the "victory" being a butt-whipping - that might be true if it were decided on the field of battle against MILITARY tagets and combatants.

It wasn't 1740.

Perhaps you'd prefer what Hood did at Franklin. That attack included what has been called the most deadly hour in the whole war. Hood wrecked his army to no purpose.

Sherman obtained his objectives after capturing Atlanta without facing any important opposition at all.

It was Sun Tzu who said that the acme of skill was not to fight and win 100 battles; the acme of skill is to obtain your objectives without fighting.

You just don't like the result.

I'll take Sherman over Hood any day; in fact, I'll take Sherman over any rebel general. Hood -was- especially clueless - he sent his men forward after having been present the third day at Gettysburg.

Walt

Nonsense. Secession is the act of a state, exercising reserved powers (that part if the Constitution you overlook).

Chief Justice Jay said in 1793 that:

"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."

Hard to run a country without money. The states didn't reserve that right. Ooops.

You keep butting up against Chief Justices.

Walt

Hmmm. Well, in that case, up 'til now I've been laboring under the misapprehension that Booth thought, along with many of his fellows, that the participation of states in this Union of ours was on a voluntary basis, and could be withdrawn.

This makes a lot of sense:

"The men at the [constitutional] convention, it is clear enough, assumed that the national government must have the power to throw down state laws that contradicted federal ones: it was obvious to them that the states could not be permitted to pass laws contravening federal ones...

It did not take long for the supremacy of the Supreme Court to become clear. Shortly after the new government was installed under the new Constitution, people realized that the final say had to be given to somebody, and the Connecticut Jurist and delegate to the Convention Oliver Ellsworth wrote the judicary act of 1789, which gave the Supreme Court the clear power of declaring state laws unconstitutional, and by implication allowing it to interpret the Constitution. The power to overturn laws passed by Congress was assumed by the Supreme Court in 1803 and became accepted practice duing the second half of the nineteenth century."

"The convention was slow to tackle the problem of an army, defense, and internal police. The Virginia Plan said nothing about a standing army, but it did say that the national government could 'call forth the force of the union against any member of the Union failing to fulfill its duty under the articles thereof.' The delegates had expected to discuss something like this clause, for one of the great problems had been the inability of the old Congress to enforce its laws. Surely it should be able to march troops into states when necessary to get state governments to obey.

But in the days before the convention opened Madison had been thinking it over, and he had concluded that the idea was a mistake. You might well march your troops into Georgia or Connecticut, but then what? Could you really force a legislature to disgorge money at bayonet point? 'The use of force against a state,' Madison said, as the debate started on May 31, 'would be more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.'

Although he did not say so at the moment, he had another way of enforcing national law, which not only would be more effective, but also philosophically sounder. As the government was to derive its power from the people, it ought to act on the people directly. Instead of trying to punish a state, which was, after all, an abstraction, for failure to obey the law, the U.S. government could punish individuals directly. Some person -- a governor, a tax collector, a state treasurer -- would be held responsible for failure to deliver the taxes. Similarly, the national government would not punish a state government for allowing say, illegal deals with Indians over western lands, but would directly punish the people making the deals. All of this seemed eminently sensible to the convention and early in the debate on the Virginia Plan the power of the national government to 'call forth the power of the Union' was dropped. And so was the idea that the government should be able to compell the states disappeared from the convention. It is rather surprising, in view of the fact that the convention had been called mainly to curb the independence of the states, that the concept went out so easily. The explanation is, in part, that the states' righters were glad to see it go; and in part that Madison's logic was persuasive: it is hard to arrest an abstraction."

--"Decision in Philadelphia" by Collier and Collier

This is what I was talking about yesterday. We've got bigger problems than what A. Lincoln was doing in 1861:

"A federal court has authority to decide whether Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member accused of plotting with terrorists to detonate a radioactive "dirty" bomb, was properly detained as an enemy combatant, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Padilla has been barred from meeting with lawyers since his arrest May 8. U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey said Wednesday that Padilla may meet with them now.

The ruling was a blow to the government, which had argued that Padilla, a U.S. citizen, had no right to challenge its actions in court because he was detained as an "enemy combatant."

Padilla was arrested on a material witness warrant issued by a grand jury and secretly held in a federal jail. He has been in a Navy brig since he was declared an "enemy combatant" in June and transferred to the control of the U.S. military. The government says the "enemy combatant" declaration allows it to hold him without formal criminal charges.

The government said Padilla twice met with senior al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan in March and discussed a plot to detonate a radiological weapon in the United States.

A spokesman for U.S. Attorney James B. Comey had no immediate comment. Lawyers for Padilla did not immediately return a telephone message for comment."

Padilla is a citizen of the good ol' USA. And unless I missed it, the presnt police chief of Baltimore is not blowing up bridges.

Walt

The court has ruled in Dred Scott and Plessey v. Furguson, to say nothing of Roe v. Wade .

Dred Scott, Plessy, and Roe are not the issues at hand, Walt. Bollman and Merryman are. Following your logic, every single case in US history included your beloved Prize Cases may be discredited on the grounds that the court has made a couple of notable bad decisions. Such reasoning is fallacious as it ammounts to nothing more than discrediting by institutional association while simultaneously neglecting the intrinsic merits of the actual case at hand. Try again.

I guess you are coming down on the side of abortion on demand, simply because of court precedent.

No Walt. That seems to be the position of your political party, not mine.

Taney had no right deciding anything about Merryman.

