Posted on 02/26/2003 1:10:37 PM PST by GOPcapitalist
--10/11/59"
Pretty weak response, Walt, even for you.
That is simply not so. As was articulated in the anti-tariff speeches of the time, the southerners noted that the infant period of the country's existence had long since past and accordingly called that argument nonsense. They also must not have thought much of it based on the fact that the tariff they enacted for the confederacy was not protectionist.
What he said in his Pittsburgh remarks is that he was not familiar with the bill then pending in Congress.
He also said that of his pet 13th amendment, even though he solicited its introduction by Seward. The Morrill bill had been in the news since the Spring of 1860 and was without dispute known to Lincoln's campaign that fall. In other words, he was a chronic liar who liked to put on the small town simpleton persona when it suited him politically.
Yeah, and based upon the record, he thought quite a lot about it after that quote. Save the brief gap in the mid 1850's, the tariff was regularly on his mind.
Seward's letter to Lincoln on December 26, 1860.
And are you claiming that the war was about tariffs?
In large part, yes.
Wlat non-response. The fact remains that, by his own definition, Lincoln invaded the south and coerced its obedience.
But you tried to say it did, and you got caught in a lie.
You couldn't catch a lie if it was taped to your hand, Walt, which is, in a large part, one of the primary reasons why you can never substantiate that often made allegation of yours.
Wlat non-response. The fact remains that, by his own definition, Lincoln invaded the south and coerced its obedience.
In the speech in Indianapolis that you excerpted, President elect Lincoln made clear that if the government retained or recaptured federal properties in rebel areas, that could not be considered invasion or coercion.
You tried to make the speech say something it doesn't say. You got caught in a lie.
And amazingly, you posted this same thing some weeks ago, and were exposed as a liar then too.
But don't worry, the other neo-rebs won't call you on it.
Walt
Yeah, and based upon the record, he thought quite a lot about it after that quote.
that is simpy not supported in the record. The issue that consumed the country was slavery.
"If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved-I do not expect the house to fall-but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new-North as well as South."
A. Lincoln, 1858
Walt
So do I, but the Declaration did not form a government, and Lincoln did not take an oath to uphold the Declaration, he took an oath to uphold the Constitution.
There is a higher law than the Constitution. Lincoln said that all his political ideas sprang from the D of I. He was not in favor of forcing anyone out of the country -- especially after they helped save the Union.
"Why should they give their lives for us, with full notice of our purpose to betray them?" he retorted."Drive back to the support of the rebellion the physical force which the colored people now give, and promise us, and neither the present, or any incoming administration can save the Union." To others he said it even more emphatically. "This is not a question of sentiment or taste, but one of physical force which may be measured and estimated. Keep it and you can save the Union. Throw it away, and the Union goes with it."
There was no way Lincoln was going to betray the blacks, as you seemed to imply.
Walt
I hope you're not referring to the political left's ignorant and baseless assertion that George W. Bush was not legitimately elected as our president. Are you? Oh, that's right, you can't be since seven justices ruled that the democrats' ever-changing set of "rules" as to what constituted a vote, differing within each county from minute-to-minute, violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That was the important ruling in Gore's attempted theft of the 2000 election.
Until they began protecting sugar a year later. Then they started taxing exports. Then they started taxing production. They taxed damn near everything but slaves. I wonder why?
If protective tariffs were such a big cause, tell us why the North West states who were also opposed to protective tariffs didn't join with the secessionists?
But invading the southern territories and coercing their obediance would be. He said so himself. And that is exactly what he did.
You tried to make the speech say something it doesn't say.
What did I allege it to say that it did not say, Walt? That Lincoln, by his own definition, invaded the south? Sorry, Walt, but it di say that and he did do that. That Lincoln, by his own definition, coerced the south? He said that and did that too. So if you can dispute either of those things, do so. Otherwise, quit making baseless accusations against others who best you in debate.
Post 267 shows otherwise. Live with it.
The issue that consumed the country was slavery.
Post 267 shows that tariffs were big too. Live with it.
