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.

you being a UVA grad does NOT fill me with happiness. how did you manage to go to TJ's school and be inculcated with the values of our enemies in damnyankeeland?

FYI, a damnyankee is a south-hater, who believes everything/everybody in the north is superior in every way to ALL southerners and our institutions. being northernborn no more makes one a damnyankee than it makes one a Methodist.

damnyankees are MADE, rather than born.

free dixie,sw

As Professor Charles Adams states in his book For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization, " … the South paid about three-quarters of all federal taxes, most of which were spent in the North."

Funny how US Senator from Georgia and Vice President of the CSA, Alexander Stephens, who should know first hand where the money came from and went to, said just the opposite. (See post #30)

The Northern states paid over 75% of all federal taxes while the south with only 40% of the population, consumed 50% of the budget.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but no one is entitled to their own facts.

if i DO go to hell, i'll see you there squatting by the hottest part of the fire, as i believe there is an especiallly HOT place for scalawags.

It's good to see you make a post with no falsehoods for once.

Free Dixie cups now.

Walt

Re your # 299...The only state's right at issue was slavery.

There were many salient issues involving state's rights versus the federal government which in turn contributed to the war: These included the imposition and impact of various tarrifs...Banking regulations and conflicts....Indian affairs(a major problem of the times). Source Columbia Encylopedia..6th ed.

I have to admit, I did not read all of your post #30,, or at the least, not enough of it. The reason for my post of #283 is explained in my post #292.

If you would be so kind, as to give me the reference of your post #30. I would like to have a copy of that one. I can not copy it.

Thanks,,

Source please

Read the writings of Alexander Stephens for a start. In his Cornerstone speech he is quite insistent that slavery was the cause of the rebellion. In his diaries written while he was in custody after the war he seems to have changed his tune. Read the Declarations of the Causes of Secession or the speeches delivered to the various secession conventions. Over and over and over again a single theme runs through them all, defend slavery. Protect slavery. Accept Lincoln and you accept freedom for blacks and an end to slavery. The understanding that defending the institution of slavery from the threat posed by the Republican victory was by far the single most important reason for the southern rebellion has nothing to to with revisionist history. It doesn't come from the carpetbaggers, it comes from the speeches and writings of the men who led the rebellion. Slavery was their reason for rebellion, not mine.

There were many salient issues involving state's rights versus the federal government which in turn contributed to the war: These included the imposition and impact of various tarrifs...Banking regulations and conflicts....Indian affairs(a major problem of the times). Source Columbia Encylopedia..6th ed.

The federal government had just about ZERO impact on most people's lives in antebellum America -- with two exceptions -- delivering the mail and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act.

If any tariff was imposed, the Constitution requires that it be uniform throughout the states. How can that be unfair?

I don't think there were any federal banking regulations. An act that addressed this was passed -during- the war.

How could Indian affairs affect the Union of the states?

Can you copy some of the exact text from this encyclopedia into the thread?

Walt

"The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern States." Dickens goes on to say " … Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many other evils … The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel." Let us quote a passage from The Northern British Review, Edinburgh, 1862, " ... All Northern products are now protected: and the Morrill Tariff is a very masterpiece of folly and injustice."

Maybe an injustice to the British working class, of whom Dickens was a champion.

Man, I like to never have gotten through "Hard Times."

Walt

re your # 308...The federal government had just about ZERO impact on most people's lives in antebellum America -- with two exceptions -- delivering the mail and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act.

An example (via encyclopedia Americana) of why your statement is an over simplification and not true follows:

The Second Bank of the U.S (true it was privately held) was supported stongly by the north and the federal government as it dominated the U.S. banking industry....."Because it consumed rather than produced manufactured goods" the south opposed the protective tarrif involving the bank as the south was anxious for credit not required by the north; the north was almost totally diversified.

The tarrif was no trite issue and was an integral piece, including slavery and the other resons detailed, of the decision by the south to leave the union.

I think your belief that slavery, and only slavery, was the singular reason for the Civil War is an over simplification of reality. Accordingly, I think we have run this thing to the wall and I wish you well.

Because it consumed rather than produced manufactured goods" the south opposed the protective tarrif involving the bank as the south was anxious for credit not required by the north; the north was almost totally diversified.

No one made the south focus on cash crops as opposed to industry. Factories COULD have been built there. There was a move to "bring the spindles to the cotton", but it died aborning because the slave power didn't like the idea. They wanted everyone besides themselves to stay in peonage to them.

Walt

The second Bank of the United States had had it's charter run out 25 years before the beginning of the Civil War. How could that have been a factor in the southern decision? And as for slavery, I maintain only that it was by far the single, most important factor in the southern decision. I'm sure that there was a small minority who had other reasons for rebellion.

re your # 313... I appreciate your cordial attitude. I'm a real southern gentleman myself.

Well...I was born, raised, and educated in the north so I can't match you on the the "southern" part....or perhps even, unfortunately, on the "gentelman" part...but I can try.

I am actually 70 and ex miltary (flew tankers)....My parents were both born and raised in the south and moved north with my father's engineering work for Westinghouse Electric Corp. They always referred to all of their children as "naughty little Yankees" when we were bad....So I have a "thing" about the south...as you can no doubt see....and so I try to treat it and it's history as fairly as I can.

Re your # 314...The second Bank of the United States had had it's charter run out 25 years before the beginning of the Civil War. How could that have been a factor in the southern decision?

I took my statement directly out of the "encyclopedia Americana"..Volume 6..page 791...my set published in 1971.

My guess is that the history they printed was before political correctness and the historical revisionism common since the end of WWII..largely done, of course, to satisfy the likes of the NAACP and such.

But I am only quoting what is printed in the encyclopedia and incorporated it into the tarrif problem that it and the north presented for the south.

Have a very nice evening.

THAT statement of mine neither indicates, suggests, or says that the protectionist movement was not a cause.

Yes it does, Walt. You made the statement to imply the mistaken notion that even the south said protectionism was not the cause on the grounds that they said free trade had ruled the day.

As "Yankhater" indicated, tariffs are not in the set of issues that drive people to the barricades.

Frederic Bastiat famously held otherwise. "If goods do not cross borders, armies will."

Tariffs are the issue the "Lost Cause" apologists fastened on after the war.

Senator Wigfall's comments, in which he cites the tax issue directly and then concludes the inevitability of secession, indicate the issue was taken up several months before the war began. Try again.

I took my statement directly out of the "encyclopedia Americana"..Volume 6..page 791...my set published in 1971.

The 2nd Bank of the United States went out of business in 1832 when Andy Jackson vetoed the charter renewal. There was no national bank in 1860, but I'm sure that won't stop the Lost Cause Myth Makers from continuing the claim. Facts are unimportant to them.

I suggest you throw your encyclopedia Americana away --- it's junk.

I'm sorry but I believe that you are missing the point of that Wigfall is trying to make.

And I'm sorry, but my reading of its plain text meaning seems to be sound. You on the other hand previously maintained that when Wigfall directed his comments about money to persons he addressed as "you" and "your," he was really addressing those comments to himself and the South. It is truly sad that you go to such lengths to deny that the obvious recipient of that passage was yankeeland.

Look at the paragraph prior to the one you quote:

That's nice and all, and throughout it he refers to "us," "our," and "we" - a clear reference to the South. That is NOT the case in the following paragraph, which is at issue here. He states "you" and "your" in address to the North. This is obvious to any intelligent and mentally capable individual, though for some reason you have great trouble with it. Why is that?

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