Confederate plaque in Texas Capitol to come down after vote

Bottom line: Fire Eaters' complaints about "the North" getting most Federal disbursements is only factual if by "the North" you mean all non-cotton states.

True. Before the Civil War, there were federal right of way land grants to railroads in the South as well as in the North, though on nothing like the scale that would come after the war. What gets left out of discussions is the political horse-trading. If you were a Senator from Mississippi, like Jefferson Davis, you supported Stephen Douglas's plan for land grants to the Illinois Central because it would run through your state and provide an alternative transportation route to the river and to the seas.

And you might also go along with Douglas's transcontinental railroad deal tied to the Kansas-Nebraska Act because offered a possibility of opening Kansas up to slavery. If you were Davis you wouldn't care that the railroad's headquarters were in Chicago, anymore than our friends here cared that the shipping companies they favored were headquartered in London. If you or your state got something out of a public works project you would support it - at least until you didn't, claiming the Yankees were robbing you.

It's interesting how these questions still aren't dead. There are conflicts now about what happens to federal right of way grants to railroads if the railroad goes out of business and/or service ends completely. Also, does a railroad right of way grant apply to pipelines and cables, or do the rights have to be renegotiated with the government? John McCain and Mike Lee wanted to repeal at least part of the Jones Act, the successor to the Navigation Act of 1817, which banned ships under foreign flags from US Coastal shipping.

DoodleDawg said: Where the cargo lands and where the tariffs are paid are a good indication of where the customers are.

No its not. Its merely where the distribution channel into the country starts. Long Beach is a massive port. That doesn't mean all the customers are in Southern California. It services a huge area.

besides, the customers weren't the ones eating the vast majority of the cost. The owners of the goods were. Northern manufacturers could - when tariff rates were particularly high - raise their own prices and still undercut foreign goods in the market. The importers could not simply raise their own prices by the amount of the tariff.

DoodleDawg said: Once again I present facts and you present opinions. Lincoln gave the revenue resulting from tariffs in his 1864 message to Congress - over $103 million rather than over $110 million, my error. How was that possible if the claims of you and DiogenesLamp are correct?

I have presented you with reams of facts, quotes and sources which all show it was the Southern states that were doing most of the importing and exporting. The Northeast was servicing those goods but it was the Southern states which were producing them....and exchanging them for foreign manufactured goods. How is it all those various sources said exactly what I said?

DoodleDawg said: What the Navigation Act said was that foreign ships could not bring goods from one U.S. port to another. It did not say that foreign ships, or American ships for that matter, could not bring those foreign goods to Charleston or New Orleans if that was where the demand for those goods was. But if New York wanted to monopolize imports through the port why didn't they want to monopolize exports as well?

It required that American goods be carried by American ships. I understand the initial reasons for it (make sure the fledgling nation have a shipping industry so that it would have the basis for a navy in time of war) but what tended to happen over time is this consolidated the shipping industry to a much greater degree in the region that specialized in shipping - the Northeast.

DoodleDawg said: But it is an indication of where the demand for those goods was.

Not necessarily AND this says nothing about who was bearing the cost of the tariff. Importers could not simply pass off all or even the majority of the costs onto customers.

The most detailed unionist account of the war in Missouri is Wiley Britton. It is two volumes and both are available in paperback as Bison Books and pretty cheap. Britton is very good and comprehensive. Hard back sets are hard to find and a bit pricey. I ended up getting a set from an English bookseller at a lot less than copies in the US are.

BroJoeK commenting about the Madison quote from the 1788 Virginia Ratification Convention:

The quote can't be found in a normal google search which means, at best, it's an obscure quote, at worst, fake.

”fake”? Gee whiz, you know me better than that.

You need to work on your Google search skills. Maybe the following will help. I found it just now by a Google search on ' "observation fell" Madison '. I used the quotation marks around the phrase, observation fell, to search for that exact two-word phrase. I figured that phrase was a fairly unique part of the Madison quote. I threw in the word, Madison, to narrow the search to that two-word phrase associated with him. The third item that came up in the Google search was a book reference to the Madison quote>: Link.

That is not how I originally came across the Madison quote. Others had used it on these threads as early as 2003. Here is a post in my records of archived FR posts, this one by 4ConservativeJustices who shortened his FR handle to 4CJ: 4CJ posting the Madison quote. I’ve even posted it to you before: rustbucket posting Madison quote to BJK. Here is my post to you where I cited the pages in the Eliot Debates records of the 1788 Virginia Ratification Convention: Old post to BJK with page reference to quote, scroll down to find my two links to where the quote can be found in the Convention minutes.

BroJoeK: "alleged Madison comment"

Work on your memory too, BJK.

No its not. Its merely where the distribution channel into the country starts. Long Beach is a massive port. That doesn't mean all the customers are in Southern California. It services a huge area.

I see. So when those goods were landed in New York they loaded them on wagons, sent them down I-95 to their ultimate destination down south?

Good went to the port closest to their intended customers. If the majority went to New York and Boston and Philadelphia then that's where the consumers were.

I have presented you with reams of facts, quotes and sources which all show it was the Southern states that were doing most of the importing and exporting.

You have presented reams of opinion. Lincoln quoted government figures; what do your sources quote? Adams claims the south paid the lions share of tariffs yet in his book he doesn't provide a source for that claim. But what do you think? If the Union could only buy imports because the had Southern exports then how did the revenue climb so dramatically when those exports were cut off?

It required that American goods be carried by American ships.

Well if that's true then foreign shippers should be able to take their goods to any port they wanted since they weren't American goods. Were they?

...but what tended to happen over time is this consolidated the shipping industry to a much greater degree in the region that specialized in shipping - the Northeast.

I agree that the Northeast specialized in shipping. But what prevented U.S. shippers from bringing goods from London to Charleston, or London to New Orleans, if that was where the demand for those goods were?

Not necessarily AND this says nothing about who was bearing the cost of the tariff.

I think we've determined that. The tariff is paid by whoever ordered the goods and it's paid when those goods are landed. Tariffs have the effect of artificially inflating the cost of goods that consumers buy. All consumers, North and South. But what does that have to do with Southern demand for imports?

Much more readable, thanks.

FLT-bird: "And you could use a tutorial on doing something other than making 'me too' posts."

What's wrong with "me too"?
You should try it sometime.

FLT-bird: "Adams sure seemed to considering he was censured for proposing that for the mid Atlantic states.....and before you ask I have already provided that quote above. Go back and read."

Now that's just pure slothful ignorance on your part, you don't get away with that.

Which Adams?
Which states?
What date?
What circumstances?

FYI: I've never seen a quote from any Adams on any date recommending secession for any states under any circumstances.
Indeed, I'd almost guarantee that whatever quote you think you have is certainly phony baloney, plastic banana, good time B.S.

