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.
Not according to Captain Abner Doubleday:
"When I asked Anderson for the wire, he said I should have a mile of it, with a peculiar smile that puzzled me for the moment. He then sent for Hall, the post quartermaster, bound him to secrecy, and told him to take three schooners and some barges which had been chartered for the purpose of taking the women and children and six months' supply of provisions to Fort Johnson, opposite Charleston."
The ship captain objected when the soldiers told him to take them to Sumter. They overpowered him.
Lincoln was not -in- the Illinois legislature in 1857, so I don't know why he would be making a speech there.
Lincoln never said that blacks were racially inferior to whites (or anyone else). He avoided declaring on that very thing and you can't quote him as saying that.
He -did- say that blacks were socially inferior to whites, and that would be hard to deny.
But I see the "freeze" is on again. You want Lincoln considered on only a partial record. He did say (And I quoted him -- which you don't bother to do) that black soldiers seemed as good as any. And he clearly favored the vote for black soldiers.
Walt
Quote?
Did he say anything like this:
"When you give the Negro these rights, when you put a gun in his hands, it prophesies something more: it foretells that he is to have the full enjoyment of his liberty and his manhood."
A. Lincoln
Walt
There's been a comparision between the attack on Fort Sumter and the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The rebelists position is as ridiculous as saying that when the U.S.S. Ward fired on the Japanese midget sub operating in the Pearl Harbor security zone (and sank same), that a hitherto harmless mass of Japanese planes (just passing by of course) became enraged and attacked Battleship Row.
Walt
I think you Neo-Confederates need to follow the example of the Confederate prisoner of war who listened to Lincoln's Gettysburg address, and later wrote to his mother: "WE HAVE GOT TO STOP HATING THIS MAN!"
I'm inclined to believe Rustbucket on this, in no small part because he visited Ft. Sumter recently and probably got this tidbit from the horse's mouth.
From the back cover of the book: "The author, the director of the Charleston Museum and a retired naval officer, has brought together, mainly from original sources, more information on the seige than is to be found elsewhere." (American Historical Review)
Concerning the move to Sumter, the book says in part, "He [Anderson] instructed Hall to delay unloading his personnel and cargo under the pretext of finding suitable quarters at Fort Johnson. ... When the last man from Moultrie was on Sumter, the two guns were fired, signaling recall of the schooners waiting at Fort Johnson with the women, children and supplies aboard. The captain of one of the schooners, realizing that he had been duped, put up a fight and had to be overcome with force."
I discovered at the Fort that mac_truck knew more about the situation inside the Fort at the time of Doubleday's arrival (i.e., how many laborers were present) than the two park rangers on duty did. I got different numbers from the two rangers, and it was clear they were making educated guesses. Mac, on the other hand, had provided some documentation to support his case. Hats off to mac on that one.
As lentulusgracchus once observed, these threads are like a graduate seminar on the war.
Yet it did so anyway. Go figure.
He expected a war to break out and told Gustavus Fox that much.
and nothing like the attack on PH occured. No one was even killed in the Fort Sumter bombardment.
Which begs the question of why YOU made a pearl harbor comparison to begin with.
Secession, the forts, avoiding a war, or AT THE VERY LEAST maintaining the status quo by inaction on both sides in hopes that time would allow cooler heads to prevail.
Here's the link. Have at it. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llcg&fileName=063/llcg063.db&recNum=642
No, though your buddy Wlat may seeing as he attempted to draw comparison between Pearl Harbor and Lincoln's provocations at Sumter.
Nonsense. That wasn't part of their charter. They were instructed to negotiate the establishment of relations between governments. To obtain recognition of the legitimacy of the southern rebellion. And only then to negotiate "for the settlement of all questions of disagreement between the two governments..." Status quo wasn't part of the picture.
Ask stand waite or any of these other sothron types to stop hating Lincoln or Yankees? You might as well ask them to stop breathing.
[that many expected a long war]
Here's the link. Have at it. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llcg&fileName=063/llcg063.db&recNum=642
That link went to 1863.
Politicans saying in 1863 that back in 1861 -they- expected a long war. Not very convincing.
Walt
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.