Posted on 02/26/2003 1:10:37 PM PST by GOPcapitalist
The South and the Northern Tariff - Speech of Senator Thomas Clingman, North Carolina, March 19, 1861 (Congressional Globe 36-2 p. 1476-77)
CLINGMAN: Mr. President, I admire the closing rhetoric of the Senator form Rhode Island (Simmons); but I want to call his attention to one or two questions which I put to him, and which he does not apprehend, but which I think are practical. The Senator attaches very little weight to the imports that go into the seven States that have seceded. He thinks it a matter of very little moment whether those States remain out or in. I endeavored to show him the error; but perhaps too hurriedly for him to apprehend my meaning; and I beg leave to recapitulate, for I think if there is a practical mind on the floor of the Senate, the Senator?s is one, and I want to see how he will get this Government out of the difficulty. I say to him, that I am as yet a representative of the Government of the United States, and shall faithfully represent what I believe to be in its interests, while I stand here. But let us see how this will affect the revenue. There were made last year about four million six hundred thousand bales of cotton. About two hundred thousand bales of it were made in North Carolina, and I suppose about as much in Tennessee, and about the same amount in Arkansas. There were very nearly four million bales of cotton made in the seven States that have seceded, worth fully $200,000,000. Very little of it was consumed in those States ? not more, perhaps, than three or four millions? worth ? and the rice crop exported exceeded that, and Louisiana made, I believe, about twenty millions? worth of sugar. I do not know what the amount of the sugar crop was last year; it has fluctuated; but it must have been at least that; it has sometimes been more. I think it fair, therefore, to assume that those seven States sent out of their limits from two hundred to two hundred and twenty million dollars? worth of produce. They get back a return in some way. It is not to be supposed it was given away. My friend from Texas suggests to me that they got it in wood-screws. No doubt they did get some of them; and they may have been gotten up in the State of Rhode Island, for aught I know. I was about to say that they must have got back $220,000,000 worth of products in some form. A portion of the money ? not very much ? went for horses and mules; and grain and other agricultural products, but much the larger amount of it went for articles that were dutiable. All of them were not actually imported, as many of them came from New England and elsewhere; but they were dutiable articles, and, but for the duties would have been furnished at a lower rate from abroad. I take it, therefore, that off the dutiable articles there must be twenty or thirty million ? certainly twenty million ? of revenue that would, in the ordinary course, be collected off those States with the tariff which we had last year.
Now, it is idle for the honorable Senator to tell me that the importations at Charleston and Savannah were small. I know that the merchants have gone from those cities to New York, and bought goods there; that goods are imported into New York are bought there, and then are sent down and deposited at Charleston, New Orleans, and other places. But, in point of fact, here is an enormously large consumption of dutiable articles, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty million. These people make their own provisions mainly, and cotton to sell, and do very little in the way of manufactures. Their manufactured goods came from the United States, or from foreign countries. I put the question to the honorable Senator, how much duty does he think this Government is going to lose by the secession of those States, supposing, of course, that they do not pay us any duties; for if New England goods are to pay the same duty with those of Old England, and Belgium, and France, we all know that the New England goods will be excluded, unless they make up their minds to sell much cheaper than they have been heretofore doing? I was curious, the year before last, in going through Europe, to ascertain, as well as I could, the value of labor and the prices of articles, and I was astonished at the rate at which goods may be purchased all over the continent, compared with similar articles here. The reasons they are not furnished as cheap here, is partly due to the circuitous trade. For example: houses in England purchase up articles in Belgium, France, Germany, and even Italy, and make a handsome profit; they then send them to New York, and handsome profits are made there by the wholesale dealers and, finally, they get down south, and in this way they are very high; but the tariff has also operated very largely. That Senator knows, as well as I do, and everybody knows, that if there be direct trade with Europe by these States; if goods are not to go around through New York, and not to pay duties ? and you may be sure they will not go there under his tariff, for nobody will pay a duty of fifty or seventy-five per cent. on what he imports, when he can send the goods to another port for fifteen or nineteen per cent. ? the result will be, that these States certainly will pay this Government no duties at all.
But it does not stop there. Merchants from my own State go down to Charleston, and lay in their goods. This Government, as things now stand, is not going to get any revenue from them. If goods are imported at Charleston at ten, or fifteen, or nineteen per cent. duty, whatever is paid will go into the coffers of the confederate States, and merchants will go down from my State and buy their goods there; and thus you lose a great portion of the North Carolina trade. It will be the same with Tennessee; it will be the same with the Mississippi valley. Now, what revenue are we going to get to support our Government under th epresent condition of things? The honorable Senator is very adroit in parrying questions. I asked him, when he spoke of the free list, if the manufacturers were willing that their chemicals, their dye stuffs, and coarse wool, that has been admitted free, should be taxed; and he replied, ?They are willing to have tea and coffee taxed.?