But let's see what you got.

FLT-bird: "Lincoln thought secession a great idea in 1848....."

And almost nobody in 1860 recommended military action just to stop secession.
As Lincoln said, Confederates could only have war if they themselves started it.

FLT-bird: "Lincoln said 'you’re gonna hand over your money to us in taxes....if you don’t I’ll use violence to take it from you'.
That was the real declaration of war."

Only if Confederates chose to take it that way, which of course they did.

FLT-bird: "Which was plainly a lie.
He was saying the South could only have peace if they handed over their money to a foreign power aka the US government."

It's true, Lincoln did not recognize secession as legitimate and so the Federal government must continue to function in those states.
But he did promise the Union would not start Civil War which I think offered a genuine chance for peace.

Of course, if we merely consider how Democrats today respond to peace offerings from a Republican President... well, the Dems have always been, ah, touched.

FLT-bird: "EVERY sovereign power will resort to war if their territory is attacked.
The aggressor is of course their attacker, not them for defending themselves."

Some points here:

Lincoln never considered Confederates a "sovereign power".
Lincoln did not think his resupply mission to Fort Sumter "assailed" much less "attacked" Confederates.
Lincoln did consider Jefferson Davis' attack on Fort Sumter an act or aggression and rebellion.
Jefferson Davis, by his own words, intended to start war at Fort Sumter or Pickens, or both, based on "other considerations", namely flipping Virginia and the Upper South.

FLT-bird: "He promised to use violence against them to take their money if they did not willingly hand it over.
He was clearly the aggressor here."

He promised there'd only be violence if Confederates started it.
Once again we should note that excluding New Orleans, tariffs collected at Confederate ports accounted for less than 2% of Federal revenues.
With New Orleans included, that rises to 6%, hardly a matter of life & death for the Union.

quoting BJK: "At Fort Sumter, Davis felt “assailed” and started war, as he promised."

FLT-bird: "As any other sovereign country would have if a foreign power invaded their territory."

Many sovereign countries have tolerated foreign presence on their soil without resorting to war to remove it.
Most notably, the United States tolerated dozens of British forts and trading stations in US territory, some for decades after the 1783 Treaty of Paris.
This map shows only some and they were decidedly hostile, supporting Indians and leading to arguably the greatest defeat in US history, St. Clair's Massacre, 1791.

My point is: our Founders decided not to declare war on Britain despite British forts & support for Northwest Indians.
By contrast, Confederates decided to go to war over a small unit of Union troops doing them no harm.

FLT-bird: "The mission accomplished exactly what Lincoln intended - it started a war."

Lincoln intended to resupply Fort Sumter peacefully, if possible, and to learn from that if Jefferson Davis intended to start war.
Turns out, he did.

FLT-bird quoting Lincoln to Fox: "You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail..."

But you draw the wrong conclusion -- Lincoln's point is not that he intended his resupply mission to fail, but rather that even if it failed, it was still a valuable effort.
Why?
Because it smoked out Jefferson Davis' intentions regarding war & peace.

FLT-bird: "Totals 4 war ships 4 transports...
Does this sound like “provisions” to you????"

Most of which didn't leave port until after Davis ordered his assault on Fort Sumter,
None of which arrived before Beauregard demanded Anderson's surrender -- an act of war.
None of which were visible, miles off shore at night, before Confederate gunners were ordered to "reduce" Fort Sumter.
Only two were on site as the sun rose April 12: 1) the Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane, 734 tons, six small guns, crew of 95, no troops, and 2) Fox's transport SS Baltic, 2,700 tons, no guns, about 200 troops.
Neither ship became involved in the action at Fort Sumter.

That makes claims they were instrumental totally bogus.

FLT-bird: "No the Fox expedition was no attempt to “provision” a “starving” garrison.
It was exactly what abe said it was, a flagrant and deliberate attempt to provoke war and it worked very well.
If for what ever reason it hadn’t worked abe and gang would have certainly provoked war at Pensacola very soon afterward."

Nonsense, and that kind of talk is just you Democrats doing what you Democrats always do -- accuse Republicans of your own worst impulses.
In fact, Davis' own words show he planned to start war at Fort Sumter or Fort Pickens or both.
Lincoln's goal was simply to maintain the forts and give Davis the opportunity to show if he wanted war.
Turns out, he did.

So the Lost Cause's ludicrous argument is that Lincoln somehow "tricked" Davis into starting war when in fact Davis knew perfectly well what he was doing and would have started war anyway, regardless of what Lincoln did or didn't do.

FLT-bird quoting: "As the Providence Daily Post wrote on April 13, 1861, 'Mr. Lincoln saw an opportunity to inaugurate civil war without appearing in the character of an aggressor' by reprovisioning Fort Sumter."

Sure, the anti-Republican media will always put the worst possible spin on a Republican president (what is Trump's average, 95% negative?).
But this remains the "Lincoln tricked Davis" argument and the facts show Davis was in no way "tricked" but knew exactly what he was doing.
Davis' only real mistake was in not realizing that two Illinoisians -- Lincoln & Grant -- would make a mess of Davis' war plans.

FLT-bird: "And as Shelby Foote wrote in The Civil War, 'Lincoln had maneuvered [the Confederates] into the position of having either to back down on their threats or else to fire the first shot of the war.' "

Sure, from the Confederate perspective, but from Lincoln's it was the opposite.
In order to maintain President Buchanan's pledge to defend Fort Sumter, Lincoln had to resupply Maj. Anderson, or surrender.

As Jefferson Davis put it:

"There would be to us an advantage in so placing them that an attack by them would be a necessity, but when we are ready to relieve our territory and jurisdiction of the presence of a foreign garrison that advantage is overbalanced by other considerations."

Those "considerations" being Davis' need to bring more states to the Confederacy.

FLT-bird quoting: ". . . the President’s inaugural address. . . . he left the South no alternative but to return to the Union, or else fight to stay out.
He declared it his intention to execute the federal laws in all states, to ‘hold, occupy, and possess the property and places’ belonging to the United States, and to collect as usual the duties and imposts.” -- (Hicks, The Federal Union, p. 557)"

I agree that Confederates took that as a "declaration of war" because like all Democrats they put the worst spin possible on Republican words.
But they didn't have to, they could have found a more conciliatory approach.
Of course if you ever did such a thing, then you wouldn't be true Democrats, now would you?

FLT-bird: "In other words, if South Carolina could be 'tricked'into firing on the Forts in Charleston Harbor, that would be enough to go to War to stop the State from Seceding and thus reeking havoc on Northern and government revenues."

There's that word "tricked" again, but nobody was "tricked" because Davis knew exactly what he was doing, and chose a war that was not strictly necessary.

