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
Walt
You just did...what'cher point?!!
MUD
You just did...what'cher point?!!Hmmm...I don't remember.
Hey, you don't want to burn the Constitution by any chance, do you?
Walt
Why, Papa?! Are YOU an EffeteElite?!
Admit it NOW, Ol' Man...cleanse thy soul and be FRee...MUD
The Constitution is my FRiend...actually, I am a FRiend Of the Constitution of the United States...F.O.C.U.S.
LOL...MUD
Can I quote you on that?!
MUD
Yes, my embittered Northern FRiend...FOCUS!!
FReegards...MUD
BTW, AF...be gracious in yer apology to Ms. Bunny!!!
No, but there is something Serbian about obsessing over a decisive defeat your side suffered generations ago. We won, you lost, GET OVER IT. Who do you think you are, Al Gore?
there is plenty of room on the north american continent for six free countries.
Why stop there? There are 3066 counties in the United States. Why not make each one sovereign? Devolution is the name of the game!
the old rebel familes have NOT forgotten the taste we had of liberty between 1861-1865. and we will not EVER forget.
Taste of freedom? "Freedom" must have been the only thing your ancestors tasted, since the armed port closings and occupation of the Mississippi reduced most of the South to starvation. But be my guest if you ever want to go to Vicksburg to eat rats and mules.
as was done when Czechoslovakia became the Czech Republic & Slovakia.
Wish away. It ain't goin to happen. But even if it did, the South would probably do about as well as Slovakia did after it bit the hand that fed it.
free dixie and THEN curse us to your heart's content.
Why waste my time cursing folks I don't take seriously?
free dixie,sw
Can you tell us what "Yankee" states freed their slaves "long after Richmond fell"?
And your Independent Southern Nation would be welcome to them.
KOOK ALERT
Oh yes. The United States of America = Nazi Germany. That'll get you far on this forum.
Hell, you produced Clinton. You produce any more, and we'll expell the South from the Union, by force if necessary.
That's funny. While Clinton never had much trouble winning the liberal stronghold states of yankeeland, last I checked he was never able to win a solid block in the South. Arkansas may have produced him, but your neck of the woods plus Walt elected him.
Don't blame my neck of the woods, we went for the Republican both times. And don't try and disown him, either. Clinton was your gift to the North and in an independent confederacy he probably would have done just fine.
Wow, such power.
I voted for Clinton in '92 and based on what I knew then, it was the right call.
It shouldn't be forgotten that it was "Mr. Ambassador to China, head of the CIA, VP for eight years" George Bush Sr. who maladroitly stumbled into a major war in the Persian Gulf. The military made him look pretty good, but he was still -- and still is -- an idiot.
Surely people remember how he urged the Kurds and Shi'ites to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein, and then, when they attempted to do that, with every expectation of U.S. help, he left them hanging. This led to very bad suffering by a lot of people who'd done nothing more than trust him. Remember the video of these poor people fleeing on foot in very extreme weather, with nothing to eat?
Don't forget that he pardoned Admiral Poindexter, Caspar Wienburger and others late in 1992 to keep them out of prison. That of course was over Iran-Contra, which he denied knowing about, but in which the record shows he was fully involved.
People shouldn't have short memories in these issues.
Do you think Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11? It's pretty much accepted that the 1993 attack on the WTC was the work of his agents. They've been running some commercials for some sort of memorial thing for the victims of 9/11. It shows a beautiful little 4 year old girl who was a passenger on one of the airliners. Then they cut to GEORGE BUSH Sr., who (if you think Saddam was involved) was a major reason this little girl was killed. That commercial makes me gag.
George Bush Sr. will -always- be remembered as one of the very worst presidents.
Walt
What -is- easy to extrapolate is that now that we have decided to get rid of Hussein, we need those people. And thanks to George Bush Sr., they are pretty skeptical of us, and with very good reason. That's probably going to be a really big factor in a war in Iraq. Just keep that in mind as you relish the end of Hussein.
Walt
Hmmmm.....I can think of two Virginians named James Madison and George Washington who didn't think that.
Walt
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