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
Oh ho!
I bet someone was in their cups when they wrote that. ;-)
Walt
Because Nazi thugs used to rumble with Commie thugs in the streets of German cities prior to Hitler's ascension to power. Don't you know --anything--?
Walt
They wrote about a revolutionary right. None of the founders is on the record saying there was a unilateral right to withdraw under U.S. law.
In March, 1833, James Madison wrote to William Cabell Rives as follows:
"The nullifiers it appears, endeavor to shelter themselves under a distinction between a delegation and a surrender of powers. But if the powers be attributes of sovereignty & nationality & the grant of them be perpetual, as is necessarily implied, where not otherwise expressed, sovereignty & nationality are effectually transferred by it, and the dispute about the name, is but a battle of words. The practical result is not indeed left to argument or inference. The words of the Constitution are explicit that the Constitution & laws of the U. S. shall be supreme over the Constitution and laws of the several States; supreme in their exposition and execution as well as in their authority. Without a supremacy in those respects it would be like a scabbard in the hands of a soldier without a sword in it. The imagination itself is startled at the idea of twenty four independent expounders of a rule that cannot exist, but in a meaning and operation, the same for all."
In his letter to Daniel Webster, dated March 13, 1833, James Madison wrote:
"I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful speech in the Senate of the U. S. It crushes "nullification" and must hasten an abandonment of "Secession." But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression. The former answers itself, being a violation without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy."
Secession does not exist as a matter of right, according to Madison, because it is a breach of the "compact" between the States, whereas secession or "revolution" for cause is recognized without question.
There are two ways out of the Constitution -- the amendment process, or revolution.
Walt
Well, there were 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Start quoting.
Walt
Capable and exclusive are two different things. Have you never heard of the IWW-- the International Workers of the World?
Ah, the joys of a liberal arts education!
Walt
Like who?
Walt
And where does loyalty to the occupation government come?
Selgin (who has Austrian leanings, but I'm not sure how he classifies himself) did publish an article in JEH about the Depression, but not about money supply or the stock market, but about the "check tax" and regulation. It was a good one.
BTW, there is a very nice and quite fair treatment of the Austrians (who say they never get considered by mainstream economists) in Gene Smiley's new econ history textbook.
How about some documentation for that statement. I'm not aware of even one founder who would have supported unilateral secession as was pushed by the radical fire-eaters. I'm sure all the founders would have supported the right to rebel from intolerable oppression, which for all the whining of the neo-confederates here, none ever show any examples of oppression by the Federal Government on the south before the war.
The words of the founders were many and easily documented. Give us examples where they supported the right to secession because you don't care for the outcome of an election.
I have to agree with that. A smooth-talking, sticky-fingered hustler in the mold of Falbus, Wallace, Long, and even Jimmy Carter who won the governorship of Georgia on an anti-civil rights platform in 1970. (Most people don't know that. The sitting Gov had the black vote all tied up, so Carter went after the good-ol'-boy vote by attacking desegration.) They all know how to bring out the ignorant bubba vote and can deal the race card just as well from either end of the deck.
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