As for "reeking havoc" that's the most ludicrous argument of them all.
In fact, revenues from Charleston Harbor amounted to two tenths of one percent of total tariff revenues, so it would cost Washington more to collect those revenues than they were worth.
As for Fort Pickens in Florida, there were no revenues there.
So your claims here are pure nonsense.

FLT-bird quoting: "That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the 'rebel states', or the port must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted.
If neither of these things de done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasure will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe.
There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of public officers; the present order o things must come to a dead stop.” -- New York Evening Post 'What Shall be done for a revenue?'"

Curious there's no date or specific edition for this alleged editorial, looks dubious to me.
But even if we accept it as "pro-Lincoln propaganda", it is just as nonsensical as others because the amount of actual revenue coming from Charleston Harbor was miniscule.
Indeed, except for New Orleans, the entire Confederacy had supplied under 2% of US tariff revenues and with New Orleans included it was just 6%.
So in no way was that loss the disaster this editorial claimed.

FLT-bird: "but but but....it was all about slavery! LOL!"

Of course, when Fire Eaters declared secession they said at the time it was indeed "all about slavery".
Economic issues months later don't change that.

quoting BJK: "Davis needed war to flip Virginia & the Uppoer South, that’s the bottom line."

FLT-bird: "No he didn’t.
Had Lincoln simply let the original 7 seceding states go in peace, they would have been perfectly content to do so.
They didn’t 'need' the Upper South.
They were happy to go their own way without them if they didn’t want to come along."

Absolutely false.
This link and this link give long lists of quotes on reasons Davis needed war in April 1861.

There's plenty enough to demonstrate that Davis was in no way "tricked" into war.

DoodleDawg said: I see. So when those goods were landed in New York they loaded them on wagons, sent them down I-95 to their ultimate destination down south?

There were these things called railroads. There were other things called canals and rivers. Then there was the coastwide trade whereby goods would be shipped to other ports once arriving in NYC or Boston etc and being subject to duties there. In any event, the end customers did not pay most of the cost of the tariff. The whole point of the protective tariff was to price foreign goods out of the market. Northern manufacturers could undercut foreign goods on price once foreign goods were subject to huge tariffs. The importer could not pass on most of the cost to customers in the form of higher prices. Their profit margins were squeezed severely as they were forced to eat most of the cost and they lost market share.

DoodleDawg said: Good went to the port closest to their intended customers. If the majority went to New York and Boston and Philadelphia then that's where the consumers were.

Not necessarily. See above. Goods arrived often in New York, paid the tariff and then were trans-shipped via railroad, via canals, via coastwide shipping to other ports.

DoodleDawg said: You have presented reams of opinion. Lincoln quoted government figures; what do your sources quote? Adams claims the south paid the lions share of tariffs yet in his book he doesn't provide a source for that claim. But what do you think? If the Union could only buy imports because the had Southern exports then how did the revenue climb so dramatically when those exports were cut off?

Adams provides sources and I provided several others. Its just inconvenient for you to admit it.

DoodleDawg said: Well if that's true then foreign shippers should be able to take their goods to any port they wanted since they weren't American goods. Were they?

Since coastwide trade had to be carried in American ships under the Navigation Acts, what tended to happen was that foreign ships arrived in NY, paid the tariff on their goods and the goods were then trans-shipped from NY being loaded onto the required American ships bound for other ports or the goods were loaded onto trains, sent on barges through the Erie Canal and onto the Great Lakes, etc etc

DoodleDawg said: I agree that the Northeast specialized in shipping. But what prevented U.S. shippers from bringing goods from London to Charleston, or London to New Orleans, if that was where the demand for those goods were?

it did not "prevent" it but with the distribution system centered on NY and to a lesser extent, Boston and Philadelphia......foreign ships tended to land at those ports quite frequently though New Orleans was also a major port.

DoodleDawg said: I think we've determined that. The tariff is paid by whoever ordered the goods and it's paid when those goods are landed. Tariffs have the effect of artificially inflating the cost of goods that consumers buy. All consumers, North and South. But what does that have to do with Southern demand for imports?

Just saying the customers were in the North (they weren't all by a longshot) does not mean those customers were bearing the cost of that tariff. They bore some costs as prices rose for manufactured goods, but the importer was obliged by the market to eat most of the cost which slashed profit margins. Meanwhile, profit margins for Northern manufacturers exploded as they were able to raise prices and still gain market share.

BroJoeK: What's wrong with "me too"? You should try it sometime.

its boring and not informative....posting to post rather than for any other reason.

BroJoeK: Now that's just pure slothful ignorance on your part, you don't get away with that. Which Adams? Which states? What date? What circumstances? FYI: I've never seen a quote from any Adams on any date recommending secession for any states under any circumstances. Indeed, I'd almost guarantee that whatever quote you think you have is certainly phony baloney, plastic banana, good time B.S.

Jesus H. Christ. Try reading rather than just responding to respond some time. https://www.loc.gov/item/14020002/ This is not the first time I've posted it.

BroJoeK: And almost nobody in 1860 recommended military action just to stop secession. As Lincoln said, Confederates could only have war if they themselves started it.

No, what he said was to hand over tax money or he'd use violence against them.

BroJoeK: Only if Confederates chose to take it that way, which of course they did.

Your money or your life. There will be no violence unless you refuse to hand over your money. See? I didn't start it, Officer. I'm innocent.

BroJoeK: It's true, Lincoln did not recognize secession as legitimate and so the Federal government must continue to function in those states. But he did promise the Union would not start Civil War which I think offered a genuine chance for peace.

The same chance for peace I offered you above. Your money or your life. I really DO mean there will be no violence so long as you hand your wallet over to me. See? I gave you a chance for peace.

BroJoeK Some points here: Lincoln never considered Confederates a "sovereign power". Lincoln did not think his resupply mission to Fort Sumter "assailed" much less "attacked" Confederates. Lincoln did consider Jefferson Davis' attack on Fort Sumter an act or aggression and rebellion.

Well of course HE claimed it wasn't aggression, HE claimed sending a heavily armed fleet was merely a "resupply mission" and claimed firing to drive an armed invader away was aggression. Surprise Surprise.

BroJoeK: Jefferson Davis, by his own words, intended to start war at Fort Sumter or Pickens, or both, based on "other considerations", namely flipping Virginia and the Upper South.

No he didn't. He would have been perfectly happy to go along on his merry way without ever firing a shot had Lincoln not sent a heavily armed fleet into the CSA's sovereign territory in an effort to collect taxes from them.

BroJoeK: He promised there'd only be violence if Confederates started it. Once again we should note that excluding New Orleans, tariffs collected at Confederate ports accounted for less than 2% of Federal revenues. With New Orleans included, that rises to 6%, hardly a matter of life & death for the Union.

