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
Not all of them, but many were.
PLEASE post such evidence. i'd be DELIGHTED to see the data;you will make your name as a scholar of history if you are able to come up with REAL proof of this. i'm dead serious!.
Don't be silly. This isn't original research. But if you want just one example, read the following letter. Freepmail me for an address to send an apologetic bouquet and basket of fresh fruit.
Source: "Charles DuPont Byrd (Baltimore, MD) to Gen. Robert E Lee" Official Records of the War of the Rebellion
Loyola College, Baltimore, April 25, 1861
A strong feeling in the two lower counties of Delaware is aroused in favor of Delaware joining the Southern Confederacy. With a man or two from you to give directions and a hint that arms and men would come if necessary, the people of Sussex themselves would destroy the Delaware railroad terminating at Seaford, on the Nanticoke. This railroad, I am confident, the General Government of Lincoln wish to secure, that they may transport troops by the Nanticoke River to the Chesapeake, and thence to Washington by the Potomac River. A vessel or two sunk in the Nanticoke will hinder this design. There is considerable trestling work on the Delaware railroad near Dover which would retard that road if it were broken. The arms that Delaware owns are in the hands of the secessionists. The powder mills on the Brandywine (owned by relations of mine) should be secured at all hazards. With a not very large force, if we cannot hold them, they should be destroyed. Some of the Du Ponts are friendly to the South. If it is possible to guard these works for a few weeks the stock of powder for the Southern Confederacy would be largely increased. Information is received this a.m. that 8,000 Northern troops are at Annapolis. Do not wait for our Legislature to invite you. Start up the bay at once. If haste is not made, by Saturday night 25,000 troops will be in Washington. The Legislature meets at Frederick to-morrow. Nine thousand one hundred and thirty-five was the vote polled in Baltimore for secession candidates. No opposition being made, the vote was small. Come to our help. We need force at the Susquehanna to stop the hordes of the North.
Respectfully, yours, and every moment waiting your orders, I am,
Charles du Pont Byrd
Here's some of his private correspondence.
That seems to put the lie to your hateful rant."I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except Negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume II, "Letter to Joshua F. Speed" (August 24, 1855), p. 323.
You must have gotten that quote somewhere. Try me.
your minds are CLOSED.
LOL. Well to hell with us then. There are lots of other people reading this thread that would want to see your wonderful sources. Do it for ther children. Post your titles of your "old musty books" so that people can check for themselves. If you don't give some sort of source, reasonable folks might just think you're just making all this stuff up.
It was happening all over the place. See the following from the Pennsylvania Civil War Project.
Even before the outbreak of actual hostilities the spirit of the inhabitants, their high feeling for the integrity of the Union, and the willingness to sacrifice life and treasure for it, were manifested in the events which took place in the northland. This was especially true in Pennsylvania. The first overt act of the war occurred in Pittsburgh during the closing days of 1860, when the citizens refused to allow the guns which the Secretary of War ordered South to leave the city.The slave powers were seriously preparing for war long before most in the North ever took them serious.For months the columns of the newspapers teemed with expressions of ridicule at the outspoken threats of the Southern States, supplemented by a current of unbelief that affairs would take the serious form of open rebellion. All was characterized as a "scare," until the order came from John B. Floyd, of Virginia, Secretary of War in President Buchanan's cabinet, on December 20, 1860, ordering forty columbiads and four thirty-two pounders to be sent from the United States Arsenal in Pittsburgh to an embryo fort in Galveston, Texas, which would not be ready for armament for five years. This order came soon after the news of South Carolina's secession, and the "scare" became an active, perilous, and imminent danger.
