[x]: The "impending" tariff didn't have any effects since it hadn't happened yet. It wasn't even "impending." That is to say, nobody could foresee what would happen. There would probably have been a rise in tariffs, though nothing like what eventually happened. In any case, that wouldn't have made trends that had started decades before.
x, I think you underestimate the effect the impending Morrill Tariff had on Northern ports and the business people whose livelihood depended on those ports. Although you apparently don’t think so, they could foresee what would happen. I suspect those Northerners were lobbying Lincoln like crazy for something to be done (e.g., repeal the Morrill Tariff) before it killed business at the Northern ports. I’ve seen it argued somewhere that there was a possibility Lincoln’s government might collapse if something was not done to avoid the coming catastrophe on Northern commerce. In my opinion, that may have been the impetus or reason Lincoln provoked the war – for economic reasons to prevent the Southern tariff from destroying Northern commerce.
The South seceded to protect slavery, the basis of their economy, but IMO an underlying reason for secession was the tariff which was harming the Southern economy and benefiting the North. The North shot itself in the foot by passing the Morrill Tariff. By contrast, the Confederate tariff was lower than the tariff of 1857. The difference in tariff rates would greatly boost Southern ports and Southern commerce and greatly harm Northern commerce if nothing happened to prevent that from happening.
Here is a sampling on opinions in the Northern press:
The New York Herald, March 2, 1861
The effect of these two tariffs, then, upon our trade with the best, and most reliable part of the country will most disastrously be felt in all the Northern cities. We learn that even now some of the largest houses in the Southern trade in this city, who have not already failed, are preparing to wind up their affairs and abandon business entirely. The result of this as regards the value of property, rents, and real estate, can be readily seen. Within two months from this time it will probably be depreciated from twenty to forty percent.
The New York Herald, March 19, 1861 [posted by GOPcapitalist in 2003]:
The combined effects of these two tariffs must be to desolate the entire North, to stop its importations, cripple its commerce and turn its capital into another channel … There is nothing to be predicted of the combination of results produced by the Northern and Southern tariffs but general ruin to the commerce of the Northern confederacy... The tariff of the South opens its ports upon fair and equitable terms to the manufacturers of foreign countries, which it were folly to suppose will not be eagerly availed of; which the stupid and suicidal tariff just adopted by the Northern Congress imposes excessive and almost prohibitory duties upon the same articles.
The Daily Picayune of New Orleans, April 3, 1861, quoting two New York papers:
The New York Evening Post: Bad as the law is in itself, the injustice of many of its provisions is hardly as gross as the stupidity of passing it at the very moment when the quarrel with the seceding states had reached its climax, and thus playing into their hands.
The New York Times: How can we maintain any national spirit under such humiliation? We take the step of all others most calculated to alienate the border states and foreign nations.
The New York Herald, as quoted in the March 28, 1861, Memphis Daily Appeal [paragraph breaks mine]:
The last Congress, in a spirit of mingled vengeance and fanaticism, enacted a tariff doubling the duties on many articles of foreign manufacture, and advancing them to a prohibitory point on others; and this was done to protect the manufacturing interests of the Northern States at the expense of the South.
It is doubtful, however, if this blundering instrument can ever be intelligibly interpreted by any collector of custom, or enforced at all in its present shape.
But at the same time the Congress of the Southern Confederacy has adopted a tariff reducing the duties on imports, the consequence of which will be that the importations will abandon the ports of the North and enter those of the South, and will then find their way to the interior by the Mississippi river and the railroads of the border States.
The result of this proceeding will be of course to destroy the trade of the North; and the very first portions of it to suffer will be New York, New Jersey, and New England. The imports here will be cut down to an insignificant figure; and the manufactures in the New England States will be seriously damaged; both business houses and factories will be transferred to the South; and, in fact, the northern tariff adopted to protect the manufacturing interests of the North will have no interests left to protect. The actual effect of the tariff, then, will be to reduce the revenues of the Government at Washington and increase the revenues of the Southern Government.
The Congress at Washington may attempt to avert this course of affairs, even to the extent of inaugurating a blockade of all the southern ports; vessels of war have been ordered home from all the foreign stations to enable the Administration to be prepared for this policy; but to such an event France and England would act as they did with regard to Texas; they would acknowledge the independence of the Southern Confederacy, and send their fleets across the Atlantic to open every port in the South.
