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Gods, Generals, and Tariffs
The Mises Institute ^ | 2/21/03 | Thomas DiLorenzo

Posted on 02/21/2003 9:06:49 PM PST by billbears

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1 posted on 02/21/2003 9:06:49 PM PST by billbears
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To: stainlessbanner; shuckmaster; GOPcapitalist; aomagrat; Constitution Day; 4ConservativeJustices
Dixie ping, Gods and Generals another look
2 posted on 02/21/2003 9:07:53 PM PST by billbears (Deo Vindice)
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To: billbears
I just got back from seeing the movie. FANTASTIC!

I really enjoyed the portrayal of the Southern Generals as they truly were, Godly men.

This movie should be shown in every American History class.
3 posted on 02/21/2003 9:17:42 PM PST by TSgt ("Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion")
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To: MikeWUSAF
This movie should be shown in every American History class.

Don't hold your breath for that to happen. They are more likely to show Harry Potter. I thank God I homeschool. My son loved the movie, BTW.

4 posted on 02/21/2003 9:22:53 PM PST by Types_with_Fist
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To: MikeWUSAF
And while we in the South are constantly reminded that the Southern economy was built on the backs of slaves, nothing gets said of the sweatshops run in the Northeast during the same period of time. Those same shops existed long after the legislative abolition of slavery.
5 posted on 02/21/2003 9:25:07 PM PST by gov_bean_ counter
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To: MikeWUSAF
I really enjoyed the portrayal of the Southern Generals as they truly were, Godly men.

Godly slave holder protecting men. Oh yeah. Nice God you have.

6 posted on 02/21/2003 10:03:44 PM PST by jlogajan
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To: billbears
If the Confederates went to war over a few tariffs as well as slavery, this further demonstrates an astoundingly profligate undervaluing of human life.
7 posted on 02/21/2003 10:08:40 PM PST by unspun (HOLLYWOOD DECLARE AND DISMANTLE YOUR WEAPONS OF MASS DYSFUNCTION)
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To: MikeWUSAF
I just saw it also, and I agree with you that it should be shown in history classes. However, I have reservations whether the movie will entertain the masses. The script is faithful to history, but that isn't the recipe for cinematic success. I wish it well but doubt it will do well at the box-office.
8 posted on 02/21/2003 10:10:25 PM PST by Fifth Business
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To: jlogajan
Godly slave holder protecting men.

I thought the movie did a good job of bringing out the irony of men fighting for freedom for themselves but not for the slaves.

9 posted on 02/21/2003 10:13:14 PM PST by Fifth Business
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To: billbears
Here are two quotes that I believe sum things up rather accurately. The first is from a 7 page speech in the congressional record by a southern senator against the Morrill tariff. It is one of the many anti-tariff speeches from the secession era. The second is an excerpt from a post-war book written by Lysander Spooner - the leading philosophical mind of the American abolitionist movement. In other words, here are two quotes that yankee historians would not like you to know about and that many of their apologists here purport to be non-existant:

"Mr. President, it is very disagreeable to speak, as I do on this occasion, with a consciousness of my utter inability to prevent the passage of this bill. I have no doubt that the adoption of this measure is a foregone conclusion. I believe it has been generally understood that the adhesion of the State of Pennsylvania to the Republican party was upon the condition of the passage of this Morrill-tariff bill; and I suppose an obligation that has been incurred at such a price must be carried out. Still, I owe it, perhaps, to those whose opinions I represented on this committee, and to my constituents, to expose, if I can, the shallow pretexts on which it is sought to adopt this measure, and strip it of those disguises in the shape of specific duties, under which its enormous taxation is hidden....But pass this bill, and you send a blight over that land [of Virginia]; the tide of emigration will commence - I fear to flow outward - once more, and we shall begin to decline and retrograde instead of advancing, as I had fondly hoped we should do. And what I say of my own State I may justly say of the other southern States. But, sir, I do not press that view of the subject. I know that here [in Congress] we are too weak to resist or to defend ourselves; those who sympathize with our wrongs are too weak to help us; those who are strong enough to help us do not sympathize with our wrongs, or whatever we may suffer under it. No, sir this bill will pass. And let it pass into the statute-book; let it pass into history, that we may know how it is that the South has been dealt with when New England and Pennsylvania held the power to deal with her interests." - Senator Robert Hunter of Virginia, February 1861, Congressional Globe, 36-2, p. 898-905

