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.

BTW, can you point out a single point in his tirade where Wigfall was right in predictions?

Can you point out a single point in his tirade where GOPCap doesn't take something out of context?

I'll say it again-- the neo-rebs hold up Lee and Jackson and extoll their goodness and honesty and honor -- and will then turn around and tell any doggone lie they like themselves.

Walt

OK, I give up. Where does it say that the southern rebellion was about tariffs?

Right here:

Are you really that dense?

BTW, can you point out a single point in his tirade where Wigfall was right in predictions?

Gladly. "will you go to direct taxation?" The Lincoln did exactly that.

Then do you favor the repeal of the United States Constitution?

You might go back and look at how slavery made its way into the Constitution in the first place. It was a compromise, offered to persuade the slave-holding states to ratify. IIRC, the northern states assumed that slavery was on its last legs anyway, so that the compromise would not have long-lasting effects. It was a poor assumption for which hundreds of thousands later died to rectify.

You should not tell lies. Don't you know you'll go to Hell?

Idolatry will get you the same thing. The way some of you worship The Lincoln around here is indicative of that commandment's violation on a daily basis.

I do have a picture of Father Abraham on my wall. Of course I have a shrine to Thurman Munson like the one in the movie "Bull Durham" too.

Walt

That's how democracy works.

Yet you just said that the protectionists were a non-issue in 1861 and that the Georgia declaration recognized this. Do you now concede that they were an issue and that Georgia recognized that as well?

Your inconsistency is laughable, Walt.

I say that cotton is king, and that he waves his scepter not only over these thirty-three States, but over the island of Great Britain and over continental Europe, and that there is no crowned head upon that island, or upon the Continent, that does not bend the knee in fealty and acknowledge allegiance to that monarch. There are five million people in Great Britain who live upon cotton.

LOL. So the CSA embargoed cotton and the British said --- so what. They turned their mills to wool and then started cotton plantations of their own in Egypt and India.

Wigfall reminds me of the mouse floating on his back down the river hollering "Open the Draw Bridge!" But that about sums up the whole slaveocracy as well as their modern-day apologists.

IIRC, the northern states assumed that slavery was on its last legs anyway, so that the compromise would not have long-lasting effects.

Pretty much everybody thought that.

Then came the cotton gin, King Cotton, slavery ordained in the Bible, and so forth.

Walt

You might go back and look at how slavery made its way into the Constitution in the first place. It was a compromise

Sure it was. But my question pertains to it being in there per se. It has been said that "Any nation that had slavery incorporated into its founding constitution was in no way correct." Slavery is indisputably contained in the US Constitution. Does that make the US Constitution "in no way correct"?

Then do you favor the repeal of the United States Constitution?

That's a stupid question.

By comparison, show me specifically where slavery is incorporated in the U.S. Constitution as a practice. I mean show me exactly where it is mentioned.

Then CSA constitution specifically incorporates slavery by name and with no equivocations. Even the max price!

No mercy.
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So the CSA embargoed cotton and the British said --- so what.

The Slave Power was so unclever that they neglected to notice that Britain imported more wheat and other grains from the north than they did cotton from the south.

Oooops. Then they cleverly burned thousands of bales of cotton to stymie the market and bring the Brit Army and Navy in on their side. There was just one little problem......

Walt

Slavery is indisputably contained in the US Constitution. Does that make the US Constitution "in no way correct"?

B.S.! Your comparision is false on its face.

Just where is slavery mentioned? Show me. No nods and winks, I mean the incorporation of slavery as a practice enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.

Show me! I'm waiting.

That's a stupid question.

No. It's a perfectly relevant test of your consistency, or lack thereof. The US Constitution acknowledged slavery was an institution in congressional apportionment counting and barred any amendment banning the import of slaves until 1808. Slavery was indisputably present in the U.S. Constitution, yet you said that "Any nation that had slavery incorporated into its founding constitution was in no way correct."

So my question to you. The US Constitution incorporates slavery in several clauses. Does that mean it is "in no way correct"?

Answer it and show your inconsistency. Avoid it and show your foolishness. Either way, the flaw in your earlier reasoning is exposed.

Are you really that dense?

My aren't we getting testy all of a sudden.

That quote is Wigfall's prediction of what will happen to the United States once the south was gone. Know how you can tell? It follows the paragraph where he mentions the 40% tariff that the south could establish. These were predictions, by the way, which were amazing in their inaccuracy. Instead of a crumbling North it was the south that was broken, the south which was bankrupted, the south which turned to protectionist tariffs and confiscatory income tax rates of their own. So again I ask. Where does Wigfall claim that the south was seceding over the tariff? It's a simple question, one which even you should be able to answer.

Yet you just said that the protectionists were a non-issue in 1861...

Where did I say that?

You need to pick up some of this intell-ec-too-all lingo like me and Andy and Ditto and Non-Sequitur use. We is eddjicated. Heck. I can cipher to the 'rule of three'.

Use some of that Ivory Tower lingo like, "As I indicated....", or, "I have tried to suggest..."

Now, where did I even -suggest- that protectionists were a non-issue? Hey, wouldn't it be better to say "protectionism"?

It -would- suck to have some little skulldugger of a protectionist pulling at ye pant leg.

Walt

Just where is slavery mentioned? Show me. No nods and winks, I mean the incorporation of slavery as a practice enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.

"Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article" - Article V

"The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person." - Article I, Section 9.1

"No Person held to Service or Labour 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 Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due." - Article IV, Section 2.3

Instead of a crumbling North it was the south that was broken, the south which was bankrupted, the south which turned to protectionist tariffs and confiscatory income tax rates of their own.

Yeah, still didn't work.

Lee complains that the CSA congress can only sit, chew tobacco and eat peanuts, "while my army starves", while President Lincoln reports, "Our resources are unexhausted, and as we believe, are inexhaustible."

Walt

Does that make the US Constitution "in no way correct"?

William Lloyd Garrison thought so. He was ready to burn that sumbuck.

Maybe it would be better to say that a government can be "in no way correct" if it has slavery as its cornerstone, as the so-called CSA did?

Walt

Where does Wigfall claim that the south was seceding over the tariff?

Why do you keep ignoring what is said in the plainest of language? It's all right here:

"You suppose that numbers constitute the strength of government in this day. I tell you that it is not blood; it is the military chest; it is the almighty dollar. When you have lost your market; when your operatives are turned out; when your capitalists are broken, will you go to direct taxation? Burn down a factory that yields ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five thousand dollars a year to its owner and he goes to the wall. Dismiss the operatives, stop the motion of his machinery, and he is as thoroughly broken as if his factory were burnt; for the time he is bankrupt. These are matters for your consideration. I know that you do not regard us as in earnest. I would save this Union if I could; but it is my deliberate impression that it cannot now be done."

What do you think he's taling about when he says the almighty dollar drives the war? THE TARIFF!

What do you think he's talking about when he asks if they'll fund their government on direct taxation? THE TARIFF THAT WOULD BE USELESS WITHOUT THE SOUTH!

Try opening your eyes for once.

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