Death of Jefferson Davis Remembered - The Christmas of 1889 Was a Sad Time in the South

Perhaps you grow tired of my musings...

Finally something I can agree with.

The merchant gained from this because he no longer had to provide payment for his cargo as he arrived in port.

The merchant must be incredibly stupid then. Why on Earth would he purchase goods in Europe, pay for them, ship them to New York, store them for up to 3 years, pay for storage, and then sell them?

Instead the merchant could simply warehouse it, ship it to buyers in segments, and use the money from each sale to pay the tariff when the good was removed from the warehouse.

Or, and apparently your merchant isn't smart enough to think of this, he sells his goods for enough to cover cost, expense, AND TARIFF, and then sends it along to the buyer. Why not try that?

What the Warehousing act meant was that goods coming from Europe and headed for another destination, perhaps in the U.S. or perhaps another country, could be landed and held in bond without having to pay tariffs. Nothing more or less, it was an aid to those doing business in Europe or the Caribbean or elsewhere in the Americas. Now, your idiot businessman who buys his stuff and stores it for three years could take advantage of that, but he wouldn't have been in business long enough to make a difference.

Goods flowed into New York and Boston and Philadelphia because those were the ports closest to their customers.

There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of public officers; the present order of things must come to a dead stop.”

Then why didn't that happen? How could tariff collections in 1863 amount to over $100 million? Without cotton exports. Without Southern consumers. With the lower confederate tariff. From what you've just posted that should have been impossible.

I'm out of here until Monday. I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving, whatever side you're on.

(But I'll mention that Thanksgiving as we know it today was created by Lincoln in 1864, so you rebs can remember that as you eat your turkey).

Correction: 1863

No one is compelling you to live, act or think in any way.

You don't own a business do you?

(But I'll mention that Thanksgiving as we know it today was created by Lincoln in 1864, so you rebs can remember that as you eat your turkey).

There was a long tradition before Lincoln.

Jefferson Davis, 1861

WHEREAS, it hath pleased Almighty God, the Sovereign Disposer of events, to protect and defend us hitherto in our conflicts with our enemies as to be unto them a shield.

And whereas, with grateful thanks we recognize His hand and acknowledge that not unto us, but unto Him, belongeth the victory, and in humble dependence upon His almighty strength, and trusting in the justness of our purpose, we appeal to Him that He may set at naught the efforts of our enemies, and humble them to confusion and shame.

Now therefore, I, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, in view of impending conflict, do hereby set apart Friday, the 15th day of November, as a day of national humiliation and prayer, and do hereby invite the reverend clergy and the people of these Confederate States to repair on that day to their homes and usual places of public worship, and to implore blessing of Almighty God upon our people, that he may give us victory over our enemies, preserve our homes and altars from pollution, and secure to us the restoration of peace and prosperity.

Given under hand and seal of the Confederate States at Richmond, this the 31st day of October, year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty one.

By the President, JEFFERSON DAVIS

Sam Houston, 1860 [THE RANCHERO (Corpus Christi, TX), November 17, 1860, p. 2, c. 2]

Thanksgiving.—Gov. Sam Houston has appointed Thursday, the 29th of November, as a day of thanksgiving and prayer.

George Washington, 1789

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish Constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us); and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

John Hanson, First President of the United States in Congress Assembled, 1782

The goodness of the Supreme Being to all his rational creatures, demands their acknowledgments of gratitude and love; his absolute government of this world dictates, that it is the interest of every nation and people ardently to supplicate his mercy favor and implore his protection.

When the lust of dominion or lawless ambition excites arbitrary power to invade the rights, or endeavor to wrench wrest from a people their sacred and unalienable invaluable privileges, and compels them, in defence of the same, to encounter all the horrors and calamities of a bloody and vindictive war; then is that people loudly called upon to fly unto that God for protection, who hears the eries of the distressed, and will not turn a deaf ear to the supplication of the oppressed.