Thus we find the country involved in a fearful commercial revolution through the policy of a fanatical party, which, for thirty years, has been endeavoring to overthrow all the best interests of the Republic for the sake of an abstraction. We see the whole current of commercial prosperity turned out of its channel, the wealth and importance of the northern cities struck down at a blow. We have experienced many commercial revulsions before now from time to time -- in 1817, 1825, 1837 and 1857 -- but these were the results of overtrading, of excessive speculation, and other financial causes which may produce like consequences in any country. The present revulsion, on the contrary, arises from purely political causes, and will be as disastrous in its effects as it is novel in its origin.
The Cincinnati Enquirer as reported in the Memphis Daily Appeal of March 27, 1861:
The New York and all Eastern Republicans are getting clamorous for an extra session. They now admit that, critical and extraordinary as the condition of the country is, the President is without power to take any effectual step toward its relief. He can effect no fixed and decisive policy toward the seceding States, because no laws give him authority to carry it into effect.
He cannot enforce the laws, because no power has been put at his command for that purpose. He cannot close the ports which refuse to pay Federal duties, nor has he the authority to enforce payment except through the local authorities. These, moreover, are the least of the difficulties which embarrass the action of the Government. This loan is called for, but there is no prospect of revenue to render it safe. The seceded States invite imports under the tariff of 1857, at least ten per cent. lower than that which the Federal Government has just adopted. As a matter of course, foreign trade will seek southern ports, because it will be driven there by the Morrill tariff. It has been stated that Secretary Chase has been heard to say that the tariff bill must be repealed.
Lincoln ignored the calls for a session of Congress and set off on a course that he knew would provoke war. War would enable him to blockade Southern ports rendering moot the difference in tariff rates that would otherwise destroy Northern commerce.
Businesses in New York began suffering greatly here are two accounts of what was happening to businesses in New York City as a result of the difference in tariff rates
The New Orleans Daily Crescent, May 15, 1861 quoting the New York Day Book [my bold emphasis on the last sentence of the article below]:
[There] have been over 200 failures in New York since the 22d April, and within the last month not less than 300. Real estate has no sale at any price and rents are comparatively normal. Total bankruptcy stares all in the face, and starvation will become a daily visitor to the abode of the poor.
All New York is failing. The suspensions and failures of the past few days have been fearful, and the war promises to bankrupt every merchant in New York. The retail business is as bad off as the wholesale. Nobody is purchasing anything, and trade is killed.
The foreign bill market continues very dull and heavy.
The following is a comparative statement of the imports of foreign dry goods at the port of New York for the week ending April 27:
For the week. 1860 ..... 1861
Entered at the port, $1,503,483 ..... $393,061
Thrown on the market, $1,650,790 ..... $396,992
The imports of dry goods are very small this week, probably the least reported for many years.
Well may Mr. Lincoln ask, "What will become of my revenue?"
Several weeks before Lincoln’s inauguration, the New York Times had published editorials of how the commerce of the North would be lost to New Orleans and to the rest of the South because of the low Southern tariff. Some Northerners admitted that their reasons for calling for war were not the result of differences in principles of constitutional law, but because their profits would be lost if the South was successful in becoming independent.
In his inauguration speech, Lincoln had said:
“The power confided in me, will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion – no using of force against, or among the people anywhere.... You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors.”
This was Lincoln’s ultimatum to the South: pay tribute to the North or failure to do so will be interpreted as a declaration of war, by the South, against the North.
3/30/1861 New York Times editorial:
“The predicament in which both the government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws, is now thoroughly understood the world over…If the manufacturer at Manchester (England) can send his goods into the Western States through New Orleans at a less cost than through New York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage….
“If the importations of the country are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel.
“ The produce of the West, instead of coming to our own port by millions of tons, to be transported abroad by the same ships through which we received our importations, will seek other routes and other outlets. With the loss of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many hundred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior?
“They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers.
“ Once at New Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country duty free. The process is perfectly simple. The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North…. We now see clearly whither we are tending, and the policy we must adopt.
“With us, it is no longer an abstract question - one of Constitutional construction, or of the reserved or delegated power of the State or Federal Government, but of material existence ... We were divided and confused till our pockets were touched.”
In an 1861 editorial, the New York Times complained about loss of revenue because the tariffs were no longer being collected in the Southern states. The article bemoaned the fact that new loans for the government were needed, but could not be guaranteed because the seceded states could not be forced to collect the “National” tariff.