SIMMONS: The Senator will pardon me. I said, if we wanted money I would tax them, whether they were willing or not.
CLINGMAN: Exactly; but when pressed on that point, he turns it off on the tea and coffee. But, sir, we are legislating here for the United States ? all of us who are here, except by friend from Texas, who is kind enough to stay with us and help us legislate, until he gets official notice of the ordinance of his State. I thank him for his kindness. I think he is doing us a favor to stay here and help the wheels along. It needs the help of Hercules and the wagoner both to get us out of the mud. I want to know of honorable Senators on the other side of the Chamber how this Government is going to support its revenue next year. I think, if you have no custom-house between Louisiana and the Upper Mississippi, merchants up there will come down and buy their goods at New Orleans. If they learn that at New York they can buy goods under a tariff of fifty or seventy-five per cent., and that they can biy them at New Orleans under a tariff of only one third that, they will go down to New Orleans; and the result will be that we shall get very little revenue under the existing system. We may bandy witticisms; we may show our adroitness in debate; but this is a question which we have to look at practically. One of two things must be done: either you must prevent imports into those States, which I do not think you can do ? and I do not suppose there is a Senator on this floor who believes that, under the existing laws, the President has authority to do it ? or you must call Congress together, and invest him with some authority. If you do not do that, you must establish a line of custom houses on the border.
Is it not better for us to meet this question frankly on its merits? My apprehension, as I have already expressed it, is that the Administration intend, (I hope I may be deceived) as soon as they can collect the force to have a war, to begin; and then call Congress suddenly together, and say, ?The honor of the country is concerned; the flag is insulted. You must come up and vote men and money.? That is, I suppose, to be its policy; not to call Congress together just now. There are two reasons, perhaps, for that. In the first place, it would be like a note of alarm down south; and, in the next place, if you call Congress together, and deliberately submit it to them whether they will go to war with the confederate States or not, I do not believe they would agree to do it. Of course, I do not know what is the temper of gentlemen on the other side; but, though they will have a large majority in the next Congress, I take it for granted from what little I have heard, that it will be difficult to get a bill through Congress for the war before the war begins; but it is a different thing after fighting begins at the forts.
The Senator himself says they are going to enforce the laws and carry them out everywhere. I cannot tell what he means. In one part of his speech, I understood him to say that he was willing to let the seceded States alone; but towards the close of it, he spoke of enforcing the laws, and collecting the revenue everywhere. There is a very wide difference between these lines of policy. If you intend to let the confederate States stand where they now do, and collect their own revenues, and possess the forts, we shall get nothing, or very little, under the existing system. If on the other hand, you intend to resort to coercive measures, and to oblige them to pay duties under our tariff, which they do not admit that they are liable to pay, and to take back the forts, we shall be precipitated into war; and then, I suppose, we shall have a proclamation calling Congress together, and demanding that the honor of the United States shall be maintained, and that men and money shall be voted. I would rather the country should ace into this matter.
I shall not detain the Senate with a discussion about the tariff. I take it that we understand it, and I presume that the intelligent minds of the country understand its situation, and how much we shall get under it. The Senator form Rhode Island alluded to a remark which the Senator from New Hampshire made, that Rome lasted seven hundred years, and that, therefore, this Government must last seven hundred years; and he gave us some witty remarks about the sun not going down before breakfast. Mr. President, it is unfortunate that these analogies do not always run out; they will not hold good. I have read that Methuselah lived until he was more than nine hundred years of age. If a man who was something above ninety were told by his physicians that he was in very great danger of dying, that his constitution was worn out, and disease was preying on him, if he were to refer to the case of Methuselah, and say, ?I have not lived one tenth as long as he did; and, according to his life, I am now just before the breakfast of life,? it might be a very satisfactory argument, perhaps, to the man who used it, but I doubt whether anybody else would be consoled by it; I doubt very much whether his physicians would leave him under the idea that he had certainly eight hundred years to live. I am very much afraid that my friend from Rhode Island, when he rests on this declaration of the Senator from New Hampshire is resting on an unsubstantial basis, when he assumed that this Government must, of necessity, live as long as the Roman republic, and that the comparison of the sun does not hold good. However, I see the Senator from New Hampshire near me, and as he understands these things so much better than I do, I yield the floor.
