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
But it's our heratige..... < /whiny sarcasm >
Dang, it's refreshing to see some common sense about the Civil War.
As I said before, tricks like this are just stupid. Alexander Stephens was not my vice-President. Old as I may be, I wasn't around then, and I am not a Southerner. Such cheap shoddy tricks are the reason why you and your cronies have so little credibility on this forum.
your informative post. I can't type,,,,
That or our public schools....
D'OH!
The South was constitutionally and morally justified to protect slavery if you understand the nature of 19th century life and government. Any Southerner who was alive at the time would willingly announce to you the connection of constitutional government and slavery.
Unionists were prepared to make some concessions to keeping the Southern states in the union. Before the war they were more than willing to allow slavery to continue where it was already established. Ultimately, the slaveowners believed that Republican rule would mean an end to slavery, but that would have been a longer term consequence. So it wasn't just the survival of slavery in the narrower sense that was at issue. It was the questions of the expansion of slavery and the degree of power slaveowners would have that touched off the rebellion. These were means to the end of preserving slavery, but they went beyond the narrow understanding of maintaining slavery where it existed.
Were slaveowners and others "constitutionally and morally justified" in striving to preserve slavery? I'd have to say no, not constitutionally, and certainly not morally justified. An earlier generation of Virginians had recognized the evils of slavery and had dreamed of its end. It would have been far better to reconcile oneself to the end of slavery and work for gradual emancipation.
There were those in the antebellum South who held the idea that slavery underlay freedom, but it's not something we can accept today, nor was it something that ought to have been uncritically accepted at the time. And indeed, our idea of freedom may have grown up with or grown out of slavery, but even in Jefferson's time it was recognized that the two could not continue to coexist together forever. For many, 1860 was a turning point. The old combination of freedom and slavery was breaking down and a choice was necessary.
One can understand the Confederates and their ideas about freedom and slavery and why they acted as they did, and yet still not agree that what they did was wise or justifiable or for the best.
Let me remind us all of a famous quote:
"My country right or wrong: when right, to keep her right; when wrong, to put her right." (Carl Schurz, in a speech before the U.S. Senate. February 29, 1872).
Chattel slavery, we can all agree, was a wrong. It was eliminated, although perhaps not "put right" because it was simply replaced by other forms of slavery; most notably the so-called "income tax" (which is primarily a tax on wages, rather than on income). But the wrong committed by the federal government in denying the Southern states their right of self-determinatin has never even been acknowledged, much less put right If and when it is, then we will be able to put it behind us and move on to current matters.
I agree that many great historians have begun as journalists or lawyers. I also believe in looking closely at the primary sources, records and etc. When Mr. DiLorenzo was challenged by myself on several of his statements on civil War attrocities and slavery as an issue of the war, I perceived a very flippant attitude from him. My gut tells me that DiLorenzo is typical of many neo-confederates. I graduated college in Mississippi and debated many of these folks. For the most part the leading (not rank and file) neo-confederates are pushing an agenda (with leftist methods not politics) for limited government by using the Confederacy as a model.
My friends, limited government is a beautiful thing. The problem is they are borrowing Confederate history and twisting it to fit a modern agenda. As a history person, no matter my modern ideology, I find that dangerous. If you do some homework you will find that many of these Neo-confeds are northern born and educated and have little background in either southern culture or Civil War history. As for myself, for the record I am of Northern ancestry but Virginia born and raised. (the yankhater name is a tongue- in-cheek family joke) So I tend to view the war from both sides.
What we have to understand is that as conservatives from the North and South we should not be refighting the Civil War. I have seen that certain political issues and figures from both sides would be embraced by conservatives today. Think about it....anyone who is patriotic enough to care about the Civil War or visit a battlefield is usually a conservative. You will not find filthy dreadlocked, communist, hippie, liberals at a battlefield unless its to watch a spotted owl or hide in the woods and do drugs. Our currant leftist, pro terrorist, lazy, anti-American, communist, multi-culturalist liberal drones you see marching at Berkeley hate Lincoln too. When I see those people hate Lincoln I get real careful not to bash him too much.
Let's be honest. Prior to the Socialist FDR era, most political figures liberal or conservative from the past would seem like a breath of fresh air today. We often make the mistake of taking past issues (the Civil War) and making modern fights out of them amongst conservatives. Again anyone who would be so patriotic as to CARE that much about American freedom and history (no matter if they prefer Lincoln or Lee) is a friend of mine.
If you are a conservative Southerner such as I am, your real enemy is one of these filthy kooks on our own soil that come from Southern college campuses, and southerners such as Clinton and Gore rather than a Yankee good ole boy who places a flag at the Lincoln memorial. We as conservatives look to the past for examples in courage and freedom. Liberals twist history for their own agendas, lie, steal our heroes, bash our Founders, ban our statues, and prop up socialist ranters as heroes.
While it may seem like the neo-Confeds I mention are giving the left a taste of their medicine, I believe it to be a dangerous path. Let us accept our history good and bad. Would you rather have Canada's lame history? At least our side cares about history enough to argue.
The tendency of some leftists to hate The Lincoln is somewhat amusing, and by witnessing their hatred of The Lincoln you should not draw any necessary conclusion of similarity between them and those with the confederate point of view. More likely than not, the Berkleyite hatred of The Lincoln has more to do with hating America. They see that many patriotic persons embrace The Lincoln and therefore reject him as an establishment hero of patriotism.
Among leftist political thinkers and historians this is not the case. Many, many prominent leftists who have studied Lincoln have embraced him as a matter of greatness and political liberation. In modern times leftist historians such as McPherson have carried this to great lengths but it is truly historical and engrained in the development of leftist thought. The Lincoln has had a contingent of adoring fans in communist circles for the last 130 years, not the least among them being Karl Marx himself. The Berzerkley wackos who profess their own Marxism most likely know nothing of this and would probably change their opinions of The Lincoln if they were familiar with their hero Marx's views of the man and his supposed role in proletarian history. Ordinary leftists tend to behave that way - they don't think for themselves and grasp onto whatever they percieve be the most like Marx, or the most radical, or the most anti-America.
ROTFLOL!!! And they said that forms were not actualized in this world...
"Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late...It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern school books their version of
the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit objects for derision…"
"It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties."
-Gen Patrick Cleburne, CSA
Prior to the Socialist FDR era, most political figures liberal or conservative from the past would seem like a breath of fresh air today.
This something I've been saying for a long time. DiLorenzo's turning Lincoln into FDR or LBJ and the Whigs into modern socialists is laughable. The issues and arguments of the 19th century were not the same as today. Even those who are fully in favor of limited and decentralized government may have doubts about whether secession was constitutional or desirable or about whether the Jeffersonian view was always right and desireable.
I think there were no end of good reasons for not being on the same side as Davis or the militant secessionists and fire-eaters and I'm glad that they were unsuccessful, but as in any civil war, good people ended up on both sides. Once fighting started, people had to make choices based on limited knowledge and the prevailing beliefs of the day. They often had to choose the lesser of two evils, and that's not always easy to do, especially when one's friends and relatives have already committed to one side or the other.
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