The Morrill Tariff was THE ISSUE.
There were a few early on who had seen the possibility of a tariff war and its significance. In January of 1861 in a speech to New York merchants, Henry Raymond, who founded the New York Times, had said:
“there is no class of men in this country who have so large a stake in sustaining the government, whose prosperity depends so completely upon its being upheld…who have so much to lose…as the merchants of this city.”
That being said in January, by late March, the general merchants grasped the significance of Raymond’s remarks and were prepared to support strong action against the South and its tariff. Over one hundred leading commercial importers in New York, as well as a similar group in Boston, informed the US collectors of customs they would not pay duties on imported goods unless those same duties were also collected at Southern ports.
This threat was likely the proximate cause of the beginning of the war. The Lincoln Cabinet abandoned its initial inclination to turn over Ft. Sumter to the Confederates, and to support Lincoln's plan to invade Pensacola and Charleston.
Just at the time that Lincoln advised his cabinet that he was going to reinforce Ft. Sumter, a committee of these New York merchants visited Lincoln. A Washington newspaper learned that at the meeting the merchants had placed great emphasis on the tariff issue and that it was destroying trade and legitimate business. The newspaper said that “it is a singular fact that the merchants who, two months ago were fiercely shouting ‘no coercion’ now are for anything rather than inaction.”
Commercial papers with ties to the South overplayed the effects and importance of the tariff because of their own interests. So did British politicians and newspapers. Even in good faith a free-trade paper would inevitably overstate the case. Passing a protective tariff with the country on the verge of civil war was not a smart thing to do when there were disagreements about tariff rates, and that's something journalists would point out, especially if they opposed the new rates.
But how can anyone ignore or dismiss all of the agitation over slavery throughout the 1860s? What you're doing is cherry-picking. Tossing together quotes about the tariff without looking at the period context of a country already bitterly divided over slavery. You can find quotes in today's paper about some new measure being "divisive." It's a way to influence Congress not do adopt the new policy. It doesn't mean the country wasn't already divided over other issues.
You can read Henry Raymond's 1861 pamphlet, Disunion and Slavery online. There's a lot in there about the slavery controversy as the cause of disunion, but not much about tariffs. In one of the few references to the subject in the pamphlet, Raymond writes, "New York has a hundred-fold more to gain by releasing her citizens from payment of Federal duties on imports than any Southern state," -- another indication that one could be against the new tariff without wanting to tear the country apart.
Colwell's pamphlet rebuts Kettell's thesis that somehow the North was cheating the South and that Southern cotton production was exploited by Northerners. He shows how those cotton states in the Deep South bought goods and services from Northerners and received fair value for their money. Colwell wasn't concerned to rebut every point of Kettell's pamphlet. They had different focuses, but Colwell's pamphlet and Samuel Powell's Notes on 'Southern Wealth and Northern Profits' do a good job of calling Kettell's arguments and credibility into question.
That the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, say, was highly productive agriculturally doesn't change the fact that the Deep South wasn't the country's breadbasket. Kettell doesn't admit that Northern agriculture was highly productive outside New England. He has something of a screw loose in his pamphlet and the quotes you cited. In his book it's always the South that's getting robbed. It's always the South than enables the North to make money or feed itself. That the developing West sent much flour East has to be because the South ships food North.
Nobody said that New England was able to produce all its own food in 1860. But it is the case that farming wasn't as marginal or subservient to industry as it later became or as Southern propagandists claimed. The food that New England did get from elsewhere didn't come from the Deep South, and as I've noted New York and Pennsylvania still had strong agricultural sectors in 1860 (something you didn't respond to).
Lincoln's inaugural refers to the way the federal government's authority was felt by Americans in 1860. There was the mail. There was government property -- post offices, court houses, custom houses, and forts. There were excise and import taxes. So long as these were maintained the federal government and the citizenry could believe that the union was intact. If they weren't maintained the country was well and truly broken, most likely forever. To use Lincoln's words to make him some kind of tariff-obsessed monster is to twist and distort.
This is what you do. You dump a lot of quotes here that were already posted on other threads in months and years gone by. Other people responding in good faith have to do actual research and some hard thinking if they want to answer you. Then you ignore what they post and put out yet more predigested, already posted quotes. It's not a game I want to play or one that other people should have to play or that you should feel very proud about getting them to play.