Schurz is free to believe what he likes, but the fact of the matter is that Lincoln's own words indicate otherwise. He was still devoted to protectionism in 1859 when he took the issue up again, stating that his positions of the earlier years had not since changed. Over the next year, he ran for office as the protectionist candidate. Once he got there his attention to the issue of tax collection became practically obsessive at the time of the Fort Sumter crisis - perhaps more than any other issue involving the fort.
And he found a shift in Lincoln's thinking from economic questions to a moral concern with the expansion of slavery.
If he did, he was somewhat mistaken. Beyond a passive belief, Lincoln's anti-slavery views did not emerge until the last years of his life, and then only as a political means. Prior to that he was literally all over the radar save his opposition to slavery in the territories. He espoused racial equality where it was popular to do so. He espoused racial superiority where it was popular to do so. He told crowds that he wanted to maintain and even protect slavery where it was popular to do so. He told them he wanted to colonize the slaves when it was popular in the audience. He told them that slavery must eventually come to an end when it was popular to do so. He staked his claim in the position of opposing slavery in the territories then proceded to take every other position imaginable in every which way surrounding that initial stake. That is akin to saying "I'm for the income tax and that is my core belief" then changing the details by the audience - espousing a flat rate to conservatives, and a progressive rate to liberals. In the end, you have technically not compromised your "core belief" of being for the income tax, but when you get to the technicalities of that issue, you're still all over the place. And so was Lincoln with slavery.
Further, for Schurz to say that Lincoln shifted away from economics when he took up slavery as an issue is absurd. In Lincoln's most famous assertion of his position of excluding slavery from the territories, he stated his reason for doing so was economic - to keep the territories for white laborers to remove to. Elsewhere throughout his career after that he espoused economic concepts of labor when he referred to slavery. Sure, he adopted moralistic tones in those select few of his better known speeches - most of which came to either friendly audiences or at a time in his career when it was politically advantageous to take those moral positions. But economics remained throughout and for him, or Schurz, or anyone else to pretend that he walked away from the economic concepts that prevailed throughout his entire political career is absurd.
Lincoln did read economics in his younger days and he did address the issues of the day in the 1830s and 1840s, which were largely economic.
Sure he did. And nothing at all exists to indicate that he suddenly voided his mind of everything he knew about them after 1854. In fact, the only evidence we do have indicates that he still believed in them - he openly said so in 1859 then joined a protectionist presidential ticket the following year.
He couldn't well avoid talking about the questions which were the stuff of political debate.
You understate his interest in that issue. Not only did he "not avoid" the politically prominent question of the tariff - he also made it his central issue and adhered to it as a belief till the day he died.
But Schurz does capture the mature Lincoln rather well.
I don't believe so at all. Lincoln's own words indicate he was still a protectionist in 1860, that he still wanted to advance protectionism, and, especially, that he was very concerned about making sure the tariffs were collected. Schurz tends to overstate Lincoln's moral approach to slavery and, IMHO, does so by reading into it from his own perspective. The Lincoln he saw/wanted to see and the Lincoln that existed were not always the same thing. This is evidenced in his letters to Lincoln during the debates on the Corwin Amendment, which Lincoln supported but Schurz did not. Schurz wrote him to encourage his opposition to the thing and, at least in my own readings of it, seemed confident it would come through on the grounds that Lincoln would oppose it for moral reasons. That did not happen though and Lincoln supported it for political reasons.
You quote one sentence from Lincoln's letter to Wallace but leave out the sense of the letter, which is that this wasn't the time for agitation on the tariff question.
You misread the second portion of that letter. He indicates that, in 1859, it wasn't politically viable to push the issue but expresses hopes and expectations that it soon would become time. By 1861, it was politically viable by way of a united north-controlled government and under the faulty guise of paying off the deficit and, by that time, Lincoln was publicly supporting the tariff. It was a simple and skilled political calculation on his parts - he knew he could get the issue through if it came up at the right time and he backed it at the right time. That time was 1860 and 1861, not 1859, and when it came, he backed it as he had indicated he would do.
While Lincoln retained his belief in tariffs, he wasn't inclined to promote them at that date because other things were more important.
Not necessarily, and by stating that you read into that letter something that isn't there. He does not say that the tariff is not of importance to him. He does say though that it was not, in 1859, a politically ripe time for a tariff bill. He then says that a politically ripe time may be soon and expresses his desire that it comes soon. But he does not say that it isn't important to him in the scheme of things.
