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.
If Lincoln can do it, then anyone can if they feel they have sufficient justification. It is unlawful...period. There is no provision that says a President can suspend any part of the Bill of Rights. They are WRITTEN IN STONE.
I don't think that statement is entirely accurate. Gallagher and others have shown that most in the South fought to defend their homelands, etc., not for slavery.
And I should know better than to address questions to one, or to expect you to back up your statements.
When did President Lincoln suspend any provision of the Bill of Rights?
More to the point, do you dispute any of the newspaper closings the site mentioned?
In addition to newspaper closings by order of the Administration, Northern soldiers also closed some on their own.
MOB LAW IN THE NORTH
A few mornings since the telegraph informed us that serious collisions had taken place between the soldiers and citizens in Southern Illinois and other localities, though no particulars were given. Yesterday we were informed through the same channel that the Empire office, the home organ of Mr. Vallandigham in Dayton, Ohio, had been mobbed by the soldiery and destroyed. During the affray, several soldiers and citizens are reported to have been killed. [The Memphis Daily Appeal, published in Atlanta, Georgia, March 16, 1864]
Speaking of non-sequiturs, thanks for providing a classic example. First off, the stated theme of this thread is NOT "Big Confederate Government" but rather "The Economics of the Civil War." Second, the element of discussion in which non-seq's little tu quoque charade was attempted pertained exclusively to Lincoln and not Davis, thus making a demand that Davis be similarly criticized absurd and irrelevant. Third, your conclusion that a person talking about Lincoln on this thread is engaged in tu quoque does not even begin to follow from its premise. It is irrational, unsubstantiated, and lacks even the most remote rational connection to the concept of the tu quoque. Thus it would seem that you suffer from the same affliction of your buddy non-seq: You never got the concept to begin with and apparently still don't get it.
But those who forced the war upon them and the rest of the country did so because they saw the Lincoln election as a threat to their institution of slavery and rebellion as their only recourse. And they turned the situation into armed conflict at Sumter.
Defer what you like, but just remember that I'm not the one defending the politics of big government, high taxes, and neglect of the constitution. In modern times those things seem to be the exclusive domain of political jackasses, of which your buddy Wlat is one and toward which you progress daily.
Only one definition is necessary. That you did not understand that definition the first time and that you apparently still do not understand it are not of my concern.
I suggest that you read the Constitution. It can indeed be 'legally' suspended.
Seems like the sure mentioned slavery a lot during that nullification crisis, eh ditto?
In fact, we could trace it back to 1787 and the compromises on slavery made in drafting the Constitution.
So Fort Sumter was caused by the 3/5ths clause now?
With the election of Lincoln who ran on only one issue, free soil, the nation came to an impasse.
Wrong again. Lincoln ran on many issues, not the least among them being a major tariff hike. In fact Lincoln himself publicly called that tariff hike his most important issue for the next legislative session and privately credited for his win in Pennsylvania, which he also believed to have been the main reason he won the election.
...just not by the President.
Forgotten ex parte Merryman?
The constitution provides, as I have before said, that 'no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.' It declares that 'the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.' It provides that the party accused shall be entitled to a speedy trial in a court of justice.These great and fundamental laws, which congress itself could not suspend, have been disregarded and suspended, like the writ of habeas corpus, by a military order, supported by force of arms. Such is the case now before me, and I can only say that if the authority which the constitution has confided to the judiciary department and judicial officers, may thus, upon any pretext or under any circumstances, be usurped by the military power, at its discretion, the people of the United States are no longer living under a government of laws, but every citizen holds life, liberty and property at the will and pleasure of the army officer in whose military district he may happen to be found.
Or does your copy of the Bill of Rights leave out the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments? I know your copy already leaves out the 10th Amendment.
Show me the clause then. I can only guess that you are inserting some subjective interpretion into some passage in the Constitution. Let's have it.
Clearly, no man can suspend the right to life, libertyh or property - these are GOD-GIVEN and man cannot abrogate that which is imparted by God Himself. So, to assume that these rights can be suspended is to militate against every moral principle defended by the founding fathers themselves.
You mean - Clinton's swearing in? Well, if you use the right to life as a guide, then it was suspended in 1973, when those darwinian gods in black robes played god and decreed that no baby is a person in the 1st trimester...then they compounded their tyrannical usurpation of authority in Doe when they said...not just hte first trimester, but the whole 9 months. That's why Congress has to pass the bill on babies born alive...the next step is to kill babies AFTER they are born! Evil knows no bounds.
Nonsense, my copy of the Constitution includes all those amendments. What it does not include is the part which says that the Constitution has been violated because rustbucket says it has. I prefer to get the Supreme Court's opinion on such matters.
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