Sorry, in 1858-59 more tariff revenue was generated by Boston ($5,133,414.55) than by the 10 largest southern ports combined ($2,874,167.11). And New York generated almost 7 times as much revenue as Boston ($35,155,452.75). All figures from "Lifeline of the Confederacy" by Stephen R. Wise.
Charles Adams of "When in the Course of Human Events" cites tariff revenues from the 1830's and 1840's of $90 million from the South, $17.5 million from the North, for a total of $107.5 million. As confirmation of this, he points out that these amounts are proportional to the exports of both sides -- $214 million from the South, $47 million from the North.
Fort Sumter was a military fort, nothing more and nothing less. The Customs House in Charleston is, if memory serves, on East Bay Street. Perhaps you can see the wisdom behind putting a customs house miles away from the wharves where the tariffs would be collected but it makes no sense to me. Can you explain the logic to me?
Read my words: I said "floating" customs houses. You make my point: there is no wisdom in having a customs house miles away from the wharves. That's why Lincoln gave the authority to set up ships to collect tariffs out on the water.
>> The slave trade would go through New York and Rhode Island; the slaves would be sold South ....
Interesting premise, except for one thing. Slave imports, legal slave imports, ended in 1808 through federal legislation as the Constitution provided. Slavery was illegal in New York by 1827. So how could this be fueling the tariff engine you describe in 1860?
There was plenty of clandestine slave trading going on. By far most slaves went to Brazil, but a few were sold to the South. Slave trading was a hanging offense, but that sentence was only carried out one time, in 1862, when the Yankee slave trader Nathanial Gordon was hanged after being captured with a boatload of slaves going to the West Indies.
Nevertheless, the North still profited handsomely from slave labor, even without official engagement in the slave trade. That's because they collected tariffs on goods produced with slave labor. Whether you import 'em or just breed 'em, they're still slaves.
>> I always thought some of the Northern states should have seceded in protest of this violation of their own states' rights.
Interesting, except that, of course, arbitrary secession is not an action guranteed by the Constitution and is illegal.
First, the Constitution did not explicitly forbid secession, and therefore by Amendments 9 and 10 this right was retained by the States and the people. The Constitution, at least as originally framed, does not give us rights, it only denies the government certain rights.
Second, it was Abraham Lincoln himself who most eloquently affirmed the right of secession in his July 4, 1848 letter to the New York Tribune:
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world . . . Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much territory as they inhabit. "
Gosh, old Honest Abe is so eloquent it almost brings tears to my eyes.
Third, the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence affirms the natural right of secession. Do you think King George thought the American colonists had a "right" to secede from Britain? No. But what some politician thinks has no bearing on natural rights.
But if it was a 'states rights' issue, it is interesting to note how the south was against states rights in this instance but claim to be all for it in others.
Absolutely. Very well said. You won't find me defending either Northern or Southern hypocrisy. And there is plenty of it all around.
Hell, it was Massachusetts that threatened to secede four times, first on the adjustment of state debts, second on the Louisiana Purchase by Jefferson (clearly unconstitutional), third during the War of 1812; and fourth on the annexation of Texas. One resolution actually passed the state house. Those wascally webels!
Not the only instance, apparently.
That's the beauty of the net -- you get to forge your ideas under the scrutiny of thousands of other people.
Interesting premise, except for one thing. Slave imports, legal slave imports, ended in 1808 through federal legislation as the Constitution provided. Slavery was illegal in New York by 1827. So how could this be fueling the tariff engine you describe in 1860?
There was plenty of clandestine slave trading going on. By far most slaves went to Brazil, but a few were sold to the South. Slave trading was a hanging offense, but that sentence was only carried out one time, in 1862, when the Yankee slave trader Nathanial Gordon was hanged after being captured with a boatload of slaves going to the West Indies.
Nevertheless, the North still profited handsomely from slave labor, even without official engagement in the slave trade. That's because they collected tariffs on goods produced with slave labor. Whether you import 'em or just breed 'em, they're still slaves.
Note that the slaves delivered to Memphis slavetrader Nathan Bedford Forrest in Memphis came downriver on the Mississippi, from Cairo, in Illinois. He was presumable brokering the sale of slaves from Northern areas in which their ownership had been proscribed or was unpopular, and relocating them to new homes in the southland.
Whatever the case, those who he took into his own household apparantly held him in personal high esteem, and some 30 of them served with him through the war; with only one deserting to the other side when the opportunity to do so presented itself. Their courage under fire, military skill and horsemanship and individual ability impressed Forrest greatly, and he described them as *his equals.*
-archy-/-
Oh, Lord, I was afraid that someone was going to dredge up Adams and his POS novel. Well, the book I quote the figures from references the "Statement Showing the Amount of Revenue Collected Annually From Each Collection District for the Period June 1858-June 1859", Exec Doc. No. 33, 26th Congress, 1st Session, 1860 as it's source. Adams references nothing except his own opinion. I know. I read the book.
That's why Lincoln gave the authority to set up ships to collect tariffs out on the water.
How was that to be done? Send out boats and board every ship coming along? When and how did Lincoln issue these instructions? It still makes no sense.
There was plenty of clandestine slave trading going on.
Going on through Boston and New York? Don't you think someone would have noticed that? If you are smuggling slaves into the states then why smuggle them into a northern port - where slavery was illegal - only to have to ship them down south where the demand was? Does that honestly make any sense to you?
First, the Constitution did not explicitly forbid secession...
According to the Supreme Court this right does not and never has existed. Texas v. White, 1869.
Gosh, old Honest Abe is so eloquent it almost brings tears to my eyes.
"The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forebearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for 'perpetual union' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession." -- R.E. Lee January 23, 1861.
The Robert E. Lee sure had a way with words, didn't he?
Gosh, old Honest Abe is so eloquent it almost brings tears to my eyes.
Lincoln is talking about a revolutionary right.
There is no right to unilateral state secession under U.S. law. In the Prize Cases in 1862, the Supreme Court said that the actions of the "so-called confederate states" (to use their words) were rebellion and that the federal government was empowered to put down the rebellion. This was a -unanimous- decision.
Walt
Under any reading of the tenth amdndment where the states retain a right to rend the union, the people retain the right to maintain it. That is what they have done.
Secondly, the Congress is empowered to provide for the common defence and general welfare. No state may leave the union if it diminishes the general welfare. And the Congress is empowered by the necessary and proper clause to act if the general welfare is threatened. This too, is exactly what happened.
Thirdly, the supremacy clause of the Constitution prohibits secession.
If a state could unilaterally withdraw from the Union, then supremacy would rest with each state, respectively - not with the Constitution and the laws made pursuant to it. As the Constituion expressly declares the Constitution to be the Supreme Law of the land, any act that denies this supremacy (e.g., unilateral withdrawl) must be unconstitutional.
Walt