It does not seem to be correct to say that Lincoln "was still making speeches on them [tariffs] in his presidential years."
How could it be incorrect if he was, as I have demonstrated, making them? He gave a speech almost entirely devoted to the tariff a few weeks before his inauguration. After that inauguration he obsessed both publicly and privately over making sure the tariff was collected at the southern ports.
A President could not avoid dealing with this issue, but Lincoln made few speeches as President and the tariff does not appear to have been the primary subject of any of them.
Passing the tariff is the primary subject of the one a few weeks before his inaugural. It would be unusual to expect to find one urging passage of the tariff after his inaugural, as the Morrill act became law on March 2 two days earlier. His interest then shifted to collecting that tariff in the seceding states - a position that was a topic in many of his speeches and the sole topic in many of his personal correspondences.
There were the pre-inaugural remarks in Pittsburgh on the tariff, not during his Presidential years
How so? Is a presidential campaign not a part of a president's years in those type of politics? Is his term as president elect not a part either? The collected works show that Lincoln was very active in presidentially-related activities throughout those months as president elect, and one of them was the Pittsburgh speech. The topic of that speech, as you are no doubt aware, was to urge passage of protectionism and to pledge that the tariff bill would be his top priority in the next session IF it was not passed before he took office. It passed two days before he took office. Thus he got what he wanted. To push for that bill any further after it already became law would have made him look like a fool, so he turned his attentions to collecting it.
and very much an anomaly for the later Lincoln -- a reassurance to the strongest pro-tariff constituency in the country that its interests would not be neglected. And there were these comments in New Haven
The New Haven comments better fit your description of an anomaly than those of Pittsburgh. At Pittsburgh he merely reiterated a belief that he had always held, that he had run on as the Republican candidate, and that he had repeatedly acknowledged to be his own during the campaign. At New Haven, he tossed it into a list of policies that he claimed were of secondary importance - an action he did not take anywhere else and one that is inconsistent with his beliefs stated elsewhere that urge the adoption of a protectionist tariff. And of course, if nothing else, these two speeches indicate his willingness to cater to his audience for political points. At New Haven he said slavery was the most important issue. At Pittsburgh he said tariffs were the most important issue. While it is impossible to know what he truly believed to be so, it is certain that he was willing to espouse the tariff as his top agenda item and that his position on that issue, unlike the issue he addressed at new haven, was consistently adhered to throughout his career.
"This question" was slavery, not the tariff.
He said the big issue was the tariff at Pittsburgh. Why are we to believe it was what he said at New Haven but not what he said at Pittsburgh? This is especially important considering that what he said at Pittsburgh was 100% consistent with everything he had ever said on that issue over the preceding 30 years, as opposed to his issue at New Haven, which he wavered on and bounced all over depending on the audience he spoke before.
This is a good example of the passion and eloquence Lincoln brought to discussions of slavery and disunion, a passion and eloquence not found in his remarks on the tariffs.
So his "real" interests are determined by the ammount of flowery bullsh*t within which he surrounds an issue? Strange. I'll also make note of the obvious, which shows yet another flaw in your argument. The issue of unionism is, by its very nature, inclined toward flowery rhetorical nonsense (in fact, as Tocqueville observed, the name of the union itself is often used as exactly that to sugarcoat something less attractive). The same could be said about invoking people's passions over slavery. But tariff policy? Come on. The issue itself, like all tax issues, is one that enjoys the peculiar characteristic of dwelling within the boredom of numbers and economic jargon, yet invoking some of the most noticeable and angry responses once it comes into being. This is especially so for the side pushing the new tax. That position simply cannot be made pretty. Or did you forget the lessons of Walter Mondale's presidential campaign?
I did not address this post to you, but since you have chosen to respond, perhaps you could deal with Clingman's February 4th 1861 speech and his assertion that emancipation leaving millions of freed blacks at liberty would be "the greatest evil" that could be done to the South, far more serious than tariff questions.
