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
About what, specifically? I tried to summarize my point about this whole discussion in post #799, but I'm afraid I didn't make it very well, because I have too many other things tapping on my brain that I need to be doing instead of this.
If you meant regarding the Abe Lincoln in a militia mustered by Davis thing - I don't know if it's true or not. I jut thought it would be an interesting factoid if it is true.
You asked where I had been "all weekend" on a Sunday morning -- strictly an attempt to compromise me personally, but you only showed yourself up as that was early Sunday morning.
I've said my piece on Nazi Germany. Hitler didn't care squat for the left. Socialism and Nationalism are, by definition, opposites.
On the other hand, I suppose you are no longer defending George Bush Sr. You haven't made a post about him in at least 10 minutes.
Walt
He was a bum.
His letters show an inconsistancy you can't show in Lincoln's
"The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forebearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for 'perpetual union' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession." January 23, 1861
"All the South has ever desired is that the union, as formed by our founding fathers, should be preserved." Jan 5. 1866
Walt
Quoth WhiskeyPapa. Once again, you have revealed much about yourself with just a handful of words.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Walt
I don't think you're genuine. I think you're putting on an act!
No. Not really. Reading on only reveals Lincoln's elaboration upon the core theory of value he set forth about labor.
Moreover, Lincoln soon modified these views (note the date)
No. Not really. As far as his writings indicate, they were with him to the end of his career and most likely life. He references a labor theory of value in his speeches throughout his career, as is the case in this excerpt from 1861:
"I have long thought that if there be any article of necessity which can be produced at home with as little or nearly the same labor as abroad, it would be better to protect that article. Labor is the true standard of value." - Abraham Lincoln, February 15, 1861
You would know this if you were familiar with Lincoln or had an interest in understanding his economic beliefs, but obviously you do not.
and while he always "stood up" for labor, he also, as an attorney, represented banks and railroads in numerous cases which he won.
Representing railroad companies in no way precludes espousal of the labor theory of value, nor does it make one a laissez faire capitalist. If that were so Enron's top congressional recipient and lackey Sheila Jackson Lee would be the biggest freemarketeer in Washington.
You might look at some of his court cases to see somewhat contradictory arguments.
What records remain appear in Lincoln's multi-volume collected works. After a fairly extensive search of those works for references to labor and tariff issues, it appears to be one of the few things he consistently stuck to in his political career.
and you'll see he in fact was, as Richard Hofstadter called him, the "Marx of the Master Class."
In some regards that argument could be made and I do believe Hofstadter makes a decent case. Interestingly enough in that same book a chapter later, Hofstadter is one of the many historians to point out that your punching bag George Fitzhugh was a crackpot fringer. You have said otherwise. Do you agree with Hofstadter on this?
Incorrect as any honest historian of the subject would tell you.
Got any musty old books that would support that?
Walt
Already have. Repeatedly. If you'd like to examine it specifically, look to his consideration of the Corwin amendment and treatment of the tariff and other economic issues.
According to DiLorenzo it does. Per his book, Lincoln was only interested in corporate welfare for the big railroad companies and suchlike.
Walt
Already have. Repeatedly.
Total BS.
You were responding to #731:
All that I've seen of it suggests a strong yankee bias combined with shoddy consideration of the facts.
Show that, then.
You can start with this:
"Conscription dramatized a fundamental paradox in the Confederate war effort: the need for Hamiltonian means to achieve Jeffersonian ends. Pure Jeffersonians could not accept this. The most outspoken of them, Joseph Brown of Georgia, denounced the draft as a "dangerous usurpation by Congress of the reserved rights of the states...at war with all the principles for which Georgia entered into the revolution."