Happily. The Morrill act gave them protection. And if they were so opposed to protectionism, why did practically every single one of them vote for the Morrill Act when it came before the House? Evidently they weren't as anti-protectionist as you claim.
Lincoln had then reached the full maturity of his powers. His equipment as a statesman did not embrace a comprehensive knowledge of public affairs. What he had studied he had indeed made his own, with the eager craving and that zealous tenacity characteristic of superior minds learning under difficulties. But his narrow opportunities and the unsteady life he had led during his younger years had not permitted the accumulation of large stores in his mind. It is true, in political campaigns he had occasionally spoken on the ostensible issues between the Whigs and the Democrats, the tariff, internal improvements, banks, and so on, but only in a perfunctory manner. Had he ever given much serious thought and study to these subjects, it is safe to assume that a mind so prolific of original conceits as his would certainly have produced some utterance upon them worth remembering. His soul had evidently never been deeply stirred by such topics. But when his moral nature was aroused, his brain developed an untiring activity until it had mastered all the knowledge within reach. As soon as the repeal of the Missouri Compromise had thrust the slavery question into politics as the paramount issue, Lincoln plunged into an arduous study of all its legal, historical, and moral aspects, and then his mind became a complete arsenal of argument. His rich natural gifts, trained by long and varied practice, had made him an orator of rare persuasiveness. Abraham Lincoln: An Essay Emphasis added
Numerically most of Lincoln's public utterances after 1854 relate to the question of slavery expansion. I'd guess that the same was true of his private papers. And these words were more emotionally and intellectually alive than his routine, "perfunctory" remarks on tariffs. It's hard for a surface examination over a century later to pick up just what's the standard political "boiler plate" rhetoric of the day and what reflects real passion and emotional involvement, but Schurz and others were there at the time and their judgement should be taken into account.
I suppose the response is that talk about slavery was all window dressing for an economic agenda. If you believe that the Civil War absolutely has to have been all about tariffs, you'll dismiss everything else as mere rhetoric. The idea seems to be that there has to be a dirty truth behind "high-flown rhetoric." But 19th century America was a highly rhetorical. Political and moral abstractions were taken seriously. And why would those who weren't prejudiced in that direction find the tariff behind slavery? Why not slavery behind the tariff? It certainly seems hypocritical and unfairly selective to attack attempts to look beneath the veneer of Confederate rhetoric while reducing the Union cause to dollars and sense.
At the time, the Republicans were accused of deception and having a secret agenda, but the charge wasn't so much that they were using the issue of slavery extention to slip in a protectionist agenda. It was rather the reverse: that they used the tariff issue to win over Pennsylvanians and other key voters to an anti-slavery agenda. Southerners hated tariffs, but they were apart of normal political debate. Opposition to slavery was seen as a threat to their way of life. That's what Thomas Clingman thought.
From today's point of view the Republican refusal to attack slavery where it already existed was a compromise with evil, but for many Southerners at the time, opposition to slavery in the territories and to the Fugitive Slave Act was the beginning of the end for slavery. Today, almost all people accept that slavery was wrong and should be illegal. A century and a half ago, that was a very controversial position, far more controversial than protection vs. free trade. It's only because the slavery question has been resolved that some have forgotten how violent the conflict was.
Debate on the tariff was loudest on a few types of goods. In the 1850s it was wool and iron. There was a natural opposition between those who produced wool and pig iron (pro-tariff) on the one hand and those who spun woolen goods or forged iron products (anti-tariff). It was only because slavery was so much more important an issue to people that the natural free trade coalition between Western and Southern farmers and their Eastern allies broke down.
To Clingman and many other secessionists, protective tariffs were tariffs were theft, but so was the refusal to return runaway slaves, and the threat of abolition, however remote, was highway robbery and the destruction of their society. If I'd been alive then and in their position, I might have felt the same, but that doesn't mean that it was right or justified, and it doesn't excuse lying and denial now.
But they were wise enough to know that some person or -group- of persons -must- have the final say.
Discard that -- and you wind up with the confedercy.
Walt
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