If you will provide a citation of where I may locate this speech in the congressional record, I will happily do so. For the time being I'll again note the obvious matter of dates. On February 4th, the Morrill bill had not yet passed and war was not looming over the horizon in the minds of most. By March 18th it was a different story entirely. As for the rest of his career, it is certainly of note that he advocated a pro-slavery belief. It would be silly to deny this and in fact I have always maintained that slavery itself, as an issue, influenced secession. I have noted this many times previously to you and at some points you have even expressed your seeming agreement with the fallacy of reducing the war to the sole issue of slavery. That being said though, one cannot ignore his, or any other southerner's, attention to the tariff issue as well and in a very prominent way. In other speeches he may have emphasized slavery as the issue, but in this one he emphasized tariffs. That indicates, if nothing else, that both weighed heavily on his mind. It also indicates that various details surrounding each issue served as causes proximate to secession itself. It does not indicate, though, that slavery was his only issue and that everything else may be neglected. Just the same, one cannot reasonably say slavery was Lincoln's issue and that everything else was neglected.
There are some here on this forum who insist that the war was about slavery, slavery alone, and only slavery alone. They claim that the tariff was never even spoken of, much less a prominent issue. They also claim moral legitimacy in their side of the war by way of anti-slavery even though there side never even admitted that as the purpose of their war and in fact strived to assert that something else was the purpose of their war. And when somebody brings up the historically important yet constantly overlooked issue of the tariff, they brand that "dissenter" a defender of slavery. They do this without regard to fact. They do this without concern for historical accuracy. They do this in spite of what exists in the historical documentation of the war. I could easily and, at many times, have provided multiple examples of southern grievances with the tariff from any time frame anywhere within the secession crisis and early days of the war. I could do this as they exist throughout the record. But rather than admit their existence and consider their role in an irreducably complex conflict such as the war, there are some who would rather ignore it for political reasons and the undeserved moral advantages that doing so allows them to pretend to possess regarding all matters on their side of the war. I include among this group not only those on this forum but those in the scholarly field of civil war literature all the way up to Harry Jaffa and Jim McPherson themselves. And please do note that I do not accuse you of this per se, as in fact you are often one of the more sensible members of the other side on this issue. The same cannot be said of others who profess daily on this forum that these tariff speeches such as Clingman's, such as Hunter's, such as Toombs', such as Wigfall's and so forth do not even exist. That is not history, x. That is fraud.
That is politically motivated fraud designed to salvage a well engrained though ill-gotten and currently besieged and crumbling bulwark of the northern side in the civil war - that of morality in the issue of a form of abolitionism that was, in reality, never theirs to begin with. For persons with political stakes in the noble lie of Abraham Lincoln, the consequences of the actions of myself, of other southern freepers, of Tom DiLorenzo, of Lysander Spooner, and of any scholar, writer, or historical figure with such critical approaches to Lincoln are nothing less than a direct threat to their very political existence, or for those true believers, their concept of values. Though they may not desire those stakes or values to crumble, they are themselves corrupt values - they are selling America short and leading its population into big government mediocracy. I do not desire those ends nor should any person desire them. That is where we stand today and that is why I speak up on this issue.
Any politician who says that he doesn't believe in the income tax has to deal with the obvious fact that we can't finance government without something of that sort. Therefore, his non-belief in the income tax has to be considered an ideal goal, rather than a realizable policy. Maybe not in Rockwell-Land, where one can take simple and extreme positions for the sake of opining, but in the real world, there is a difference between what one ideally believes and the steps one has to take to get there.
Lincoln had expressed protectionist ideas. That's hardly a crime. He thought protection was a good thing and hoped that circumstances would convince others of that fact, but he recognized that the trade question was not the center of the political universe. His belief that it was not worth risking the election on tariffs does indicate that he thought other questions were more important. He doesn't spell out what those questions may be in the short Wallace letter, but he says enough that one has to read the letter as something more -- and less -- than a simple affirmation of faith in protection.
I have already given the URL of the February 4 speech in a previous post on this thread. You can also look at other speeches of Clingman's going back over ten years before the Civil War. Clingman's secessionist and Southern nationalist sentiments were the fruit of far more than simple trade disputes. If Clingman and his fellows had been willing to subordinate their pro-slavery passions to win out on tariff questions, there would be some merit in your position, but instead, they put their support for slavery and their racial fears first.
Clingman had no problem with protection in the 1840s. He wasn't in the forefront of the protectionist camp, but he had boundless admiration for Henry Clay, a protectionist. In the 1850s Clingman moved towards the low tariff position as a way of solidifying his support among the militant Southern nationalists and slavery advocates who were increasingly influential with the electorate. That he and many of his constitutents had little problem with protection before slavery became an issue suggests that the importance of the tariff should not be exaggerated.
He also said this peaceful sentence in the speech:
By the frame of the Government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief.
Notwithstanding this comment to the people of the country, it took him only eight more days to order an immediate, secret reinforcement of Ft. Pickens.
