Lincoln holiday on its way out (West Virginia)

West Virginia Gazette Mail ^ | 9-8-2005 | Phil Kabler

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Lincoln holiday on its way out

By Phil Kabler Staff writer

A bill to combine state holidays for Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays into a single Presidents’ Day holiday cleared its first legislative committee Wednesday, over objections from Senate Republicans who said it besmirches Abraham Lincoln’s role in helping establish West Virginia as a state.

Senate Government Organization Committee members rejected several attempts to retain Lincoln’s birthday as a state holiday.

State Sen. Russ Weeks, R-Raleigh, introduced an amendment to instead eliminate Columbus Day as a paid state holiday. “Columbus didn’t have anything to do with making West Virginia a state,” he said. “If we have to cut one, let’s cut Christopher Columbus.”

Jim Pitrolo, legislative director for Gov. Joe Manchin, said the proposed merger of the two holidays would bring West Virginia in line with federal holidays, and would effectively save $4.6 million a year — the cost of one day’s pay to state workers.

Government Organization Chairman Ed Bowman, D-Hancock, said the overall savings would be even greater, since by law, county and municipal governments must give their employees the same paid holidays as state government.

“To the taxpayers, the savings will be even larger,” he said.

The bill technically trades the February holiday for a new holiday on the Friday after Thanksgiving. For years, though, governors have given state employees that day off with pay by proclamation.

Sen. Sarah Minear, R-Tucker, who also objected to eliminating Lincoln’s birthday as a holiday, argued that it was misleading to suggest that eliminating the holiday will save the state money.

“It’s not going to save the state a dime,” said Minear, who said she isn’t giving up on retaining the Lincoln holiday.

Committee members also rejected an amendment by Sen. Steve Harrison, R-Kanawha, to recognize the Friday after Thanksgiving as “Lincoln Day.”

“I do believe President Lincoln has a special place in the history of West Virginia,” he said.

Sen. Randy White, D-Webster, said he believed that would create confusion.

“It’s confusing to me,” he said.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, suggested that the state could recognize Lincoln’s proclamation creating West Virginia as part of the June 20 state holiday observance for the state’s birthday.

Proponents of the measure to eliminate a state holiday contend that the numerous paid holidays - as many as 14 in election years — contribute to inefficiencies in state government.

To contact staff writer Phil Kabler, use e-mail or call 348-1220.

[Non-Sequitur]

You persist in mis-stating what I said. I said that the South consumed $331 million in imports. You are assuming that $331 came from overseas. All of it did not. So get your facts right.

I suggest you get your terminology straight. Imports, by definition, come from outside of the country. If not from overseas then what was the south importing from Mexico?

[Non-Sequitur]

We have reason to believe that negotiations are on foot which may lead to the establishment of a line of ocean steamers between Norfolk, Virginia, and Havre France, touching at New York going and coming.

What took them?

Cotton can be sent from points south of Memphis to Liverpool, via New York, about as cheaply as via New Orleans.

Then why wasn't it? In the year prior to the rebellion, 274,400 bales of cotton were exported from Nortern ports of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Over 10 times as much, 2,840,000 bales, were exported from southern ports. Of that 1,784,000 was exported from New Orleans alone.

But if Norfolk or Baltimore entered into the competition, they would enjoy advantages over New York...

Norfolk and Baltimore were in the competition. Only 810 bales of cotton were exported from Virginia ports, about 3,500 from Baltimore.

[Non-Sequitur]

Get it through your head that it was your claim, and not mine. What I stated was that in 1860, the Southern states consumed $331 million in imports to show Grand Old whatever that this statement was wrong.

You did not, Pea. The quote from the source you gave reads as follows: "During 1860 the imports of the South were valued at $331 million; those of the North at $31 million."

[Heyworth]

Interesting. So why did Memphis import over 18 million dollars worth of cotton, by far the largest item on the list?

[Grand Old Partisan]

Sherman's personal escort on his March to the Sea was the 1st U.S. Alabama Cavalry, a regiment made up from some of the 100,000 southern whites who fought for the United States Government during the Civil War.

[mac_truck]

The Warehousing Act of 1854 was passed by Congress.

New York became the warehousing center of the country because it had readily convertible facilities.

With this act, Northern merchants sealed their dominance over the cotton trade.

Nothing in this act said that goods, wares and merchandise couildn't be stored in Southern locations also. Why couldn't Southerners build their own warehouses to compete with the mighty Yankees?

About all you've shown here is that depsite several natural advantages and some real opportunities Southerners weren't very good businessmen.

[PeaRidge]

Nowhere have i used that figure. That is one you are making up and then asking someone else to defend.

Bad tactics and disinformation do not make a debate...it makes propaganda, and your side uses that constantly.