Riiiight. And there will only be violence if you do not hand over your wallet to me. Therefore I'm not the aggressor. Oh and you have GOT to be kidding in thinking that the percentages of where the tariffs are collected in any way reflects the value generated in that port. In other words, were the CSA to go its own way - even just the original 7 seceding states - the amount of exports generated for the USA would be dramatically slashed. Thus also the amount of tariffs paid in New York would correspondingly be slashed. EVERYBODY knew this. I've posted umpteen articles and quotes by historians, politicians at the time, Northern newspapers etc all saying it.

BroJoeK: Many sovereign countries have tolerated foreign presence on their soil without resorting to war to remove it. Most notably, the United States tolerated dozens of British forts and trading stations in US territory, some for decades after the 1783 Treaty of Paris. This map shows only some and they were decidedly hostile, supporting Indians and leading to arguably the greatest defeat in US history, St. Clair's Massacre, 1791. My point is: our Founders decided not to declare war on Britain despite British forts & support for Northwest Indians. By contrast, Confederates decided to go to war over a small unit of Union troops doing them no harm.

If you mean to imply that George Washington or that the 13 colonies would have tolerated the British maintaining a large garrison in the middle of New York Harbor - along with an expressed objective of collecting taxes from the colonies at said fort - I will to ask that you submit to a drug test before posting further.

BroJoeK: Lincoln intended to resupply Fort Sumter peacefully, if possible, and to learn from that if Jefferson Davis intended to start war. Turns out, he did.

Lincoln intended to start a war. His letter to his naval commander, his letter to a friend and the words of his personal secretaries all confirm this.

"Lincoln and the First Shot" (in Reassessing the Presidency, edited by John Denson), John Denson painstakingly shows how Lincoln maneuvered the Confederates into firing the first shot at Fort Sumter. As the Providence Daily Post wrote on April 13, 1861, "Mr. Lincoln saw an opportunity to inaugurate civil war without appearing in the character of an aggressor" by reprovisioning Fort Sumter. On the day before that the Jersey City American Statesman wrote that "This unarmed vessel, it is well understood, is a mere decoy to draw the first fire from the people of the South." Lincoln's personal secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay, clearly stated after the war that Lincoln successfully duped the Confederates into firing on Fort Sumter. And as Shelby Foote wrote in The Civil War, "Lincoln had maneuvered [the Confederates] into the position of having either to back down on their threats or else to fire the first shot of the war."

Had they not fired, Lincoln would have only sent more and more expeditions to occupy more and more forts until he was able to control all ports and strategic locations. It was very obvious at the time even to Northerners that Lincoln was the one who really started it.BroJoeK: But you draw the wrong conclusion -- Lincoln's point is not that he intended his resupply mission to fail, but rather that even if it failed, it was still a valuable effort. Why? Because it smoked out Jefferson Davis' intentions regarding war & peace.

it was valuable to Lincoln because it started the war he wanted. Without that, Sumter would have been handed over peacefully, the original 7 seceding states would have gone their separate way peacefully and there would have been no war.

BroJoeK: Most of which didn't leave port until after Davis ordered his assault on Fort Sumter, None of which arrived before Beauregard demanded Anderson's surrender -- an act of war. None of which were visible, miles off shore at night, before Confederate gunners were ordered to "reduce" Fort Sumter. Only two were on site as the sun rose April 12: 1) the Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane, 734 tons, six small guns, crew of 95, no troops, and 2) Fox's transport SS Baltic, 2,700 tons, no guns, about 200 troops. Neither ship became involved in the action at Fort Sumter. That makes claims they were instrumental totally bogus.

Lincoln let it be known he was sending a heavily armed fleet to force its way into South Carolina's sovereign territory. He then sent it. You do not have to wait until the burglar has actually set foot in your house to start defending yourself. Once he comes onto your property armed and starts breaking down your front door, you are perfectly within your rights to defend yourself. Firing a warning shot which doesn't hurt him but scares him off hardly makes you the aggressor.

BroJoeK: Nonsense, and that kind of talk is just you Democrats doing what you Democrats always do -- accuse Republicans of your own worst impulses. In fact, Davis' own words show he planned to start war at Fort Sumter or Fort Pickens or both. Lincoln's goal was simply to maintain the forts and give Davis the opportunity to show if he wanted war. Turns out, he did.

Horse crap. That is just what you Leftists doing what you always do - lie obfuscate and then project - accusing others of exactly what you yourselves are guilty of. Lincoln's goal was to start a war and that's exactly what he did.

BroJoeK: So the Lost Cause's ludicrous argument is that Lincoln somehow "tricked" Davis into starting war when in fact Davis knew perfectly well what he was doing and would have started war anyway, regardless of what Lincoln did or didn't do.

Several historians have said the same as did both of Lincoln's personal secretaries as I posted above. It is rather you PC Revisionists who try to deny the obvious - that Lincoln knowingly started the war and that he did it for money.

BroJoeK: Sure, the anti-Republican media will always put the worst possible spin on a Republican president. But this remains the "Lincoln tricked Davis" argument and the facts show Davis was in no way "tricked" but knew exactly what he was doing. Davis' only real mistake was in not realizing that two Illinoisians -- Lincoln & Grant -- would make a mess of Davis' war plans.

Funny how you automatically claim all of the voluminous quotes from Northern newspapers I cited were anti Lincoln....and you conveniently leave out a lot of those quotes whenever you pick one to respond to. IMO, I wouldn't say Lincoln "tricked" Davis so much as "forced" Davis to act in his country's defense. Davis had no choice here.

BroJoeK: Sure, from the Confederate perspective, but from Lincoln's it was the opposite. In order to maintain President Buchanan's pledge to defend Fort Sumter, Lincoln had to resupply Maj. Anderson, or surrender. As Jefferson Davis put it: "There would be to us an advantage in so placing them that an attack by them would be a necessity, but when we are ready to relieve our territory and jurisdiction of the presence of a foreign garrison that advantage is overbalanced by other considerations." Those "considerations" being Davis' need to bring more states to the Confederacy.

From the perspectives of historians, from the perspectives of Northern newspapers at the time, from the perspectives of Lincoln's own personal secretaries - not just from the Confederates' perspective.

Lincoln started the war. He did so knowingly and deliberately. He did so for money. President Davis and the original 7 states of the CSA would have been perfectly happy to depart in peace. It was Lincoln who chose to make war.

BroJoeK: I agree that Confederates took that as a "declaration of war" because like all Democrats they put the worst spin possible on Republican words. But they didn't have to, they could have found a more conciliatory approach. Of course if you ever did such a thing, then you wouldn't be true Democrats, now would you?

Its just like you Leftists to project your own faults/crimes onto others.....to attribute the evil motives to others that you yourselves harbor. Lincoln chose to start a war. He did so knowingly and he did it for money.