And then, three days after that, Lincoln asked his Cabinet to give him written response to this question:
“Assuming it to be possible to now provision Fort Sumter, under all the circumstances is it wise to attempt it?”
Twenty four hours later, he covertly ordered the Navy to begin to load the military on ships for Charleston.
Where's the mention of mail?
That was part of the 'hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government' pledge, two of which were Pickens and Sumter. Lincoln's intention, as he made clear to the Governor of South Carolina and the commander at Sumter, was to land food supplies only unless the landing was opposed.
It was common knowledge what Mr. Lincoln was doing:
Two days after his inauguration, the New York Herald said,
“We have no doubt that Mr. Lincoln wants the Cabinet at Montgomery to take the initiative by capturing the two forts in its waters, for it would give him the opportunity of throwing upon the Southern Confederacy the responsibility of commencing hostilities. But the country and posterity will hold him as responsible as if he struck the first blow…”
Come on, Pea. You know that Major Anderson had sent a letter to Lincoln on March 4th that said he would have to surrender in a matter of weeks if not resupplied. He repeated this warning in a letter to President Lincoln on April 1st. You also know that on April 2nd that the Davis regime ordered Beauregard to cease extending any courtesies to Major Anderson including mail delivery and permitting him to purchase supplies from the city. So all the money in the treasury wouldn't have done Sumter any good in the way of getting supplies from Charleston.
Well said. Your research on "The Real Clingman" is to be commended.
Maybe, maybe not. Lincoln formally ordered the military operation to Ft. Sumter on March 29. The newspapers were picking up the story and making it seem that the garrison was starving; that of course suited his purposes well. But there was one problem.
The garrison was still receiving meats and vegetables from the city on this date. Anderson may have been running out of flour, tea or sugar, but all he had to do was ask.
There were regular meetings in the City of Charleston between the Governor and officials at Ft. Sumter.
On April 5, 1861 "J. G. Foster, Captain of Engineers at Fort Sumter, in his daily update dispatch to his superior in Washington, General Totten, Chief Engineer of the US, spoke of the information given to the lieutenant at the meeting, which had caused much mortification for Major Anderson. In his dispatch, he said the following:
“ 'Commissioner (Confederate) Crawford in Washington said, ‘I am authorized to say that this government will not undertake to supply Ft. Sumter without notice to (the Governor of South Carolina). My opinion is that the President has not the courage to execute the order agreed on in the Cabinet for the evacuation of the fort, but that he intends to shift the responsibility upon Major Anderson by suffering him to be starved out.'
" 'Captain Foster stated that the consequence of Lincoln’s position, as reported by Crawford was “that no more supplies of food could come from the city.”
"Thus he, as an officer of the fort, realized that conditions at Ft. Sumter were worsening specifically due to the intentional actions of the Federal government. This cessation of food supplies would provide cover for Washington, enable the Naval expedition to appear to be humanitarian in nature, and protect the military in case Anderson surrendered."
"It became clear that slavery was tolerable. Failure to collect revenues was not."
Up until early April, Pea, that was true. But Anderson wrote two letters to Lincoln, both stating that his supplies were running short and that he could hold out only for a few more weeks. President Lincoln was action on information provided to him by the commander in the field. How could he act otherwise?
'Commissioner (Confederate) Crawford in Washington said, ‘I am authorized to say that this government will not undertake to supply Ft. Sumter without notice to (the Governor of South Carolina). My opinion is that the President has not the courage to execute the order agreed on in the Cabinet for the evacuation of the fort, but that he intends to shift the responsibility upon Major Anderson by suffering him to be starved out.'
And President Lincoln did notify Governor Pickens of his intention to land food well before the supply ships reached Sumter. As for the rest, Commissioner Crawford makes it clear that it was his opinion that President Lincoln wouldn't act. Captain Foster is expressing his opinion as well. It turns out they were both wrong.
"It became clear that slavery was tolerable. Failure to collect revenues was not."
No, it was a matter of the President's intention to "hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government." Tariffs weren't collected at Sumter.
"We have no doubt that Mr. Lincoln wants the Cabinet at Montgomery to take the initiative by capturing the two forts in its waters, for it would give him the opportunity of throwing upon the Southern Confederacy the responsibility of commencing hostilities.
But the country and posterity will hold him as responsible as if he struck the first blow…”
It only meant war if Davis wanted war. He did.
...But the country and posterity will hold him as responsible as if he struck the first blow…”
Whoever said that sure got it wrong. Toombs was the one who was correct when he said, speaking of firing on Sumter, "It is unnecessary; it put us in the wrong; it is fatal."