Secretary Floyd was deeply concerned in the conspiracy for the overthrow of the Republic and his act of stripping the northern arsenals of arms and ammunition was first detected by the patriotic citizens of Pittsburgh, when a call, signed by prominent men, was issued for a meeting in Mayor George Wilson's office on Christmas afternoon. It was an enthusiastic meeting. General William Robinson presided and several addresses were made on the situation, when it was determined that a demand be made on the President that the order "be countermanded without delay." Major John Symington, commandant of the arsenal, stated that the cannon would be shipped unless the order was revoked. It was also learned that for many days past the government wagons had been transporting munitions to the city for shipment South. The anger of the people could not be restrained. A second meeting was held on the 27th, when General Robinson counseled that nothing resembling an overt act of treason should be committed. Strong resolutions were adopted, among them one which called upon the President to purge his cabinet of every person known to have countenanced the revolt against the Constitution and the laws of the Union. The people awaited impatiently for answers to their telegrams and meetings were held daily.
In the meantime several guns had been hauled through the streets and loaded on the transport "Silver Wave," amid great excitement. Violence was narrowly averted. A cousin of the President, Dr. J. S. Spear, residing nearby in Lawrenceville, detailed the facts to the President, who commanded Secretary Floyd to countermand the order immediately. Floyd fled from Washington, when his successor, Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, on January 3, 1861, countermanded the order. The temper of the people was such that, without this order, the transport would have been sunk before it sailed from Pittsburgh.
Source: http://www.pa-roots.com/~pacw/comingstorm.html
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Lincoln quote dump:
"If A can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B. -- why can not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A.? --
You say A. is a white, and B. is black. It is --color--, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be the slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.
You do not mean color exactly? -- You mean the whites are --intellectually-- the superiors of the blacks, and therefore, have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.
But, say you, it is a question of --interest--; and, if you can make it your --interest--, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you."
1854
-- from "Mystic Chords of Memory; a Selection of Lincoln's works." edited by Larry Shapiro.
Consider also this letter:
"Dear [Joshua] Speed:
You know what a poor correspondent I am. Ever since I recieved your very agreeable letter of the 22nd. of May I have been intending to write you in answer to it. You suggest that in political action now, you and I would differ. I suppose we would; not quite as much as you might think. You know I dislike slavery; and you fully admit the abstract wrong of it. So far there is no cause of difference. But you say that sooner than yield your legal right to the slave--especially at the bidding of those who are not themselves interested, you would see the Union dissolved. I am not aware that anyone is bidding you to yield that right; very certainly I am not. I leave that matter entirely to yourself. I also acknowledge your rights and my obligation, under the Constitution, in regard to your slaves. I confess that I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes and unwarranted toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no such interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union."
8/24/1854
Ibid.
"I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. [Loud cheers.] I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects---certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man. [Great applause.]
From the speech at Ottowa, 1858
"The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society. And yet they are denied, and evaded, with no small show of success. One dashingly calls them "glittering generalities"; another bluntly calls them "self evident lies"; and still others insidiously argue that they only apply to "superior races."
These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect. -- the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads, plotting against the people. They are the van-guard -- the miners and sappers -- of returning despotism. We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us.
This is a world of compensations; and he that would -be- no slave, must consent to --have-- no slave. Those that deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it.
All honor to Jefferson -- to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicible to to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyrany and oppression."
March 1, 1859
"it is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers."
April 11, 1865
"But to be plain, you are dissatisfied with me about the negro. Quite likely there is a difference of opinion between you and myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that all men could be free, while I suppose that you do not. ....peace does not appear as distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to worth the keeping in all future time. It will have then been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost. And then, there will be some black men, who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet they have helped mankind on to this great consumation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, have strove to hinder it. Still let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy final triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us dilligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in his own good time, will give us the rightful result."
8/23/63
"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel...
In telling this tale I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the Nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God."
4/4/64
--"Abraham Lincoln, Mystic Chords of Memory" published by the Book of the Month Club, 1984 and: "Lincoln, Speeches and Writings, 1859-65, Library of the Americas, Don E. Fehrenbacher, ed. 1989
Walt
INterestingly enough, it is believed that Abe Lincoln was once in a militia commanded by Jefferson Davis. I forget the details.