Great Britain, hitherto left to infatuated councils, and to pursue measures repugnant to their her own interest, and distressing to this country, still persists in the chimerical idea design of subjugating these United States; which will compel us into another active and perhaps bloody campaign.

The United States in Congress assembled, therefore, taking into consideration our present situation, our multiplied transgressions of the holy laws of our God, and his past acts of kindness and goodness exercised towards us, which we would ought to record with the liveliest gratitude, think it their indispensable duty to call upon the different several states, to set apart the last Thursday in April next, as a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, that our joint supplications may then ascend to the throne of the Ruler of the Universe, beseeching Him that he would to diffuse a spirit of universal reformation among all ranks and degrees of our citizens; and make us a holy, that so we may be an happy people; that it would please Him to impart wisdom, integrity and unanimity to our counsellors; to bless and prosper the reign of our illustrious ally, and give success to his arms employed in the defence of the rights of human nature; that He would smile upon our military arrangements by land and sea; administer comfort and consolation to our prisoners in a cruel captivity; that he would protect the health and life of our Commander in Chief; give grant us victory over our enemies; establish peace in all our borders, and give happiness to all our inhabitants; that he would prosper the labor of the husbandman, making the earth yield its increase in abundance, and give a proper season for the in gathering of the fruits thereof; that He would grant success to all engaged in lawful trade and commerce, and take under his guardianship all schools and seminaries of learning, and make them nurseries of virtue and piety; that He would incline the hearts of all men to peace, and fill them with universal charity and benevolence, and that the religion of our Divine Redeemer, with all its benign influences, may cover the earth as the waters cover the seas.

John Hanson, President
March 19, 1782

The Continental Congress, 1777

Link

And if you are going back to the 1600s, why not cite the first annual Thanksgiving by English settlers. It was in the South, of course. Berkeley Plantation, Virginia, December 4, 1619

Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.

And you ignore the question. In reply 252 you made the claim that the South wanted to import goods and materials associated with their agricultural industry. How about listing them?

I DID list them. Don’t you think agriculture uses iron? Tools? Finished parts? Finished cloth? It’s not my fault if you’re not very good at reading.

I understand how tariffs work

Well, no, you don’t seem to. You don’t even seem to understand the “pass through” effect.

but don't see the connection between the tariff and demand for Southern exports. Demand for Southern exports had been growing for years before the rebellion. The South exported almost 3 million bales of cotton each year, most of it to England. The sold every bale that they produced, and at prices that had risen steadily during the 1850s. Tariffs didn't impact that.

That’s because tariffs were low in the 1850s. The Walker Tariff lowered duties greatly in 1846, and most rates on dutiable items were further reduced by the Tariff of 1857, which reduced impediments to international trade, including in Southern cotton. Up until 1861 (when the Morrill Tariff was signed into law by Pres. Buchanan, Mar.2) tariffs in the USA were very, very low for that day and age. The Morrill Tariff drastically increased duty rates on pretty much every item of import. It was this tariff (passed by Congress in late 1860), and Lincoln and the Republicans’ support of it, and the principle of protectionism in general (he stumped for it in his speeches and tariffs were a part of the Republican platform in 1860) that in part led to Southern secession when Lincoln won the election.

So you don’t see the connexion between the tariff and demand for Southern exports? This doesn’t surprise me.

The first connexion is simply that an increase in tariffs, especially a drastic increase such as was seen with the Morrill Tariff, can invite reciprocal protection on the part of other nations - something which in fact was seriously considered by ideologically free-trader Great Britain in response to the Morrill. When early Victorian Britain was threatening to slap tariffs on you, you know you’d ticked them off. Tariffs on American goods coming into Britain would have directly affected the volume and profit of the sale of cotton and other products from the South to that nation.