[stand watie]

N-S is the DAMNyankee Minister of Propaganda.

please understand that EVERYTHING that he posts are evasions, distortions & KNOWINGLY UNtruthful. BUT at least he has the IQ, education & wit to do so well. UNtruthfulness is the JOB of the PROPAGANDIST!

most of the rest of the DAMNyankee coven has NONE of those things. ALL they do is personally attack every southron FReeper, post STUPID, off-point bilge & cartoons, parrot REVISIONIST propaganda & tell DUMB jokes.

furthermore, MOST of the coven aren't smart enough to KNOW that the bilge they post is straight out of the most extreme LEFTIST/MARXIST/SOCIALIST fringe of northeastern REVISIONIST academia.

my favorite criticism of the coven is: if they can't find it on the WorldWideWierd,if the union motives are revealed as NOT perfect, if it makes "the unionist cause" look LESS THAN SAINTLY, it didn't exist AND if it makes the lincoln administration look STUPID, hateFILLED, ignorant, mean-spirited and/or CRIMINAL, "it just couldn't have happened".

MOST of the DAMNyankee coven are WILLFULLY blind to the TRUTH. the rest HOPE everyone else is blind.

free dixie,sw

[PeaRidge]

"What they are looking for is a simple one line statement, analysis is beyod them."

It is going to take a lot of information to educate these people, and they are going to be unwilling to do their own research and learn a little.

[Heyworth]

And if it proves that there isn't a privateer-captured U-Boat on display in Galveston, or that the Moline Implement Company wasn't founded until 16 years after you said they were making tractors, it's a damned Yankee lie, huh?

I thought it was pretty funny yesterday when I ran across this line by you on another thread: "i've had TOO MANY experiences where such "sources" turned out to be NONexistent! frequently, such "sources"/"quotes" turn out to be LIES, made up out of whole cloth!"

[Heyworth]

Nowhere have i used that figure.

No, you didn't use the 91% number, but you repeatedly cited the $331 million-south/$31 million-north import numbers. Arriving at 91% is just math.

Then, when it's considered that the north had four times the population, the per capita consumption of imported goods in the south, becomes roughly 40x that of the north.

You also cited the 1860 Treasury report from the State of the Union address as the source for the numbers, giving a general link and telling us to go find it ourselves. Well, we did find it, only to discover that those numbers were nowhere in that document. Nor could they be extrapolated through any amount of interpretation and study, as you suggest. No, the closest that document comes is in giving the total collected tariffs for each quarter of the preceding year. So why did you tell us all that was the place we could find the numbers?

[M. Espinola]

Here's what someone you support, Alexander Stephens in his "Cornerstone Speech" of March 21st, 1861 had to say. Stephens was the hand picked "Vice-President of the new Confederate States of America."

"The new [Confederate] constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.

What was that? "present revolution"

Wild stuff eh? On one hand Stephens states the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution..what was what? Slavery? But you and the neo-confederate cultists always issues 'other reasons' for the start of the Civil War? Now why would you be contradicting Confederate big shot #2?

Stephens further noted in his speech to fellow 'Confederates', to resounding applause, that his values were in direct contradiction to those of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated [race slavery] as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right....Our new government is founded upon ... "the great truth, that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition."

Well, well Slick, how would your Black neighbours like to discover (as if they don't already know) you support ardent, vicious white supremacist views like that?

Mmmmmm, spill the beans Col Sanders, lay your cards on the table, not the neo-confederate con job you are so famous for.

"No one sold out their country."

LOL

If that's not the height of extreme DiLorenzoism. I suppose the Civil War was started by people invading America from Iceland in longboats.

"The Supreme Court had previously held UNAMIMOUSLY that the President could not simply take matters into his own hands. The Attorney General did extend his opinion on the matter as well:"

Naturally you mean the same pro-slavery, pre-1860 Supreme Court which gave America the infamous, later overturned Dred Scott case?

Slavery was the cause of the Civil War. It was the issue that made America ungovernable by the late 1850s. It was the issue that saw open warfare in "Bleeding" Kansas in 1856, in Virginia in 1859. All of American politics in the decade before 1860 was about slavery, in one form or another.

The Southern Plantation rulers would never have attempted carving out their out separate Slave Empire from the United States of America, nor would the pro-slavery traitors have fired on Fort Sumter if they did not believe the North would actually try to eliminate their precious slavery.

You try and spin it as "Empire was not their desire, escaping from of union of fanatical lunatics was."

What a delusional sick comment.

"Devoid of morals? I detest uncivilized warfare waged against innocents - you admire the terrorists that waged such."

You are the one vehemently supporting the 'slavery forever' Confederates, not I.

In the grand scope of monumental issues confronting America in 2005, the 'cause' of the neo-rebel malcontents is Neo-Redneckery, a backward joke from a failed & regrettable portion of America's tragic past.

[M. Espinola]

"..it's a damned Yankee lie, huh?"

With old Stand it can't be any other way :)

[M. Espinola]

"Sherman's personal escort on his March to the Sea was the 1st U.S. Alabama Cavalry, a regiment made up from some of the 100,000 southern whites who fought for the United States Government during the Civil War."