BroJoeK: There's that word "tricked" again, but nobody was "tricked" because Davis knew exactly what he was doing, and chose a war that was not strictly necessary.

As I've said, I don't agree with the word "tricked" either. "forced" is a much more accurate description.

BroJoeK: As for "reeking havoc" that's the most ludicrous argument of them all. In fact, revenues from Charleston Harbor amounted to two tenths of one percent of total tariff revenues, so it would cost Washington more to collect those revenues than they were worth. As for Fort Pickens in Florida, there were no revenues there. So your claims here are pure nonsense.

You really do outdo yourself in failing to understand economics. The Southern states were generating the vast majority of the cash crops that were exported. Exports were exchanged for imports. That those imports first landed in New York does not mean New York generated that trade. It was merely where the goods were shipped from and the tariffs collected. Had the Southern states gone their own way and shipped out of their own port and imported back into their own ports instead...ie exactly what they would have done....NY and the US would have been out a huge amount of trade and a huge amount of tariff money. I've posted a bazillion sources - including Northern ones - all saying this. Oh and Fort Pickens sits on Santa Rosa Island which is controls access to Pensacola. That was a much more important port at the time than it is now.

BroJoeK: Curious there's no date or specific edition for this alleged editorial, looks dubious to me. But even if we accept it as "pro-Lincoln propaganda", it is just as nonsensical as others because the amount of actual revenue coming from Charleston Harbor was miniscule. Indeed, except for New Orleans, the entire Confederacy had supplied under 2% of US tariff revenues and with New Orleans included it was just 6%. So in no way was that loss the disaster this editorial claimed.

One can only bow before your towering ignorance of economics.

BroJoeK: Of course, when Fire Eaters declared secession they said at the time it was indeed "all about slavery". Economic issues months later don't change that.

Of course this is false. Only 4 states issued declarations of causes. Of those, 3 of the 4 went on at length about the economic reasons even though that was not unconstitutional (and in the case of Texas failure to provide border security as well) while refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the constitution was unconstitutional. The Upper South seceded only AFTER Licoln started the war and ordered them to provide troops to attack other states.

BroJoeK: Absolutely false. This link and this link give long lists of quotes on reasons Davis needed war in April 1861. There's plenty enough to demonstrate that Davis was in no way "tricked" into war.

I agree, he wasn't tricked. He was forced. The notion that the original 7 seceding states somehow "needed" others is absurd. They were generating a huge portion of the total exports of the whole country. They knew they stood to gain a lot of money were they independent and no longer subject to the taxes levied on them to line Northerners' pockets.

Thanks, will see if I can get a copy.

“The key words there being “at pleasure”, words I'm certain you will appreciate since they come from your hero, a man you've defended here at great risk, the Father of our Constitution, President James Madison, right?”

You focus is too narrow. Read what Madison wrote again. For the first time.

“The compact can only be dissolved by the consent of the other parties, or by usurpations or abuses of power justly having that effect.”

Beyond that, I can't believe that Madison (though he didn't sign the DOI) didn't believe that just powers are derived from the “consent of the governed.”

Almost all the quotes from Madison expressing the opinion that states could not unilaterally secede are from the 18-teens and 20s. This was of course long after ratification of the constitution and says nothing about what the parties - that would be the states - agreed to at the time.

The things Madison said about the powers of the federal government being severely limited and that of the states in no way forfeited or impaired he said before passage of the constitution. That is obviously what the states actually agreed to not his later interpretations.

There are plenty on the net. I found my copy at Goodwill. But both Amazon and ABR Books have many of the trade paperback version for a few dollars. Not like the $.99 buys at GW but still inexpensive.

Thanks

That is ABE Books, sorry.

FRLT-bird: "Oh I disagree with that.
Most wars are ultimately about money.
Money is simply what people fight over be it individuals or nations."

"Ultimately"?
You mean, if there's a list of the top ten reasons for some particular war, "money" will be at the bottom, #10, the "ultimate"?
I could agree with that.

But only Marxists dialectics put "money" and "class warfare" as reasons #1 or #2 in, for example, WWII.
Hitler went to war in 1939 over "lebensraum" for his "master race" and to revenge German losses in the First World War.
Hitler was almost as socialist as Stalin, but he never said: let's conquer Europe for more money.

Sure, Japanese did conquer in the name of their "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere", with primary focus on raw materials like oil & rubber, but that was only tangentially "money" and primarily or "ultimately" about Japanese dominance and use of force to make economics go their way, regardless of who had, or didn't have money.

"The Japanese government directed that local economies be managed strictly for the production of raw war materials for the Japanese; a cabinet member declared,
'There are no restrictions.
They are enemy possessions.
We can take them, do anything we want.'[20] "

Indeed, their "ultimate" reason was to glorify the Japanese emperor.

The same is true of any war -- for example, the US entered the First World War on the Allies' side somewhat over money, but primarily because we like the Brits & French better than arrogant, rude Prussians, and we didn't want to see our friends lose.

"Lafayette, we are here"

No amount of money would pay those troops to shout similar praises of, for example, the German Kaiser.
So, contrary to what your Marxist professors taught you, it's not "all about money", never was, never will be.

FRLT-bird: "I could cite a litany of history’s wars that boiled down in the end, to money - that includes WWII.
East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere anyone?
Lebensraum?"

Again, only if by "money" you mean metaphorically "anything of value", otherwise not so much.
Clearly "lebensraum" was not even firstly or secondly to do with money, but rather with things like "living room", national territory, racial superiority, revenge for 1918 and the Versailles Treaty, Blitz Krieg and German technical prowess.
Like the Japanese Co-prosperity Sphere, Germans were not interested in the voluntary exchanges implied by money, but rather in forced expropriations of conquered nations' resources.
That's not "money", that's brute military power.

FRLT-bird: "Patrick Henry was an anti federalist.
I would say pretty much every single one of his dire predictions about how the federal government would usurp ever more power for itself and eventually become a leviathan were true."

Right, "anti-Federalist" means he opposed ratifying the Constitution and went on to oppose the Federalist administrations of Washington & Adams.
Remember, anti-Federalists were just 1/3 of the First Congress in 1789, but 2/3 of anti-Federalists were Southern, as were nearly 2/3 of Jefferson's majority Democrats in the 1801 7th Congress.
Today Democrats still oppose the Constitution, albeit for quite different reasons, while the descendants of Federalists, Republicans, defend it however weakly.

FRLT-bird: "It is a quote from Patrick Henry and it is accurate."

I doubt that. At best it sounds taken out of context.
At worst it may simply be yet another fake projection of more recent sentiments back to our founding generation.

FRLT-bird: "The Colonists’ secession from the British Empire started over taxation."

