There were people who noted - correctly - that investments in cotton production did yield the highest ROI to that point in time. Thus the Southern states specialized in its production. But Southerns did not fail to notice that since returns on cotton production were good, it was attracting others - most notably the British Empire - to follow suit and indeed Britain’s empire ramped up cotton production considerably thus driving down the margins. Southerners well understood from observing their chief customer Britain and others that industrialization was the way forward. The Upper South was industrializing at a pretty rapid rate by 1860.
That perception was confined to an elite part of the elite, a few wealthy and educated people who closely followed economics and shared a minority opinion about the future of the economy. For the rest - even or especially the rest of the elite - cotton was king, and the idea that Britain could replace the South as its main supply of cotton was unheard of. That's why the secessionists were so confident that they would win. If they really thought cotton would eventually go bust, why secede at all? Why not share in the increasing wealth of a united America?
And as I said before, those industrialists of the Upper South that you mention were not driving the secession movement. Once the new country was formed, they were determined to serve it, but most of them had been more than happy in the good old United States.
Hint: compensated emancipation was not seen as a threat by the vast majority of slave owners. Indeed it was how the British Empire and others had gotten rid of slavery and if slavery were to go - which many realized it would eventually - a compensated emancipation scheme was the most equitable way to do it.
Most educated Southerners in 1780 thought slavery would go away eventually. Many still thought so in 1830. By 1860, there was so much pressure to unify behind the "peculiar institution" that it was hard to maintain such a position in public, or even in private. The Fire-eaters, the fire-brands of the secessionist revolution, did not even want to consider the idea of gradual compensated emancipation. It was seen as a weakening of the united front of the South. Every slaveowner who sold out was one less supporter of the existing Southern Way of Life. The CSA might have initiated its own program of gradual compensated emancipation sooner or later, but that wasn't apparent in 1861.
Baloney. The collection costs were miniscule and would have been easily covered by a low single digit rate.
You said 10% would be an acceptable tariff rate. Add to that a low single digit rate necessary to pay for the collection of the tariff and you get about 17%, which was the overall tariff rate adopted in 1857. On some goods it was as low as 15%. On others it was higher. Still, tariffs in the late 1850s weren't much to complain about.
Someone who's done the math says the average free American resident paid $1.94 in tariffs in 1860. If the Confederacy had been able to collect its own tariffs, including those on goods from the Northern states, free Confederate citizens would have had to pay $4.46 annually in tariffs. That certainly could have gotten Southern industry going, but how would the large agricultural interest have liked paying more in tariffs?
As for infrastructure spending that had massively skewed toward the Northern states as had corporate subsidies. There are any of a number of sources for this ranging from the Pennsylvanian Buchanan to Thomas Jefferson to John C Calhoun to various Newspapers including Northern ones to the Georgia declaration of causes to Rhett’s address attached to South Carolina’s declaration of causes and issued along with it.
Once again, you cite the fiery, ignorant rhetoric, but don't name the actual laws and measures that constituted "massive corporate subsidies." Which laws constituted massive corporate subsidies? And bear in mind, you said “corporate.” Anything that might have benefited a poor fisherman probably doesn’t qualify as massive or corporate.
New England was THE hub of the slave trade industry for the entire western hemisphere from that point on.
New England ships ran slaves to Cuba and Brazil. Spanish and Portuguese ships ran slaves to the American South. The British and the other powers were also still involved. Many of the foreign ships that carried slaves used the American flag because they knew that the ships would not be searched by the British. As the trade was illegal, marginal, and frowned upon, and slavers spent little time in their original home waters, talk about a hub or epicenter is probably out of place.
The VAST MAJORITY of illicit slave trading was carried out by those who had always carried it out - Yankees.
“Yankees” alone, no. Throw in the Spanish, Portuguese, and Brazilians with them and you would be right. What you’re not saying is that in the last years, ships taking slaves illegally to the Southern states tended to be owned by Southerners.
You do realize “industry” in that first quote is ambiguous, that is, it can be read in two different ways - both as manufacturing and as industriousness - don’t you? See Jefferson Davis’s Boston speech where he clearly states: “Your interest is to remain a manufacturing and ours to remain an agricultural people.” Once again, there’s nothing ambiguous there. Your second quote comes close to saying the same thing, “The people of the Southern States, whose almost exclusive occupation was agriculture ….” Davis doesn’t mention any desire on his part to change that. As President, Davis obviously had to play catch-up with the North industrially, but he was no proponent of Southern industrialization prior to the war.
You’re spinning now. I can include more. This is from Rhett’s Address which was attached to South Carolina’s declaration of causes and sent out along with it.
“And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures..........
The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three fourths of them are expended at the North. This cause, with others, connected with the operation of the General Government, has made the cities of the South provincial. Their growth is paralyzed; they are mere suburbs of Northern cities. The agricultural productions of the South are the basis of the foreign commerce of the United States; yet Southern cities do not carry it on. Our foreign trade, is almost annihilated……”
The Southern states wanted to be free to set low tariffs, keep far more of the profits their products generated and use the money to build up their own industry rather than being taxed to pay the cost to build up Northern industry. That the cost of industrialization was born primarily by agriculture was not uncommon. It happened that way in most countries. That large regions were so heavily specialized such that the burden fell overwhelmingly on one while the benefits flowed overwhelmingly to another was highly unusual.