"And now these lenders of blood-money demand their pay; and the government, so called, becomes their tool, their servile, slavish, villainous tool, to extort it from the labor of the enslaved people both of the North and the South. It is to be extorted by every form of direct, and indirect, and unequal taxation. Not only the nominal debt and interest--enormous as the latter was--are to be paid in full; but these holders of the debt are to be paid still further--and perhaps doubly, triply, or quadruply paid--by such tariffs on imports as will enable our home manufacturers to realize enormous prices for their commodities; also by such monopolies in banking as will enable them to keep control of, and thus enslave and plunder, the industry and trade of the great body of the Northern people themselves. In short, the industrial and commercial slavery of the great body of the people, North and South, black and white, is the price which these lenders of blood money demand, and insist upon, and are determined to secure, in return for the money lent for the war." - Lysander Spooner, "No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority" 1870

10 posted on 02/21/2003 10:50:31 PM PST by GOPcapitalist
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To: billbears; WhowasGustavusFox; sc-rms; catfish1957; THUNDER ROAD; Beach_Babe; TexConfederate1861; ...
Dixie ping!
11 posted on 02/22/2003 1:40:06 AM PST by shuckmaster
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To: billbears
T]he Confederate Congress . . . adopted our old tariff of 1857 . . .fixing their rate of duties at five, fifteen, and twenty percent lower than ours. The result was . . . trade and commerce . . . began to look to the South . . .

Yeah, the south was a real hotbed of commerce in 1861, wasn't it? I suppose that Union blockade was really a trade measure.

12 posted on 02/22/2003 7:39:00 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: GOPcapitalist
The second is an excerpt from a post-war book written by Lysander Spooner - the leading philosophical mind of the American abolitionist movement.

Secessionists are now quoting anarchists?

13 posted on 02/22/2003 8:02:45 AM PST by jlogajan
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To: Fifth Business
I thought the movie did a good job of bringing out the irony of men fighting for freedom for themselves but not for the slaves.

You should always fight for freedom for yourself -- as long as you don't fight for slavery of others. Oops, I guess the "Godly" southerners missed that distinction.

14 posted on 02/22/2003 8:05:54 AM PST by jlogajan
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To: GOPcapitalist
Senator Robert Hunter of Virginia, February 1861

South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had already seceded by the time this guy gave his speech. Therefore irrelevant.

15 posted on 02/22/2003 8:08:20 AM PST by jlogajan
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To: shuckmaster
dixie LIBERTY bump!
16 posted on 02/22/2003 8:24:11 AM PST by stand watie (Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. : Thomas Jefferson 1774)
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To: billbears
Article I, Section 8 allows for the collection of "taxes, duties, imposts and excises" but only "for revenue necessary" to finance the government and not to protect any business or industry from international competition. "Nor shall any duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry . . ."

This is actually something with which I could agree. Our Founders considered the tariff to be the least intrusive mode of taxation to impose upon the American People. However, there is a vast difference between a relatively low, flat-rate revenue tariff imposed on ALL imported goods and the convoluted targeted tariffs or tariff exemptions enacted by special interests. Modern "free traders" generally ignore this distinction, and erroneously promote zero-tariffs, forcing government to rely on more tyrannical means of collecting revenue.

17 posted on 02/22/2003 8:57:22 AM PST by Willie Green (Go Pat Go!!!)
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To: Non-Sequitur
have you ever heard of "King Cotton"... probably not...
18 posted on 02/22/2003 9:01:18 AM PST by arly
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To: jlogajan
Excellent point!
19 posted on 02/22/2003 9:18:15 AM PST by the_rightside
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Comment #20 Removed by Moderator


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