Nope!
BroJoeK: 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.
I provided very different figures from a variety of sources. Seems odd those Northern Newspapers would, when trying to argue for war to their Northern readers, emphasize how much they benefited from infrastructure projects paid for by the federal government which got most of its money from taxes paid by Southerners....if your figures were remotely accurate.
BroJoeK: Except the facts show that's not at all what happened in the period 1789 to 1860.
Oh but they do show exactly that.
BroJoeK: 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.
false
BroJoeK: 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.
The Confederate constitution set a maximum of 10% ie revenue tariff instead of protective tariff. As I have shown repeatedly, Northern business interests and their political pawns like Lincoln were terrified of this. They knew there was no way they could sell their manufactured goods to the South if they had to compete against foreign goods which had very low tariffs on them. This is part of what Sherman pointed out to his brother the US Senator. The CSA imposed higher tariffs only due to them being plunged into a war of self defense very soon after Lincoln came to office.
We've gone over and over and over this before. Just repeating ourselves is tiresome and a waste of time.
BroJoeK: 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.
False. This is exactly what was at stake. Lincoln started the war due to his insistence that the Southern states pay TAXES. It was about money.
BroJoeK: 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%.'
Yeah as we've gone over already, the numbers you claim are totally bogus. Not only the sources I posted but also Northern Newspapers and politicians as well as Southern politicians and newspapers as well as foreign newspapers all back up the numbers I posted.
BroJoeK: 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.
Again, your numbers are bogus.
BroJoeK: 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.
False. Charles Adams is a well known tax expert....though numerous other sources I cited from the time all say the same thing. You have nothing credible to back up your bogus numbers.
BroJoeK: 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.
False. Your numbers are totally bogus. As I said before, your argument based on nothing more than your fantasy numbers is getting really boring.
BroJoeK: Those numbers are still bogus, regardless of how often repeated.
Yet another Northern source from the time which backs up what I've said. I posted several of them. Your denials are nothing more than burying your head in the sand at this point.
BroJoeK: In fact, actual tariffs collected at Confederate state ports in 1860 totaled only 6% of total tariffs!
Irrelevant for reasons I've explained at least a dozen times already. Where the goods enter a market or exit a market is not indicative that the port of entry either generated all those goods or consumed all the imported goods. Its merely a port.
BroJoeK: 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.
I wish you'd take that sentiment to heart and quit repeating your unsubstantiated lies.
BroJoeK: 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. The 4 states which issued declarations of causes did list Northern refusal to enforce the fugitive slave clause of the constitution which was of course a violation of the compact. That they bothered listing their economic grievances even though these were not unconstitutional is a dead giveaway to how much it did bother them. The fact that they turned town the North's offer of slavery forever by express constitutional amendment tells us that slavery was obviously not their main concern. This is what....the 50th time we've gone over this?
BroJoeK: The data shows that's still total lies, except if you mean by "the South" just cotton states and by "the North" everywhere else.
Nah. The data shows that your claims are total lies.
BroJoeK: Sorry, but your numbers began as fake news, Democrat propaganda, which you now hope to insert into your fake history, the Lost Cause Myths.
Sorry but your numbers are fake news and have been all along. The fact that your fellow Leftists in Academia started spewing this BS again a generation ago does not make it so. This is just part of the standard Leftist PC Revisionist dogma. Like the rest of the Left's BS, it is also nothing more than a pack of lies meant to serve their politics.
Which is why I often just skip over what BroJoeK and others write. They don't listen, and they don't learn. They simply regurgitate what they want to believe, and they dismiss any information that conflicts with what they wish to believe.