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.
Ya, I actually could make that argument. Since S. Carolina was most insistent on counting slaves as a whole person, even though South Carolina didn't even consider slaves to be human, giving into to them with the 3/5 compromise, gave them the notion they could continue to scream, holler stomp their feet and make noise far beyond their importance to get their way. They were the spoiled child of the Republic. The rest of the Framers should have told them to just f off. They weren't worth the trouble they caused everyone else.
Compromises on economics, on territory, on process are necessary things and often good things for all concerned. Compromises of conscience can only lead to bad things, and the 3/5 compromise was a complete compromise of the spirit and conscience of the young Republic. It cast the die.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 1: "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
Notheing subjective about it. It is very very clear!
Article I Section 9.
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.
PLEASE. Just read the Constitution some day. PLEASE! It ain't hard to do.
In my view, anyone who thinks the Constitution can be suspended is either misled, confused, or worse. Many people hate America, hate its judeo-Christian roots, hate govt. by the people and for the people - such people are tatists, a Victocrats, a marxists, communists, or worse.
I'm sure you could make an argument that the earth is suspended in space on the back of a giant turtle. That doesn't make it a valid one though.
Since S. Carolina was most insistent on counting slaves as a whole person, even though South Carolina didn't even consider slaves to be human, giving into to them with the 3/5 compromise, gave them the notion they could continue to scream, holler stomp their feet and make noise far beyond their importance to get their way.
So in other words, you consider the war to be the product of bottled up emotions over SC wanting to "get their way." Not exactly an argument of any significant substance.
Compromises on economics, on territory, on process are necessary things and often good things for all concerned.
If that is true, why was Lincoln so reluctant to compromise on any of those things?
Actually, it's even more clear than you let on by simply quoting the suspension power. You will note that the suspension power falls exclusively under the domain of Congress (and don't give me any bullsh*t quotes by leftist hags like Sandra Day O'Conner arguing otherwise - no less sources than Jefferson, Marshall, and practically all of the founding fathers who said so much as a word about this clause explicitly identified it as the legislature's exclusive domain). It does not belong to the president. Lincoln exercised the suspension power without obtaining a bill from Congress to do so. For that reason his action was unconstitutional.
Was ex parte Merryman overturned? I know Lincoln ignored this ruling by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and his troops arrested a Maryland state judge for trying to enforce it.
Somewhat similar issues were involved in ex parte Milligan which also adressed violations of the 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments in the case of Lambdin Milligan in his 1864 arrest:
The provisions of that instrument on the administration of criminal justice are too plain and direct, to leave room for misconstruction or doubt of their true meaning. Those applicable to this case are found in that clause of the original Constitution which says, 'That the trial of all crimes, except in case of impeachment, shall be by jury;' and in the fourth, fifth, and sixth articles of the amendments. The fourth proclaims the right to be secure in person and effects against unreasonable search and seizure; and directs that a judicial warrant shall not issue 'without proof of probable cause supported by oath or affirmation.' The fifth declares 'that no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on presentment by a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger, nor be deprived [71 U.S. 2, 120] of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.' And the sixth guarantees the right of trial by jury, in such manner and with such regulations that with upright judges, impartial juries, and an able bar, the innocent will be saved and the guilty punished. It is in these words: 'In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.' These securities for personal liberty thus embodied, were such as wisdom and experience had demonstrated to be necessary for the protection of those accused of crime. And so strong was the sense of the country of their importance, and so jealous were the people that these rights, highly prized, might be denied them by implication, that when the original Constitution was proposed for adoption it encountered severe opposition; and, but for the belief that it would be so amended as to embrace them, it would never have been ratified.
Don't get your dander up over those that hold the spirit of the Sons of Liberty in disdain...they would have cowered in the presence of such REAL men and have no idea where they got their courage from.
Remember Ben Franklin's Call for Prayer, Thursday, June 28, 1787:
The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance & continual reasonings with each other - our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ays, methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed modern states all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.
In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understanding! In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence, we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten this powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that "except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded; and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.
I therefore beg leave to move - that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.
Atheistic men, like Lincoln was when he entered office and invaded the South, would do well to approach all governmental assemblies with such an attitude. ;-)
If you want it that way, then you have the Merryman case to hang on Lincoln which became moot because Merryman was released once Maryland settled down and before Congress returned. But when congress did return in July, they suspended the writ so I expect in the future that you will refrain from calling the subsequent actions unconstitutional and stop blaming them on Lincoln. In lieu of that, I would expect an equal, or even higher level of outrage from you towards Davis and the Confederate congress for their suspension of the writ throughout the war. That suspension hit people in the South you know.
BTW. Do you consider Wm. Renquist to be a leftist hag as well? Is anyone not invested in your Lost Cause Myths a leftist hag?
You cite Article I Section 9. I cite Article I Section 1:
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
And Ditto for Dixie where the writ was suspended for the duration of the war.
BTW. What ever happened to Jihaidst John Merryman? Was he hung like the Union folks in Texas? Did he rot in prison? Or was he in Virginia in the Confederate army before the ink was dry on Taney's decision?
You have confused the title of the book with the stated theme of the article written by the same authors. Surely they know their own work better than you (lol). Feel free to continue your squawking with them about what their stated theme was. However, this is what they said about it.
"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. " -Mark Thornton and Robert Ekelund (authors of The Economics of the Civil War )
Either you or Walt is wrong then. Walt says Merryman was released 49 days after his arrest (Walt's post). Merryman was arrested on May 25, 1861. Congress reconvened July 4, 1861.
You two guys duke it out.
Where does it say that the President cannot suspend habeas corpus if the events warrant it?
You declare war on another sovereign nation, which the confederacy was not. It was simply a rebellious section of the United States. No declaration of war was necessary.
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