Today's marching neo-confederates will somehow twist and reverse that fact by somehow stating those 100.000 white southerners fighting as loyal Americans, were really 'Confederate spies' operating as an entire regiment - behind Union lines...:)

[PeaRidge]

""Now wait a minute. On Friday you were saying that your statistics came from the Treasury report supplement to Buchanan's 1860 State of the Union address. You said, in post #692, "The information is in the US Treasury Report section of President Buchanan's Message and Documents also known as the State of the Union speech. It requires some research." Well, I pulled up that report, read it over and over, and can't find anything like the information you said it contained.""

I did quote treasury figures. See import dollar value. If you have studied that data then what figure did the Treasury Report give for general imports for that year?

I should have been more specific. First of all, the data on consumption came from Encarta. I have not verified the source Encarta but did give you the figures from Kettell which were similar and verified the magnitude of the consumption.

Now that data was on value of goods consumed. The Treasury data was on value of imports..........two completely separate categories.

The import dollar value figures are produced by the Treasury department. They are from July 1 to June 30 each year. They are accurate but you should be careful you understand the data before you quote it. For example, I quoted the import dollar value for 1860 as $354,000,000.

That data is correct. But $336,000,000 was marked on the goods in the warehouse (according to the treasury department)as being for immediate consumption, and tariffs were charged. The balance went into storage, as was permitted by the warehousing act I listed above.

Now, the treasury reports I have do not say what happened to the $18,000,000 difference. Only 5% variance but it could matter to some.

"Now you're telling us that, well, those numbers are sometimes massaged..."

The data that was sometimes "massaged" was tariff revenue data, different that what we are discussing. I should have made that distinction.

"and in any event you got it from Encarta article. Can you post the link to it for everyone to see?"

I have already posted the Encarta article. See #623.

[Heyworth]

With this act, Northern merchants sealed their dominance over the cotton trade.

First off, the original warehousing act was passed in 1846. The 1854 act only changed the place of storing imports for up to three years before the tariff was paid from government customs houses to private bonded warehouses. Second, the bill was heartily approved of by the southern agricultural interests, as reported by DeBow:

"We were at Memphis, Tennessee, when a large portion of the Southern States were present, and the whole of the Western ones. Mr. Minor, from Virginia, reported favorably on the system; and had the vote of the Convention been taken. upon the merits of the question, from everything we saw and heard there, little doubt can exist that the report would have been almost unanimously adopted. Unfortunately, however, a gentleman, Mr. Trescott, of Charleston, presented a minority report, signed by himself and three others, which disposed of the question, as we conceived, on grounds scarcely tenable. The minority were not opposed to the warehousing system, but did not think it a proper subject to come before the Convention, partaking, as it did of a party complexion, and relating more to the mercantile than to the agricultural interests."(...)""It is a high and strong recommendation in favor of it, (the warehousing system,) that it was adopted on the most liberal and extensive footing in all those nations most celebrated for their commercial wisdom and experience. The want of it has already driven from New Orleans nearly the whole of the Mexican trade, as the merchants of that country can no longer procure here those large and varied assortments of foreign manufactures, which were always to be obtained in this city, and this lucrative want of commerce has been transferred to Havana, where a liberal warehouse system exists."

http://www.earlyrepublic.net/jm990907.htm

[PeaRidge]

"Then why did you tell us that the 1860 report was where we could find the information that you used?"

That is where you can find the data on imports that the government used to compile its statistics.

But I told you that it would take some work. I gave you the beginning point, the US Treasury Report that annually gives the value of the imports into the country. You are going to need some more data to arrive at the results that the government had available back then.

Here is your next step: http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/CT1970p1-01.pdf

If you research the sections on commerce and particularly the Dept. of Commerce data, you will find the next data you need.

You have annual import value........now you need where the imports were sent (I said this above and each shipping point customs house kept the data). You also need the value of domestic manufactures and where they were sent.

From that you can determine where foreign imports were consumed, and where domestic manufactures originated and were consumed.

Unless you do this or find the research, you have very little understanding of the big picture and specifics of production and consumption, which is the problem with most of your fellow posters.

[PeaRidge]

"I suggest you get your terminology straight"

Why don't you write the Treasury department and complain. That is their terminology and was used in their record keeping.

For each custom house, inbound goods were labeled "imports". Some were non-dutible by law, some were non-dutible because they came from another part of the country.

The reason you are so confused is that you have been assuming that the inflow of products that were labeled imports were from overseas sources only.

In fact the vast majority of inbound goods for the consumption of the South were northern manufactures.

They were labeled imports, but were not dutiable.

Now do you understand why that $362 was so outlandishly wrong, and your completely wrong conclusion stood out like a sore thumb?

[PeaRidge]

You are asking questions of an article that came from the period. They are also the same inane questions you have been asking for more than four years, despite massive information to your rebuttal.

I do not expect you to change...you persist quite irrationally in your myths.

But here is another article explaining how the coastal packet trade developed out of New York.

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:1HTF3maH7dUJ:post.economics.harvard.edu/hier/2005papers/HIER2073.pdf+1860+%22southern+imports%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

It is produce by Harvard University and answers your questions.

[PeaRidge]

And the difference is?