Explain please. At the time the north invaded the south, the south was funding some 75% of the federal treasury which was being spent in the north as "industrial development." You don't call that ruinous?
Complete nonsense. Lies.
Almost 95% of the tariff revenues were collected in northern ports. More revenue was collected in Philadelphia in 1859 than in all southern ports put together. And tariff revenue was 99% of federal income.
Common sense will also tell you that 1/4 of the people were not providing 3/4 of the revenue.
But lies are the currency of the "southern heritage".
Consider:
1) "One of the major reasons the south pulled out of the union was because of unfair tarriffs placed on them by the north."
Well, the Feds never placed tariffs on Southern exports, as is commonly asserted in Secessionist myth. Tariffs on Southern imports caused the friction. Could these have damaged the South to the extent that secession and civil war were justified? South Carolina, Texas and Jeff Davis' own State of Mississippi failed to mention tariffs once in the official and closely-reasoned declarations of the causes of secession they published in association with their Acts of Secession. Georgia's declaration of the causes of secession did mention the tariff irritant in passing --- but briefly and only in the context of an ancient wrong that had ultimately been righted by political compromise acceptable to the South. Similarly, the speeches of Secessionist leaders made in late 1860 and early 1861 show almost total concentration on slavery issues, with little or no substantive discussion of current tariff issues. In any case, before the ACW, the rate of Federal taxation was tiny by today's standards. The total revenues of the Federal government in 1860 amounted to a mere $56,054,000, and that included tariff revenue, proceeds from the sale of public lands, whiskey taxes and miscellaneous receipts. The population of the whole US in 1860 was 33,443,321. Thus, total Federal taxation per year was less than $2 per person. Even if the 9,103,332 people in the soon-to-secede Southern states paid all of the Federal taxation in 1860 (which they did not), their per capita cost would still have been less than $7 for the entire year. From these inconsequential sums, another Secessionist myth has been created and sustained for 140 years --- but people do not go to war over pocket change.
2) "Any goods ship …… out of the south from the north were subject to these tarriffs."
As noted above, this is another persistent neo-Secessionist myth. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 5 of the US Constitution states unequivocally that "No tax or duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State." Accordingly, not a single shipment of cotton or any other goods out of Southern ports after the US Constitution was adopted was ever put under tariff UNTIL THE CONFEDERACY DID SO BY AUTHORITY OF AN AMENDED CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION ALLOWING THE CONFEDERATE CONGRESS TO LEVY TARIFFS ON EXPORTS. In short, only the Confederacy ever charged tariffs on Southern cotton.
3) "Slavery was but one small paving stone one the road that lead to the Civil War."
Seven states from the Deep South started the war. The four of the seven that published declarations of the causes of their secession spent the majority of their ink on frictions over slavery. None even mentioned the phrase "states' rights". South Carolina, Texas and Jeff Davis' own State of Mississippi failed entirely to mention tariffs. Georgia's declaration mentioned the tariff irritant in passing --- but briefly and only in the context of an ancient wrong that had ultimately been righted by political compromise acceptable to the South. Similarly, the speeches of Secessionist leaders made in late 1860 and early 1861 show almost total concentration on slavery issues, with little or no substantive discussion of current tariff issues. Accordingly, it is clear that non-slavery issues have been vastly overemphasized by post-war writers attempting to minimize the pro-slavery motivations of Secessionists at the outbreak of war."
-- from the AOL ACW forum.
It's all lies from you, PP Mama.
Walt
How would common sense tell me that? 1/4 of the people paid 84% of the taxes in the year 2000. I don't find this hard to believe at all.
Name calling is the currency of liberals who have no facts.