Hardly. Both were involved in the Blackhawk war but Davis was a second Lieutenant in the regular army and Lincoln served for about 80 days as a militia captain and never saw action. They never met during the conflict.
Now, now. Liars go to Hell.
Walt
You are correct that it is different in tone from what he often said in public --- he was a politician after all. In an age when it was not at all popular or even healthy in many parts of the country to express any sympathy for blacks or Catholics or any other minority, Lincoln chose his public words carefully and often did not express his true feelings. Around the same time Lincoln wrote this, an abolitionist newspaper editor was lynched by a pro-slavery mob in Alton Illinois.
|Here is a link to the entire text of the letter. Letter to Joshua Speed It is very good insight to the arguments and issues of the day.
I have to say, though, these "collected works" keep setting off my BS-O-Meter. The language just doesn't see authentic.
To the contrary. I have not denied you were posting here during all that time and far from it. I simply note that you essentially fled the discussion about nazi Germany the second you were called on your statements and have not since returned in any substantial way. But as always, you'd rather argue that your evasion is not really evasion than actually address the issue.
Incorrect as any honest historian of the subject would tell you. Fitzhugh was on the margin of his own time. In fact, those who paid the most attention to him were northerners who used his rantings to incite alarmist reactions for their own political gains.
But based on your posts it is obvious that this matters not to you, just as Lincoln's embrace of the labor theory of value matters not to you. You seem more interested in historically shaky, radically pro-northern rants designed to incite reaction and little more.
Also, see my quote from those collected works in my other post to you. What are we to make of such incongruencies? there are many incongruencies in quotations from both sides. To me, Robert E. Lee is one of the least complex, most understandable of the characters, and I admire him more the more I learn of him. But surely such complexity in the documents of the time can't lead us to the story the public indoctrination camps tried to teach us when I was a kid that the North was a bunch of abolitionists who were motivated by a deep compassion for the slaves, and the South were a bunch of Nazi-style racists and drunks ready for a fight, because they knew in their hearts that being mean to Blacks (which is what they lived for) was wrong. It's just silly, and wrong, and still the basic line taught in the taxpayer-funded indoctrination camps.
Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that that simplistic, bigoted interpretation of the conflict is true. Let's say Lee and Davis were scoundrels, and Lincoln was the honest, loving, compassionate, courageous leader the textbooks make him out to be. Let's say it was ALL about slavery, and the South's love of slavery.
Does that mean that the political outcome of the victory of the North was a GOOD thing for our nation? Are some of us wrong to say that a lot of the lack of respect for the Constitutuion, the current moral and intellectual plight of the Blacks in the US, and the out-of-control nature of the Federal government can be traced back to this conflict and its outcome? What about all that? We engage in endless argument about the causes, and the motives, and the contradictory quotes...but what about the OUTCOME? Are we better off? Are the Blacks better off? I think arguing about that will bring out how differing in a worldview are the cultural Yankees and cultural Southerners/Westerners. It's a difference that goes back to the nation's conception. It is the reason why a socialist Yankee to this day cannot win votes in the South, and all our liberal presidents could only win elections if they came from the South and pretended to be slighlty conservative, and fed off of regionalism.
I'm through rambling now...
Obviously you do not, nor do you seem to care much for historical accuracy.
You have to remember WHY Marx "supported" Lincoln was that he wanted a communist revolution and his theory (WRONG) was that such revolutions would occur in CAPITALIST countries. This alone tells you that even the father of communism knew the South was not "capitalist," but feudal.
Obviously you are unfamiliar with Marx's writings on the war then, as he clearly identified Lincoln as having ushered in the new stage of workers revolution IN the south.
Not that it would occur to you to actually read something before shooting your mouth off about it. We all saw how you handle situations of the sort earlier in this thread when you dismissed a journal you knew little about and an article you never read by calling them both names.
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