Nooooooo… over representation.
"No taxation without representation."
Colonists understood taxes were necessary, but wanted to tax themselves.
And more urgent & personal even than mere representation in Parliament was the Brits' 1774 abrogation of Massachusetts' 1691 Charter of self government.
That was effectively an act of war and Americans responded accordingly.

The Brits 1775 Proclamation of Rebellion sealed Americans' fate leading a year later to our Declaration of Independence.

None of that had anything directly to do with money.

FRLT-bird: "The English Civil War started over taxation.
Tax revolts have a very long history in Anglo-Saxon culture."

Maybe, but it was never only about money, and seldom primarily about money.
Of course, in ancient times, when your army sacked a city, you took the city's treasures and its women & children as slaves.
So even then "money" was only part of the equation, national glory, power, land & raw sex played important roles.
Some Roman conquerors were known to payoff their troops not only with loot & land but also with slaves.

It was never only about money.
Even they fought for Roman glory, for land, for loot & slaves:

There were these things called railroads.

Railroads in the South were designed to get goods from the interior to port cities like Charleston, Mobile, and Savannah. There were no railroad lines connecting New York with the South.

There were other things called canals and rivers.

There were no canals linking the North with the South, and the only rivers were the Mississippi and the Ohio.

Then there was the coastwide trade whereby goods would be shipped to other ports once arriving in NYC or Boston etc and being subject to duties there.

So in your scenario all those massive amounts of imports, the vast majority of them according to you, were taken to New York and other Northern cities, landed, had their tariff applied and paid, loaded on other ships, and then taken South? And then those ships that brought them to the U.S., ships which could just as easily taken the goods directly to the customers in South Carolina or Georgia or New Orleans, then sailed south to load up with cotton and return to Europe? And we're the ones who are economically challenged?

Not necessarily. See above. Goods arrived often in New York, paid the tariff and then were trans-shipped via railroad, via canals, via coastwide shipping to other ports

See above. Why?

Adams provides sources and I provided several others. Its just inconvenient for you to admit it.

Sorry, I've got the book and Adams doesn't source his claim with a footnote. He just makes the claim.

Since coastwide trade had to be carried in American ships under the Navigation Acts, what tended to happen was that foreign ships arrived in NY, paid the tariff on their goods and the goods were then trans-shipped from NY being loaded onto the required American ships bound for other ports or the goods were loaded onto trains, sent on barges through the Erie Canal and onto the Great Lakes, etc etc

Well sending through the Erie Canal is in the opposite direction of the South so your story is making less and less sense. But back the original question, which your scenario does not address. You want us to believe that the majority of imported goods which were destined for Southern consumers were taken to New York, unloaded, had the tariff applied, were loaded on other ships, and were then takes South. I ask again, why not take those goods directly to Southern ports since the ships had to go there to load with cotton anyway?

it did not "prevent" it but with the distribution system centered on NY and to a lesser extent, Boston and Philadelphia......foreign ships tended to land at those ports quite frequently though New Orleans was also a major port.

You keep going back to this mythical distribution system. If one did existed, and it didn't, why was it one way? Why didn't all those ships going South load with cotton, bring it back and export it through New York and Boston and Philadelphia? Wouldn't that double Yankee profits if they did?

Just saying the customers were in the North (they weren't all by a longshot) does not mean those customers were bearing the cost of that tariff.

No it doesn't. What means the customers were in the North is the fact that the goods were brought to ports closest to them and not ports far away from them. That's simple economics and good business sense, two things your scenario ignores.

FLT-bird: "Most infrastructure projects were done in the North be it roads or canals or railroads or waterworks or the dredging of harbors."

Only even potentially true if by "the North" you mean all non-cotton states, then sure.
But if you're dividing line is slave-states vs. free-states, then your argument is not true except in one limited sense.

According to this link, Federal spending from 1789 to 1860 totaled about $66 million on "disbursements" as Calhoun called them, including fortifications, internal improvements, light houses & hospitalization.
Of that money over 71 years, 52% = $34 million = $2 million more than free-states, went to slave-states, sounds pretty fair so far, right?

Where Calhoun in 1850 had a point was in the one category of "internal improvements" for the period 1838 to 1850 (the Whig years).
Over those 12 Whig years, "internal improvements" in free states exceeded slave states by $1.5 million, or about $100,000 per year, on average.
In the Democrat dominated years before, from 1834 to 1837 "internal improvements" favored the South and in the Democrat years after 1850 they were pretty much even, but there was a $1.5 million discrepancy in the Whigs' 1838-1850 which Calhoun could legitimately complain of.

On the other hand Federal spending for fortifications in the South exceeded the North by $10.5 million in Democrat years 1834 to 1837 and by smaller amounts in some years after.
Point is: there no legitimate way to exaggerate $1.5 million over 12 years in "excess" Northern disbursements into a generalized complaint against Federal spending.
It wasn't true.

x: "Measures that were generally accepted in the early days as strengthening the national economy came to be seen as assaults on the cotton states' cash cow."

FLT-bird: "EXACTLY!
Notice how similar that is to modern times...what starts out as reasonable and a special favor or temporary measure becomes permanent, the recipients come to see it as their entitlement and they clamor for ever more."

Except the facts show that's not at all what happened in the period 1789 to 1860.
Instead, Southern Democrats like Calhoun complained when Whigs didn't give them their "fair share" and that share was quickly restored when Democrats again came to majorities in the 1850s.

FLT-bird quoting Sherman: "Now if the South have free trade, how can you collect revenues in eastern cities?
Freight from New Orleans, to St. Louis, Chicago, Louisville, Cincinnati and even Pittsburgh, would be about the same as by rail from New York and imported at New Orleans having no duties to pay, would undersell the East if they had to pay duties."

A total hypothetical because, for one, Confederates never had "free trade" or anything close.
Instead they originally adopted the pre-Morrill US tariff rates.
Depending how you calculate, those were about 15% overall.
In May 1861 (two weeks after declaring war on the USA) Confederates set their own rates, from 30% on some items to 5% on others, those are said to have averaged just 10% but within just a short time the Union blockade took hold and Confederates collected virtually no tariffs from then on.

My point is: here Sherman and elsewhere others exaggerated economic dangers from Confederate "free trade" which was never proposed nor practiced there.

FLT-bird quoting Sherman: "Therefore if the South make good their confederation and their plan, The Northern Confederacy must do likewise or blockade.
Then comes the question of foreign nations.
So look on it in any view, I see no result but war and consequent change in the form of government."
-- William Tecumseh Sherman in a letter to his brother Senator John Sherman 1861."

So again, Sherman hypothesizes that war must inevitably result from tariffs & economics.
But in fact, neither of those were at stake at Fort Sumter in April 1861.
Instead the issues involved Confederate "integrity" if "assailed" and "aggression" or "rebellion" to start war.

