Posted on 01/13/2004 9:01:35 AM PST by Aurelius
Dust jackets for most books about the American Civil War depict generals, politicians, battle scenes, cavalry charges, cannons[sic] firing, photographs or fields of dead soldiers, or perhaps a battle between ironclads. In contrast our book {[url=http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2XGHOEK4JT&isbn=0842029613&itm=7]Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War Mark Thornton, Steven E. Woodworth (Editor), Robert B. Ekelund[/url]features a painting by Edgar Degas entitled the "Cotton Exchange" which depicts several calm businessmen and clerks, some of them Degas’s relatives, going about the business of buying and selling cotton at the New Orleans Cotton Exchange. The focus of this book is thus on the economic rationality of seemingly senseless events of the Civil War – a critical period in American history.
What caused the war? Why did the Union defeat the Confederacy? What were the consequences of the War? The premise of the book is that historians have a comparative advantage in describing such events, but economists have the tools to help explain these events.
We use traditional economic analysis, some of it of the Austrian and Public Choice variety, to address these principal questions and our conclusions generally run counter to the interpretations of historians. In contrast to historians who emphasize the land war and military strategy, we show that the most important battle took place at sea. One side, the blockade runners, did not wear uniforms or fire weapons at their opponents. The other side, the blockading fleet, was composed of sailors who had weapons and guns but they rarely fired their cannons in hopes of damaging their opponents. Their pay was based on the valued of captured ships. Historians often have argued that the Confederacy lost because it was overly reluctant to use government power and economic controls, but we show the exact opposite. Big Confederate government brought the Confederacy to its knees.
Some now teach that slavery was the sole cause of the Civil War – an explanation that historians have developed in the twentieth century. However, this analysis does not explain why the war started in 1861 (rather than 1851 or 1841) and it fails to explain why slavery was abolished elsewhere without such horrendous carnage.
We emphasize economics and politics as major factors leading to war. The Republicans who came to power in 1860 supported a mercantilist economic agenda of protectionism, inflation, public works, and big government. High tariffs would have been a boon to manufacturing and mining in the north, but would have been paid largely by those in the export-oriented agriculture economy.
Southern economic interests understood the effects of these policies and decided to leave the union. The war was clearly related to slavery, but mainly in the sense that Republican tariffs would have squeezed the profitability out of the slave-based cotton plantation economy to the benefit of Northern industry (especially Yankee textiles and iron manufacturing). Southerners would also have lost out in terms of public works projects, government land giveaways, and inflation.
The real truth about wars is that they are not started over principle, but over power. Wars however, are not won by power on the battlefield, but by the workings and incentives of men who go to work in fields and factories, to those who transport, store and sell consumer goods, and most especially to the entrepreneurs and middlemen who make markets work and adapt to change. This emphasis and this economic account of tariffs, blockade and inflation, like the focus of Degas’s "Cotton Exchange" reveals the most important and least understood aspect of war.
Who owned Fort Sumter and the land it was on?
You're trying to apply contemporary standards to issues that were well settled in the early 1800's, a time when each state was acknowledged by our own Federal government as "sovereign" powers.
Andrew Jackson would quite disagree with you.
If you look at the 10th amendment you'll note that the Framers gave the states much more power and autonomy than they did a central government.
They also gave that power to "the people."
"The people" in your community secede from the United States, and declare your property to be part of their new nation. They give you every opportunity to leave. You refuse. Then they start shooting at your house.
Wrong answer. They were.
They amounted to nothing more than the opinions of those who authored it, and the Articles of Confederation were never ratified by any state.
From Wikipedia:
"The Articles of Confederation were submitted to the states for ratification on November 17, 1777, accompanied by a letter from Congress urging that the document
"be candidly reviewed under a sense of the difficulty of combining in one general
system the various sentiments and interests of a continent divided into so many
sovereign and independent communities, under a conviction of the absolute
necessity of uniting all our councils and all our strength, to maintain and
defend our common liberties . . .The document only became effective as it was ratified by the states. This process dragged on for several years, stalled by an interstate quarrel over claims to uncolonized land in the west. All of the colonies rebelling against Britain ratified it by 1781.
Source: Wikipedia.