His jurisdiction was proper, his authority was within the bounds of the judicial system, the case had standing, the case was relevant, and no reasonable cause exists to force self recusal. Therefore Taney had every right to rule on the case. Sorry Walt, but the fact that YOU don't like the outcome and nothing more is simply not grounds to dismiss a ruling.

I found this online: "Taney was aggressively pro-Southern. He has been described as a Jacksonian Unionist (Jackson appointed him), but his Unionism was not all that solid.

Judges have rights to political leanings too, Walt. Some are conservative, some are liberal and so forth. That YOU don't like a properly seated judge's political leanings is no grounds to deny the legality of his rulings. You can debate them, say they're in error, and try to get them overturned, but simply not liking the judge personally doesn't cut it. Try again.

Taney went outside what he should have done in ruling on Merryman.

How so? You keep saying that yet you have not demonstrated in any way why Taney was not within his jurisdiction to rule on that case. Absent that, I may dismiss your rantings as irrelevant nonsense.

But I know this whole thing comes down to his opinion versus yours.

No Walt. That is simply not the case. What is at issue here is --my-- opinion based on the historical precedents pertaining to habeas corpus versus --your-- opinion based on an irrational desire to protect The Lincoln from any and all concessions of error or flaw on his part.

In supporting my opinion I have called upon the current standing court precedent on habeas corpus, the opinion of two chief justices, and the actual ruling made in response to The Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus. In supporting your opinion you have called upon a cut n' paste charade of nonsense from some newsgroup, a speech at a law school by Bill Rehnquist, and your own irrational bloviations.

I think it is obvious who has the stronger case. And your's is just as partisan as anything Taney ever did. Walt

I am sure there are some famous recusals in the record.

I know Chief Justice Marshall recused himself in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee.

He left it for Justice Story to threaten the Virginia Supreme Court with contempt. They backed down, but I digress.

Taney was strongly pro-southern. Apparently he lamented in a letter the failure of the southern states to secede in 1856. Of course the dissent in the Prize Cases only avers that Congress and not the president is the proper agent to put down rebellion and insurrection; Taney is not on the record in a court case, so far as I know, that secession was legal.

I'd say that there is at least reason to question Taney's objectivity now, and President Lincoln had plenty then.

You deny that, but you are not even in shouting distance of objectivity yourself.

Walt

Well, they certainly are when precedent is discussed.

No Walt. Only when those particular precedents are discussed. Tearing down all other valid precedents by simple association with a court that previously erred on a few notorious cases is an unsupportable argument. Taken to its ends, no precedent is left standing including your beloved Prize Cases. Is that the way you want things, Walt? Because if it is, by all means argue it. I'll only expect that you won't be quoting the Prize Cases anytime soon.

You've indicated that precedent is the "end all" and "be all" to the issue of the Writ.

Not at all, Walt. Simply the standing rule deciding the matter of habeas corpus that is on the books today. Rehnquist has every right to disagree with it all he wants, but his opinion is only that, announced informally at a law school speech of absolutely no legal consequence, whereas the precedent of Bollman carries with it the weight of a court ruling.

I am sure there are some famous recusals in the record.

There certainly are, but that in no way means Taney had to recuse himself from Merryman. To date you have posted absolutely no substantial reason for Taney to have done so in the Merryman case - only your grievance that you don't like his political pursuasion.

Your entire argument on the matter, Walt, would be akin to me saying that John Paul Stevens is a leftist and since I don't like leftists, John Paul Stevens' votes and rulings don't count. As much as I disagree with Stevens' politics, such a belief would be absurd just as your argument against Taney is absurd.

Taney was strongly pro-southern. Apparently he lamented in a letter the failure of the southern states to secede in 1856.

And John Paul Stevens is strongly pro-leftist. He's still a sitting judge though and under the Constitution he gets his vote on the court whether I like his politics or not.

I'd say that there is at least reason to question Taney's objectivity now, and President Lincoln had plenty then.

There's reason to question John Paul Stevens' objectivity - he tilts heavily to the left. There's reason to question Antonin Scalia's objectivity - he tilts heavily to the right. Souter, Breyer, and Ginsburg? No objectivity there as they all tilt heavily to the left. Rehnquist and Thomas? They tilt heavily to the right. Even the court's two "moderates" are not objective. O'Connor and Kennedy lean to the right of center. If political leanings disqualified a justice from ruling on a case, then each and every one of the members of the current court would not be able to rule. Simply put, there'd be no court. So again your line of reasoning is absurd.

You deny that

No Walt. Unlike you, I'm perfectly content with the reality that all judges have political leanings and judicial philosophies.

but you are not even in shouting distance of objectivity yourself.

Once again, you lecturing others on objectivity is akin to Jesse Jackson giving a sermon on the sin of adultery.

It simply --is-- the case

No Walt. It is simply not the case. You are trying to avoid responsibility for your own argument by assigning and equating it with Rehnquist when in fact it is your own and nothing more.

The tactic is decietful and childish. You pretend that Bill Rehnquist is making your argument for you and, on his authority, you declare the argument of your own that you assign to him to be superior to mine, while simultaneously denying and ignoring two stronger authorities that I built my argument on, Taney and Marshall. I suppose it was a nice try, Walt, but you simply are not going to get away with that kind of a charade around here.

Boiled down this debate comes to my argument, supported by Taney and Marshall among other pieces of evidence, against your argument, supported loosely by Rehnquist and heavily upon your inability to concede any flaw whatsoever on the part of your false god, The Lincoln.

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