Of course economics were involved, but not as the immediate issue at Fort Sumter.

FLT-bird seeming to quote: "South Carolina Congressman Robert Barnwell Rhett had estimated that of the $927,000,000 collected in duties between 1791 and 1845, the South had paid $711,200,000, and the North $216,000,000. "

I don't necessarily dispute total tariff revenues of $927 million over 54 years.
But the North-South splits are totally bogus except if by "the South" you mean every region outside New England.
Even then, "paid for" refers not to actual import tariffs, but to the value of exports, especially cotton.
This graph shows that cotton never rose above 50% of total US exports and for the decade of 1851-1860 averaged only 41%.

And there was no other export, or combination of exports, from "the South" which approached even a tiny fraction of cotton's value.

FLT-bird seeming to quote: "South Carolina Senator James Hammond had declared that the South paid about $50,000,000 and the North perhaps $20,000,000 of the $70,000,000 raised annually by duties.
In expenditure of the national revenues, Hammond thought the North got about $50,000,000 a year, and the South only $20,000,000."

Again, only valid if by "the South paid" you mean exports from all regions outside New England, and if by "the South got" you mean Federal spending in only the cotton states.
Otherwise, it's pure nonsense.

FLT-bird: "in 1840, the South paid 84% of the tariffs, rising to 87% in 1860."

Utterly completely bogus fantasies unsupported by any honest data.
The only possible way to get there is to massage, gigger and manipulate the data beyond all recognition of truth.
It begins with flexible & dishonest definitions of "the South" and "the North" and proceeds from there.

FLT-bird: "They paid 83% of the $13 million federal fishing bounties paid to New England fishermen, and also paid $35 million to Northern shipping interests which had a monopoly on shipping from Southern ports.
The South, in effect, was paying tribute to the North."

Those numbers are totally bogus, but the sentiment might have some validity if you only look at Deep South cotton states, which did produce roughly 50% of US exports.
It might even help explain why Fire Eaters had better luck selling secession in cotton states than in the Upper South & Border States.

FLT-bird quoting: "The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country.
Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole...
We have a tariff that protects our manufacturers from thirty to fifty percent, and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe.
This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually."
-- Daily Chicago Times, December 10, 1860"

Those numbers are still bogus, regardless of how often repeated.
In 1860 cotton exports were about $200 million, roughly 50% of total exports.
But at the same time, the South imported $200 million from the North & West, which is how people in those regions earned foreign exchange money to pay tariffs on imports.
In fact, actual tariffs collected at Confederate state ports in 1860 totaled only 6% of total tariffs!

FLT-bird quoting: "What were the causes of the Southern independence movement in 1860? . . .
Northern commercial and manufacturing interests had forced through Congress taxes that oppressed Southern planters and made Northern manufacturers rich . . .
the South paid about three-quarters of all federal taxes, most of which were spent in the North."
- Charles Adams, "For Good and Evil. The impact of taxes on the course of civilization," 1993, Madison Books, Lanham, USA, pp. 325-327 "

Still, endlessly repeating lies in no way makes them true.
The sentiment is only potentially valid if by "the South" you mean only cotton states and if by "the North" you mean everywhere else.
But when those Deep South cotton states decided to declare secession, did they blame tariffs & spending?
Yes, a little, here & there.
But the larger focus in every document was on Northern opposition to slavery, so that is where we have to think their true hearts lay.

FLT-bird: "From 1789 to 1845, the North received five times the amount of money that was spent on southern projects.
More than twice as many lighthouses were built in the North as in the South, and northern states received twice the southern appropriations for coastal defense."

The data shows that's still total lies, except if you mean by "the South" just cotton states and by "the North" everywhere else.

FLT-bird: "False. See above"

Sorry, but your numbers began as fake news, Democrat propaganda, which you now hope to insert into your fake history, the Lost Cause Myths.

BroJoeK: "Ultimately"? You mean, if there's a list of the top ten reasons for some particular war, "money" will be at the bottom, #10, the "ultimate"? I could agree with that.

No. As in money is the driving force behind the VAST majority of all wars.

BroJoeK: But only Marxists dialectics put "money" and "class warfare" as reasons #1 or #2 in, for example, WWII. Hitler went to war in 1939 over "lebensraum" for his "master race" and to revenge German losses in the First World War. Hitler was almost as socialist as Stalin, but he never said: let's conquer Europe for more money. Sure, Japanese did conquer in the name of their "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere", with primary focus on raw materials like oil & rubber, but that was only tangentially "money" and primarily or "ultimately" about Japanese dominance and use of force to make economics go their way, regardless of who had, or didn't have money. "The Japanese government directed that local economies be managed strictly for the production of raw war materials for the Japanese; a cabinet member declared, 'There are no restrictions. They are enemy possessions. We can take them, do anything we want.'[20] " Indeed, their "ultimate" reason was to glorify the Japanese emperor. The same is true of any war -- for example, the US entered the First World War on the Allies' side somewhat over money, but primarily because we like the Brits & French better than arrogant, rude Prussians, and we didn't want to see our friends lose.

I didn't say "class warfare". I said money. Look back through history. The demands for tribute...access to this or that river...or a seaport....or good farmland...or some other natural resource....or trading rights.....or taxes....its all MONEY. Hitler was a socialist. WWII....it is utterly no coincidence that the 3 major powers which were latecomers in unifying or coming out of isolation (1860 for Italy, 1868 for Japan, 1870 for Germany) were dissatisfied powers. They looked around the world and saw that the Chinese, Russians, Americans, French and British had grabbed all the good stuff already. Oh gee...lookie here! Those just happened to be the Allied powers. Yeah, no surprise they were satisfied with the way things were and equally no surprise that Germany, Italy and Japan weren't satisfied. That war - like most others - was about money. Call it resources, call it national power, it boils down to money.

BroJoeK: "Lafayette, we are here" -- US troops, July 4, 1917, at Lafayette's tomb while parading in Paris. No amount of money would pay those troops to shout similar praises of, for example, the German Kaiser. So, contrary to what your Marxist professors taught you, it's not "all about money", never was, never will be.

Always was about money, and always will be in the vast majority of cases. Your little anecdotes are cute and all but let's look at one you cited.....US Entry into WWI. Do you have any idea how heavily invested in French and especially British stocks Americans were? Do you have any idea how much credit US companies extended to France and especially Britain? They stood to lose huge amounts of money if the Entente Powers did not win. Freedom of navigation? Oh please. The Royal Navy was interfering with freedom of navigation more thoroughly than the Germans were. But the US had nowhere near the trade and investment with Germany, let alone Austria-Hungary it had with Britain and France. You would do well to lose the naivette. Most wars are not fought over any noble principles. They're almost invariably fought about wealth/resources/money.