That perception was confined to an elite part of the elite, a few wealthy and educated people who closely followed economics and shared a minority opinion about the future of the economy. For the rest - even or especially the rest of the elite - cotton was king, and the idea that Britain could replace the South as its main supply of cotton was unheard of. That’s why the secessionists were so confident that they would win. If they really thought cotton would eventually go bust, why secede at all? Why not share in the increasing wealth of a united America?
I disagree. Firstly most understood that industrialization was the way forward. They could hardly fail to notice the direction the whole western world had been going in over the first half of the 19th century. Secondly, it was not that the British Empire would entirely replace Southern cotton. It was that with an alternative source of supply - India, Egypt, etc - they would not need anywhere near as much. When you have more of a commodity on the world market, the price/margin for it drops. That is exactly what happened.
They were not “sharing in the wealth of a united America” as you put it. They, with good reason, saw themselves as being taxed for others’ benefit just as their grandparents had seen themselves being taxed for others’ benefit when they seceded from the British Empire.
Most educated Southerners in 1780 thought slavery would go away eventually. Many still thought so in 1830. By 1860, there was so much pressure to unify behind the “peculiar institution” that it was hard to maintain such a position in public, or even in private. The Fire-eaters, the fire-brands of the secessionist revolution, did not even want to consider the idea of gradual compensated emancipation. It was seen as a weakening of the united front of the South. Every slaveowner who sold out was one less supporter of the existing Southern Way of Life. The CSA might have initiated its own program of gradual compensated emancipation sooner or later, but that wasn’t apparent in 1861.
On the whole I disagree. Many saw that it was going away. They could hardly fail to notice what had been happening in the rest of the Western World including the Northern states over the first half of the 19th century as industrialization came in and slavery went out. Northern abolitionists who took a very accusatory and hateful tone toward Southerners preferring to condemn them rather than discuss ways to deal with the problem of slavery....doing things like urging violence and bitterly opposing any compensated emancipation proposals DID wash the ground out from under many more moderate Southerners such that they did not want to be seen as sympathizing in any way with those mid 19th century SJWs....but they well understood slavery’s days were numbered. It was already starting to die out in the Upper South which was further down the road toward industrialization than the Deep South.
You said 10% would be an acceptable tariff rate.
No, I said 10% would be the MAXIMUM rate allowed. The Confederate constitution specified revenue tariff rather than protectionist tariff.
Add to that a low single digit rate necessary to pay for the collection of the tariff and you get about 17%, which was the overall tariff rate adopted in 1857. On some goods it was as low as 15%. On others it was higher. Still, tariffs in the late 1850s weren’t much to complain about.
17% was still quite a bit higher than the Southern states would have set. It was probably more than double the rate they’d have set if given the choice. They were discussing much much lower tariff rates when the Confederate Government was being formed.
Someone who’s done the math says the average free American resident paid $1.94 in tariffs in 1860. If the Confederacy had been able to collect its own tariffs, including those on goods from the Northern states, free Confederate citizens would have had to pay $4.46 annually in tariffs. That certainly could have gotten Southern industry going, but how would the large agricultural interest have liked paying more in tariffs?
I have not seen a study of the exact amounts and would need to see the source material to have a good idea. There is no dispute however that the CSA was set to have a MUCH LOWER tariff rate than the US had had or was going to have under the Morill tariff. Northern newspapers were filled with horror stories about how it would cripple the North to not get all the money it was making from the tariff and from servicing the export of Southern cash crops. This did a lot to stoke war fever in the North.
Once again, you cite the fiery, ignorant rhetoric, but don’t name the actual laws and measures that constituted “massive corporate subsidies.” Which laws constituted massive corporate subsidies? And bear in mind, you said “corporate.” Anything that might have benefited a poor fisherman probably doesn’t qualify as massive or corporate.
No, I cite people at the time...a wide range of them. I can cite Georgia’s Declarations of causes, a whole slew of Northern newspapers as well as a slew of political leaders. Subsidies to mail carriers, fisherman, miners, etc. Federal spending on Canals, roads, Railroads, etc - the overwhelming majority of it in the North even though the overwhelming majority of the tariff was paid by Southerners.
New England ships ran slaves to Cuba and Brazil. Spanish and Portuguese ships ran slaves to the American South.
Uhh no. There was very little importation of slaves to the Southern states. The climate was far healthier than in the Caribbean or Brazil and they were not used in the brutal sugar industry which saw lots of slaves die and get maimed by the very dangerous machinery. As a result of the much lower mortality, the Southern states did not need nearly as many imported slaves and what slaves were imported were usually imported by Yankees.
The British and the other powers were also still involved.
Not much after the late 18th century.
Many ships that carried slaves used the American flag because they knew that the ships would not be searched by the British. As the trade was illegal, marginal, and frowned upon, and slavers spent little time in their original home waters, talk about a hub or epicenter is probably out of place.
Not at all. The scale of slaving operations out of New England was enormous as were the profits. Those slave trading profits undergirded many corporations that were founded there and most deliciously of all, the ENTIRE Ivy League. Yes that’s right Lefty Yankee snowflakes! YOUR most treasure/precious universities...your indoctrination centers were founded with....with....wait for it....SLAVE TRADING PROFITS!
“Yankees” alone, no. Throw in the Spanish, Portuguese, and Brazilians with them and you would be right. What you’re not saying is that in the last years, ships taking slaves illegally to the Southern states tended to be owned by Southerners.
Overwhelmingly by Yankees. There were incredibly few slave traders based in the South or from the South. Slave Trading was a New England industry along with the rest of the shipping industry.