This quote from Anderson might give you an answer:
“I…confess that it…surprises me greatly…(that these orders) contradict the assurances of Mr. Crawford that Fort Sumter would be evacuated. I trust that this matter will be at once put in a correct light, as a movement made now, when the South has been erroneously informed that none such will be attempted, would produce most disastrous results throughout our country.
“It is, of course, now too late for me to give any advice in reference to the proposed scheme of Captain Fox. I fear that its result cannot fail to be disastrous to all concerned…Colonel Lamon’s remark convinced me that the idea (of re-supply), merely hinted at to me by Captain Fox, would not be carried out.
We shall strive to do our duty, though I frankly say that my heart is not in the war which I see is to be thus commenced.”
Major Anderson, Ft. Sumter, Charleston Harbor, Six days before the invasion.
"It became clear that slavery was tolerable. Failure to collect revenues was not."
His amendment would have done just that.
He offered slaveholders what he thought they wanted: a promise not to do anything about slavery where it existed.
No, not a "promise." A constitutional amendment barring any future amendments to abolish slavery or interfere with it.
This did not preclude the possibility that they would abolish slavery on their own
Exactly, but it did preclude the possibility that, at a future date, slavery could be abolished on the whole after enough states did so on their own to allow passage of an amendment abolishing it in the country as a whole.
Any politician who says that he doesn't believe in the income tax has to deal with the obvious fact that we can't finance government without something of that sort. Therefore, his non-belief in the income tax has to be considered an ideal goal, rather than a realizable policy.
Yes, but that says nothing of one who supports the income tax's continuation while changing his treatment of its details from audience to audience. Lincoln did just that on slavery - asserting that he had no problems with its continued existence, while changing how he treated it from audience to audience.
Lincoln had expressed protectionist ideas. That's hardly a crime.
The result of protectionist policy such as his is a crime. It is a crime of theft from the people at large for redistribution to selected industries.
He thought protection was a good thing and hoped that circumstances would convince others of that fact, but he recognized that the trade question was not the center of the political universe.
In 1859 he said it was not politically viable. By 1860 and 1861 it was politically viable and he urged its adoption. You cannot honestly say, based upon his simple questioning of its political viability in 1859, that this situation must have been the same a year later. In reality it was not and, just as Lincoln had hoped for and predicted in that 1859 letter, the tariff became politically viable.
His belief that it was not worth risking the election on tariffs does indicate that he thought other questions were more important.
Where did he say it was "not worth risking the election on tariffs"? That does not appear in his letters or speeches and, in fact, his campaigners around the country carried banners urging a "vote for protection" and equating it with the GOP ticket.
I have already given the URL of the February 4 speech in a previous post on this thread.
No. You gave the URL of a speech by Clingman from the beginning of 1860. As I noted, that was several months before the secession era.
, but instead, they put their support for slavery and their racial fears first.
Funny, considering that not a word was said of that issue in the March 18 speech I posted here. What gives, x? Was it an exception, cause there are lots more like it...so are they also exceptions? Or maybe just an accident...which would make for a lot of accidents as well. If your only response to a speech about tariff grievances that says not a word about slavery is to dig up something from a year earlier on slavery, it seems obvious that your description above is insufficient.
Clingman had no problem with protection in the 1840s. He wasn't in the forefront of the protectionist camp, but he had boundless admiration for Henry Clay, a protectionist.
Your point? He obviously changed his views and came to understand the flaws of that position. Sometimes that happens over twenty years. Unfortunately that cannot be said of Lincoln, who clung to his protectionist views throughout his entire career. That he and many of his constitutents had little problem with protection before slavery became an issue suggests that the importance of the tariff should not be exaggerated.
To the contrary. While some southern whigs were pro-tariff in the decades before the war, a general southern objection to it may be traced back to the nullification crisis of the Jackson presidency. The issue was such a concern to them that South Carolina almost seceded over protectionism back in the 1830's. It is therefore dishonest to suggest that the south's free trade position was a later position from the 1840's and 50's that arose out of the slavery issue.
Rockwellites dismiss conflicting ideas of right, duty and responsibility out of hand, but to do so is not to disprove such ideas. The habit of dismissing contradictory ideas is more a feature of one's own mind than a serious comment on or evaluation of those ideas. I notice that many libertarians don't agree with Rockwell's confederatemania, though.