BroJoeK: Again, only if by "money" you mean metaphorically "anything of value", otherwise not so much. Clearly "lebensraum" was not even firstly or secondly to do with money, but rather with things like "living room", national territory, racial superiority, revenge for 1918 and the Versailles Treaty, Blitz Krieg and German technical prowess. Like the Japanese Co-prosperity Sphere, Germans were not interested in the voluntary exchanges implied by money, but rather in forced expropriations of conquered nations' resources. That's not "money", that's brute military power.

Lebensraum was all about grabbing natural resources....farmland and oil especially...so that the German Empire could be wealthy and secure. What the Nazis wanted was Autarchy. They wanted to have all the resources they would need directly under their control so that they would not be subject to outside pressure. This was what those massive empires like Britain, America, Russia, France and China (OK maybe a little less so for China) already had. It was directly about resources and money. Japan wanted all kinds of resources within their empire...rubber, tin, iron ore, oil, lumber, food, yada yada yada.

BroJoeK: Right, "anti-Federalist" means he opposed ratifying the Constitution and went on to oppose the Federalist administrations of Washington & Adams. Remember, anti-Federalists were just 1/3 of the First Congress in 1789, but 2/3 of anti-Federalists were Southern, as were nearly 2/3 of Jefferson's majority Democrats in the 1801 7th Congress. Today Democrats still oppose the Constitution, albeit for quite different reasons, while the descendants of Federalists, Republicans, defend it however weakly.

There was no Democratic Party at that time. There was no Republican Party at that time. Your attempts to link everything then directly to current political parties is ridiculous.

BroJoeK: I doubt that. At best it sounds taken out of context. At worst it may simply be yet another fake projection of more recent sentiments back to our founding generation.

You doubt any quote or source that is inconvenient for what you want to believe whether you have any basis for that doubt or not.

BroJoeK: Nooooooo… over representation. "No taxation without representation." Colonists understood taxes were necessary, but wanted to tax themselves. And more urgent & personal even than mere representation in Parliament was the Brits' 1774 abrogation of Massachusetts' 1691 Charter of self government. That was effectively an act of war and Americans responded accordingly. None of that had anything directly to do with money.

Oh for goodness sake! Pick up a history book sometime - not one written by PC Revisionists. It was over taxation. The colonists were just fine with not having representation until taxes were demanded of them.

BroJoeK: Maybe, but it was never only about money, and seldom primarily about money.

Yes it was. Google "ship money" some time. Say...why did Charles recall Parliament? Rather than simply trying to say the opposite of anything I say, you would do well to actually read.

BroJoeK: Of course, in ancient times, when your army sacked a city, you took the city's treasures and its women & children as slaves. So even then "money" was only part of the equation, national glory, power, land & raw sex played important roles. Some Roman conquerors were known to payoff their troops not only with loot & land but also with slaves. It was never only about money. Even they fought for Roman glory, for land, for loot & slaves:

Gimme a friggin' break. That's ALL money in the end.

DoodleDawg: Railroads in the South were designed to get goods from the interior to port cities like Charleston, Mobile, and Savannah. There were no railroad lines connecting New York with the South.

Yet there were some rail lines that could be used and were used to distribute goods. They were not all exclusively to ports...and of course when trans-shipped from NYC via the coastal trade, those rail lines from ports into the hinterland could be used and were used to distribute goods.

DoodleDawg: There were no canals linking the North with the South, and the only rivers were the Mississippi and the Ohio.

Just the Mississippi. That's all. LOL!

DoodleDawg: So in your scenario all those massive amounts of imports, the vast majority of them according to you, were taken to New York and other Northern cities, landed, had their tariff applied and paid, loaded on other ships, and then taken South? And then those ships that brought them to the U.S., ships which could just as easily taken the goods directly to the customers in South Carolina or Georgia or New Orleans, then sailed south to load up with cotton and return to Europe? And we're the ones who are economically challenged?

Show me where I said "vast majority". What I said was that your argument that the customers had to be in close proximity to the major ports was false. There was a distribution network. NYC was at the center of it. That doesn't mean just New Yorkers were consuming those foreign goods. You obviously have no idea how the shipping lines and the package trade worked at the time. Yes, you are economically challenged here. Read up on it some time.

DoodleDawg: Sorry, I've got the book and Adams doesn't source his claim with a footnote. He just makes the claim.

Ah so a book written by Tax expert Charles Adams is just not good enough of a source.....you say so. The very first sentence from the Amazon review: "Using primary documents from both foreign and domestic observers.....". Let's face it - you are going to claim anything that is inconvenient for your argument is somehow invalid, unproven, the source had some kind of bias, blah blah blah, regardless of all else. Tell us again how this is not exactly the trolling 101 scenario I laid out from the start.

DoodleDawg: Well sending through the Erie Canal is in the opposite direction of the South so your story is making less and less sense.

No, seeing as how your argument was that NYC and surrounds must have provided the vast majority of the customers for those foreign goods, it is your story that is making less and less sense. You've burned a ton of electrons here trying to buttress your weak argument and still failed. There was a nationwide distribution network. Just because the goods landed at one port or were shipped out of one port that means neither that the goods were produced in the area immediately surrounding that port or that the imported goods were bought by customers in the immediate surrounding area of that port. Moving on....

DoodleDawg: But back the original question, which your scenario does not address. You want us to believe that the majority of imported goods which were destined for Southern consumers

Wait a minute. Where did I said "destined for Southern Consumers"?

DoodleDawg: were taken to New York, unloaded, had the tariff applied, were loaded on other ships, and were then takes South. I ask again, why not take those goods directly to Southern ports since the ships had to go there to load with cotton anyway?

The distribution network and shipping lines were centered on New York. That was the biggest hub by far for foreign goods entering the US as well as for the US coastwide trade. Ships bound for foreign ports would carry cotton and other cash crops and return with manufactured goods. Ships bound for US ports - particularly Southern ones - would carry foreign goods and return with cash crops. They tried never to run empty. That's hugely wasteful....kinda like tractor trailers today. The key to efficiency and an efficient distribution network is to minimize the amount of time/distance when the vessel is empty.

DoodleDawg: You keep going back to this mythical distribution system. If one did existed, and it didn't, why was it one way? Why didn't all those ships going South load with cotton, bring it back and export it through New York and Boston and Philadelphia? Wouldn't that double Yankee profits if they did?

Yep. You're a complete ignoramus about history/economics here. Yes, there was a distribution system. There were shipping lines. Read about them some time.

DoodleDawg: No it doesn't. What means the customers were in the North is the fact that the goods were brought to ports closest to them and not ports far away from them. That's simple economics and good business sense, two things your scenario ignores.

You plainly do not know much about how the economy of the country worked in the mid 19th century.