In reply Jefferson Davis donned the mantle of Hamilton. The Confederate Constitution, he pointed out to Brown, gave Congress the power "to raise and support armies" and to "provide for the common defense." It also contained another clause (likewise copied from the U.S. Constitution) empowering Congress to make all laws "necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers." Brown had denied the constitutionality of conscription because the Constitution did not specifically authorize it. This was good Jeffersonian doctrine, sanctified by generations of southern strict constructionists. But in Hamiltonian language, Davis insisted that the "necessary and proper" clause legitimized conscription. No one could doubt the necessity "when our very existance is threatened by armies vastly superior in numbers." Therefore "the true and only test is to enquire whether the law is intended and calculated to carry out the object...if the answer be in the affirmative, the law is constitutional."
--Battle Cry of Freedom, James McPherson P.433
You've not posted a word about this.
Walt
You made the charge that Dr. McPherson is biased. You need to show it, not me.
Walt
Robert E. Lee --was-- a bum.
Why don't you address the content of the two letters I mentioned -- from 1861 and 1866.
Can the latter be reconciled with an honest account of what Lee was saying in 1861?
Walt
...according to yankees sitting in offices several hundred miles away. Charleston itself did not see it that way.
That being said and regardless of which interpretation you or I favor, the Harriet Lane incident raises a more fundamental question.
In our previous conversations about the Sumter incident, I distinctly remember arguing that the sole yankee interest in being there was to impede free access to that port against the wishes of the people of that port. I further noted that this motive was less than moral, friendly, or just. Further that this motive was known weighed heavily in the decision and need of the confederates to move on Sumter.
If I recall, and correct me if I am in error, you downplayed and dismissed this interpretation when I offered it, suggesting the motives were something else. What the Harriet Lane incident demonstrates though is the yankee use of force to impede access to the confederate port before the war even started. It shows that impeding access was precisely their motive of being there and retaining a presence there.
Your claim that it was one of the actions which pushed Beauregard into firing is ridiculous.
Not in the least. Beauregard, who was already on the brink of acting due to the anticipated yankee fleet arrival, recieved a report of the incident shortly after it happened. Accounts of his actions at the time indicate that it pushed his resolve to proceed and fire on the fort in the morning.
The incident also indicates a second issue at hand - the firing of the first shot. Though Lincoln played Sumter to have fulfilled this role and accordingly blamed the confederates for starting the war as you often do, the first shot was actually fired by the yankees a day earlier in their first resort to force to impede access to the harbor.
So do idolaters, Walt. And you break both of those commandments regularly around here.
So do idolaters, Walt. And you break both of those commandments regularly around here.
I've told no lies.
You lied about the Harriet Lane -- today.
And while I admire Lincoln tremendously, I don't idolize him. You must be feeling some stress. Maybe you should lie down until you feel better.
Walt
Which accounts?
It sure is hard to get contemporary sources from the neo-rebs.
Walt
No Walt. I asked why you had abandoned, or fled, the conversation on nazi germany.
I've said my piece on Nazi Germany. Hitler didn't care squat for the left.
History shows otherwise and in fact he named an avowed leftist, who also happened to be one of his top loyalists, as his successor as Fuehrer.
Socialism and Nationalism are, by definition, opposites.
Show it, because the definitions do not.
Socialism is, by definition, a state in which the means of production are controlled by the people. Nationalism is, by definition, an appeal to the national strength, identity, and unity of a state.
Now. Show me why a state in which "the means of production are controlled by the people" is inhibited from existing under a situation where national strength pervades. You cannot do this. There is simply no contradiction you speak of.
On the other hand, I suppose you are no longer defending George Bush Sr.
I've already defended him adequitely from your bizarre America-hater attempts to blame him for 9/11, but, as with your erronious statements on Hitler, you have essentially abandoned the issue of Bush now that you've come under scrutiny.
Absolutely. But not for someone who makes statements like, "Socilaism and nationalism are opposites, by definition." Or, "Robert E. Lee was a bum."
LOL! I can't get over it! I can just see you, sitting at your ketboard like a toadstool, desperately needing a scrub, typing that out with your grubby little fingers! LOL! It's too much! Life is better than fiction!
As I already referenced in another response to LS, you can start with Hofstadter who points out Fitzhugh's fringe nature in his chapter on The Lincoln.
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