rustbucket:
"Lincoln did not want peace.
As he told a delegation of 30 people from Baltimore who urged peace after the attack on Fort Sumter Link to the full content of the Baltimore Sun article in post 328: 'And what is to become of the revenue? I shall have no government -- no resources.' "rockrr: "Where's the 'Not this sh!t again graphic?' "
Right, a similar quote was claimed by CSA Col. Baldwin post-war from his meeting with Lincoln in April 1861.
But neither quote is verified and both are at odds with what we know of the time, most especially the fact that only a tiny fraction of Federal revenues came directly from Confederate ports.
Yes, there were indeed suggestions for collecting Federal tariffs from Confederate ports, but they had nothing to do with Fort Sumter -- the suggestions were to place US warships offshore to collect tariffs, out of sight of Confederate ports.
Forts Sumter & Pickens were a different issue entirely.
Yet, maniacally our Marxist trained Lost Causers insist: Fort Sumter was all just "money, money, money!", though neither Lincoln nor his cabinet at the time said any such thing. ![]()
Right, a similar quote was claimed by CSA Col. Baldwin post-war from his meeting with Lincoln in April 1861. But neither quote is verified and both are at odds with what we know of the time, most especially the fact that only a tiny fraction of Federal revenues came directly from Confederate ports.Baldwin's sworn testimony was verified by others in Virginia to whom he told exactly the same things shortly after meeting with Lincoln. With respect to the one hour long meeting Lincoln had with the 30 members of the Baltimore Young Men's Christian Associations, have you found any reports that members of that delegation disavowed what the Baltimore Sun and The Daily Exchange of Baltimore said of the meeting were not true or that Baldwin's testimony was false? No? We are supposed to believe you instead?
I recognize that Baldwin's testimony and two reports of the meeting with the Baltimore YMCA group lay bare in Lincoln's own words why Lincoln didn't want peace.
Certainly a small fraction of Federal revenue "came directly from Confederate ports." Imports were often stored in the large warehouses in the New York City area, and revenue was collected in New York when a sale of an item occurred and the item removed from a warehouse. That says nothing about where the item was shipped to.
Thomas Prentice Kettell, in his 1860 book, "Southern Wealth and Northern Profits," estimates on page 74 that based on annual reports of the Secretary of the Treasury on import consumption in the different regions of the US that $106 million of the 1859 total import of $318 million was consumed by the South. In addition to that, he estimates, based on earlier figures for how much the South spent on Northern manufactured goods, that the South bought $240 million worth of those Northern goods in 1859.
So, if the South started importing those foreign goods directly into their ports (i.e., Southern ports where the tariff was considerably less than the tariff in New York), Lincoln's tariff revenue could fall by as much as a third and maybe more if imports into Southern ports were smuggled into the North to avoid the Northern tariff. No wonder Lincoln was concerned about revenue. But you seem convinced that Lincoln somehow wasn't concerned about that potential loss in federal revenue. If so, would you please explain how you reach that conclusion.
You say: both are at odds with what we know of the time
Would you please provide some background on "what we know of the time" that conflicts with what Lincoln is reported to have said?
rockrr, I am sorry that you apparently don't want to see references to what Lincoln reportedly said about revenue because you have seen them before on other threads. Much of the discussion on this present thread dealt with revenue, but I was the only person who brought up Lincoln's famous words about it. Lincoln's words appear to me to be very germane in explaining why Lincoln did what he did. Some on these threads scoff at reports of what Lincoln reportedly said and may never be convinced of their legitimacy. That is their right.