However, I don't believe you captured the proper meaning of "Perpetual Union". The founders believed the Union was granted by the favor of God (as clearly stated by Washington in his 1st inaugural), and the founders expressed the idea that Union would last as long as God willed it, not as long as they could "force" it, i.e. as long as an unconstitutionally over-reaching federal govt. can force it on all the States. They well understood that Union was predicated upon the blessings of Christian brotherly love, and "forced Union" is contrary to that Spirit.
Poohbah, I must note a disconnect here, however. You argued vehemently against my statement that the Decl. of Independence had the force of law (because there is no article or section number in teh US Code), yet now you argue that the Atticles of Confederation (a lesser document) also in the U.S. Code does have the force of law. Don't you see an inconsistency here? I could now demand that you show me the Section and Article number from the US Code or refuse to accept your assertion - but I won't. I know the A of C do carry some weight of law, and I won't mischaracterize their importance for sake of winning an argument, or out of pride.
the southland, absent the WBTS, would have freed the slaves in 5-10 years, as everyone with brains in the southland KNEW that slavery was a DYING institution.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
You are forgetting about the US soldiers that on December 26, 1860 fought the captain of the schooner transporting women and supplies to Fort Johnson, overcame him, and took his ship to Fort Sumter. Pirates.
No, I'm not, not in the present day. The Declaration of Independence has no force of law, either, because it is, at its heart, merely a statement of why the colonists opted to split from the mother country, and contains no legally enforceable content.
I'm arguing that the Constitution has the force of law. I'm also arguing that the Constitution did not just come from nowhere, with no context whatsoever (Ex nihilo, nihil fit), and that to understand the slightly vaguer portions of the Constitution, you have to look at the law that was in force at the time the Constitution was drafted--namely, the Articles of Confederation.
the WBTS started in MO/KS in 1855, when the filth from KS crossed into peaceful MO and started burning peaceful farmers out of their homes, looting, robbing towns,raping women & children AND committing HUNDREDS of coldblooded MURDERS against un-armed civilians.
this filth from KS were called redlegs,jayhawkers & militia. they were nothing more than WAR CRIMINALS!
free dixie,sw
YOU serve the risen southland, by posting arrogantly IGNORANT, STUPID statements like that.
RAVE ON!
southerners, who want LIBERTY now,like you!
free dixie,sw
YOU serve the risen southland, by posting arrogantly IGNORANT, STUPID statements like that.
RAVE ON!
southerners, who want LIBERTY now,like you!
free dixie,sw
BUT you may be correct;damnyankees have forever been noted for ARROGANCE, rather than brains.
free dixie,sw
why not head back over there?? the DU crew will REALLY like you.
FReepers, otoh, are too smart to fall for your stupid lies & ranting.
free dixie,sw
You did not provide a prima facie constitutional case against secession, although I think there is a case to be made that secession was not morally justified.
Furthermore, the way you relegate the Declaration to obscure unimportance shows that you have little understanding of the dynamic moral connection between the Declaration and the Constitution. How can you make the connection between the Articles and the Constitution and not the Declaration and the Constitution? One cannot fully understand the Constitution without understanding the genesis and the importance of the moral principles behind it. Those principles are laid out in a basic form in the Declaration of Independence. It is not codified positive law, but it has the force of the beliefs and convictions of the men who wrote, debated and ratified the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution served to secure the God-given rights proclaimed in the Declaration. To deny its importance is to deny the importance of the moral principles which are the basis of the United States of America. Just because it is not codifed as Positive Law (it is a statement of principles and ideals not a demand for obedience to any laws). I think it is you who thinks the Articles and Constitution sprang ex nihilo since you place no importance on the Declaration of the principles behind these documents. Do you think these men were devoid of a philosophical worldview - do you think the Constitution is devoid of a set of ideals? The well established fact is that these documents are all undergirded by judeo-Christian philosophy, and I will not let you dismiss those noble principles as unimportant to the founding of our nation or to our present Republic!
Seems to me that you're a more natural over there. You both live in a dreamland of invented history.
Did you dig out your documentation for your imaginary damnyankee Export Tax yet, or do you have to ask your imaginary friend uncle bill where to find it?
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