Your assertion that Lincoln "had no problem with [slavery's] continued existence" is another oversimplification. I accept that I have no power or say over whether other jurisdictions do or allow things that I think are wrong. That does not mean that I "have no problem" with such activities.
My post 246 contains the reference I mentioned. If you had bothered to look for it you would have found it. Had you done a search in the Congressional Globe, you would have seen the speech. It is not my job to do all your work for you.
As ever, I have no desire to communicate further with you or to have anything to do with you. I don't think it's possible to convince or argue fruitfully with someone so monomaniacal, so I will not respond, and would appreciate no further contact with you.
And as usual, you indulge in the tu quoque. But much to the contrary of its assertions, Lincoln's rhetoric is deserving of the description I have given them for reason of his rampant inconsistency of words to the satisfaction of his audience and political advantages. In contrast, the southern position is not reducable nor have I attempted to do so. It is fundamentally a position in the concept of political self determination and defense of the home, but one that, at the time was indisputably shaped within a wide array of political, legal, and philosophical issues.
You should also bear in mind that Lincoln himself was ultimately the invader and thus the individual bearing primary responsibility for that invasion's occurrence. Granted, it is perfectly legitimate to acknowledge that the south played a role in bringing about the war, but the ultimate decision to wage it was with Lincoln.
The pretence of "seeing through" one's opponents' ideas to the naked realities beneath cuts both ways
What then do you profess to be the "naked reality" of the southern position and how do you reconcile it with the fact that the war itself was ultimately brough about on the actions of Lincoln?
and it's hard to see why we should extend courtesies to the Clingmans of the world and deny them to others.
Would you care specifying then what courtesies you believe to have been advantageously afforded to Clingman? If you are going to make such allegations, you should be able to specify them.
Rockwellites dismiss conflicting ideas of right, duty and responsibility out of hand, but to do so is not to disprove such ideas.
Think what you may of that site, but bear in mind that I do not speak for it nor could I properly speak for it. I will happily discuss it if you like, but that too would require you to first provide specificity and relevance.
Your assertion that Lincoln "had no problem with [slavery's] continued existence" is another oversimplification.
In light of his attempted constitutional amendment and many statements on the issue, I do not believe so in the least. And by that I do not mean his passive moral objection. But that objection was just that - a passive moral one about which he expressed at times but did not guide himself by. Beyond it he had essentially no public problem with slavery's continued existence so long as it was of greater positive politicial consequence for him to act in such a manner. His many speeches in which he pledged against abolishing it and his constitutional amendment to preserve it indicate this very clearly.
I accept that I have no power or say over whether other jurisdictions do or allow things that I think are wrong. That does not mean that I "have no problem" with such activities.
But in such a case the question then becomes do you (A) continue to urge that other jurisdiction to stop doing the wrong or (B) stick your finger into the political winds and then decide upon them whether you shoud do A or instead offer your support to measures protecting it against others more willing to do A. Lincoln chose B and when he stuck his finger in the wind, it led him to that latter option.
My post 246 contains the reference I mentioned. If you had bothered to look for it you would have found it.
I do not read your every post on this forum any more than you read all of mine. Accordingly, all you needed to do was state that reference. In fact, you could have easily done so several posts back and avoided this distraction entirely.
Had you done a search in the Congressional Globe, you would have seen the speech. It is not my job to do all your work for you.
If you are the one citing the speech as a source for your argument, it certainly is! It seems that I asked you for a simple citation several posts back, to which you could have easily responded "post 246," yet instead you chose this route, and now seem to be blaming me for it.
As ever, I have no desire to communicate further with you or to have anything to do with you.
That is your choice. And as I have stated previously, I will continue to treat your posts on this forum as I would any other in the event that an item of commentary you provide is in need of address or rebuttal. You may or may not reply to me as that is your choice. But seeing as my interest here is in the factual content of these debates and not your personal comfort as a voluntary participant within them, I will accordingly choose not to honor your request that I avoid you if and when I deem the necessity of a response to your comments. You may not like that, but I suppose you know the old saying already. "If you can't take the heat..."
Do you realize that this sentence means...nothing?
It is fundamentally a position in the concept of political self determination and defense of the home, but one that, at the time was indisputably shaped within a wide array of political, legal, and philosophical issues.
No you pompous old bag of wind, it was about slavery.
You are on the edge of an enlightment moment. The 'national power' you refer to was the financial system on which the Union was based. There was a crisis in the North as of March 11, 1855. Lincoln went to war to protect the tariff system.
When he spoke of Union, it was the financial system of the Union government he needed to save.
Blood for cotton.
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