Posted on 10/29/2001 11:26:49 AM PST by aomagrat
I am still looking at some sources, but consider:
"The first paragraph of Georgia's [secession document]includes a long description of protective tariffs, and how these tariffs harmed the slaveholding states. However, the second paragraph concludes:
"...the country had put the principle of protection upon trial and condemned it. After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed. It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people. The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all."
So Georgia clearly consider the tariff question as settled in its favor.
I took a few minutes to read over the other three Declarations of Causes, and did not see any references to tariffs. However, I did not make a close reading of the texts, so it is possible I missed something.
All four documents make it clear that they were seceding because Lincoln had won a free and fair election and was about to become the President of the United States.
South Carolina, for example, wrote:
" ... A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction."
[snip]
"On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. ..."
So, South Carolina seceded because Lincoln won the election of 1860.
Texas stated:
"In all the non-slave-holding States, ... the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, ... based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. ..."
[snip of a list of the perceived wrongs inflicted upon Texas by the people of the North and their sectional party]
"And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slave- holding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave- holding States."
So, Texas seceded because Lincoln won the election of 1860.
After listing the wrongs inflicted upon the South over slavery, Georgia stated:
"Such are the opinions and such are the practices of the Republican party, who have been called by their own votes to administer the Federal Government under the Constitution of the United States. We know their treachery; we know the shallow pretenses under which they daily disregard its plainest obligations. If we submit to them it will be our fault and not theirs. The people of Georgia have ever been willing to stand by this bargain, this contract; they have never sought to evade any of its obligations; they have never hitherto sought to establish any new government; they have struggled to maintain the ancient right of themselves and the human race through and by that Constitution. But they know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands, and therefore they refuse to commit their own to the rulers whom the North offers us. ..."
That is, Georgia would not obey the lawful government of the United States because Lincoln would be its head.
And Mississippi, who opened with: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world."
Closed with:
"It [hostility to slavery] has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood."
"Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England."
Ditto Mississippi.
I will note that Mississippi's analogy to the Revolution is false. The Founding Fathers wanted a voice in their government. They knew, of course, that having a voice does not guarantee that one's voice will be heeded. They understood that the corollary to having Representation is the obligation to abide by the decisions of a Representative government even when these decisions go against you. Evidently, the secessionists did not understand their obligation to obey the lawful government of the United States even when they disagreed with that government."
--From the ACW newsgroup.
The war was caused by slavery, not tariffs.
Walt
Apparently even your own Vice President-to-be felt that tariffs were a non-issue.
Then you go on to write: As a Southerner ....
Don't you hate when you post stuff like this? Do yourself a favor, short-timer, read your own post!
Then you go on to write: As a Southerner ....
Don't you hate when you post stuff like this? Do yourself a favor, short-timer, read your own post!
I live in Texas and was raised in New Orleans. I think this very much qualifies me as a Southerner. However, my point was that many people in the South who display the Stars & Bars on their mud flaps do so because of their prejudice toward African Americans. Therefore, they are so uneducated that they could not tell they difference between the US Constitution and a Wal-Mart Receipt. By no means am I saying that everyone who displays the Stars & Bars is a racist but only that it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between a racist and a person who supports states rights for legitimate reasons.
However, if you want to consider racist organizations, look no further than the NAACP!
I don't believe the post you responded to mentioned any amounts. It said there was essentially free trade in the USA between 1846 and 1861. That is also what the Georgia secession document said.
The cause of the war was slavery.
Walt
There were some tariffs, yes. But the amount was inconsequential in the great scheme of things--less than $2 per person per year. It bears repeating:
The four states (of the orginal seven)that issued secession declarations give little or no mention to tariffs as a cause of secession.
Walt
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