The second connexion is what is known as the “pass through effect“. Tariffs burden export-dependent regions much more than they do import-dependent regions. Importers who pay the tariff can “pass the buck” along to the consumers. The North consumed much fewer imported goods than did the weakly-industrial South - the North could make their own manufactured goods (which was what they were trying to protect in the first place), whereas the South imported manufactured goods from Europe (where they were more cheaply made, due to economies of scale). Tariffs increase the price of goods imported from Europe, and used disproportionately by the South. Everyone along the way passes the buck - foreign manufacturers increase the cost to cover the price of the tariffs, wage demands increase to allow workers to pay for imported goods, etc. The exporter is the one who ends up eating the costs of the tariff, since they are powerless to pass the cost on to others - doing so only decreases the foreign importer’s demand for their product. As Brown and Hogendorn say, “In essence, a tax on imports becomes a tax on exports.” (Brown and Hogendorn, International Economics, p. 121)

The third connexion is also explained by Brown and Hogendorn, “As tariffs cause imports to fall, less foreign exchange is needed to purchase them and the demand for foreign currency declines. The domestic currency will thus rise in value on the foreign exchange market. Exporters find that their foreign-currency earnings purchase less domestic currency and therefore they suffer.” The South‘s foreign currency revenues in Sterling and Francs would devaluate.

As an export driven region (McPherson says that the South exported about 60% of what it produced, others peg that number higher), the South was much more adversely affected by high tariff policy than the North.

As did the rest of the country. Every part consumed iron, finished cloth, railroad engines (Imported railroad ties???) and what have you. Any tariff that artificially raised the price of those goods hit every single consumer equally. The idea that the tariff impacted the South harder than any other area is ridiculous. Except, perhaps, for all those goods and materials associated with their agricultural industry.

And again, you seem not to understand much of the economic situation at the time and place. Your claim that “Any tariff that artificially raised the price of those goods hit every single consumer equally” is quite false. The North, especially the Northeast, was a manufacturing centre. Because Northern manufactured goods could be consumed “on the spot” in the North, much in the way of transportation costs were reduced for consumers in the North. Europe could manufacture goods more cheaply, but this was balanced to a great degree by the additional shipping and distribution costs associated with bringing goods across the Atlantic. The North had to compete with these goods, and by raising tariffs, could increase the cost of these goods such that native wares became more competitive, and also reduce the transportation costs that were paid for goods produced overseas - since fewer overseas goods would be imported relative to what would otherwise have been imported sans tariff.

The South did not enjoy the reduced transportation costs for goods manufactured in the North. Said goods still had to be moved by train or by sea to Southern States, which already increased the price of goods from the North paid in the South versus the North. Being forced to rely more on Northern-produced goods by high tariffs would mean that the South had to pay higher prices for more expensively-produced Northern goods as well as the ever-present transportation costs. The reduction in cheaper goods from Europe reduced the mitigation of transport costs for the South, meaning that Southern consumers would end up paying more than they did before, even though the goods were produced “at home”. Low tariffs made Europe competitive on the Southern market, high tariffs removed that and actually raised the relative costs of goods. The South and the North were NOT hit evenly by tariff increases. The one benefited, the other was harmed.

The same tired old Southron whine. What rights had been trampled on?

Again, I refer you to Elric’s #255, so you can argue the individual points with him. Don’t expect me to do your reading for you as well.

That was one of the minor infractions. If you want to consider a major infraction then consider the absence of a confederate supreme court.

In a nation which was at war for most of its existence, and whose confederal system made such a court impractical. I’m not sure the lack of a Confederate Supreme Court would be an “infraction” (which implies that the Confederate Constitution required, rather than provided for, the nation to have a SC) as it would be simply a sloppy way of handing its affairs.

Consider the allegations of Davis' late rebellion promise to European powers to end slavery in exchange for recognition.

Since Kenner’s mission failed, we have no idea HOW Davis planned on emancipating the slaves. Which means we also don’t know that he wasn’t planning on trying to push it through the Confederate constitutional system, arguing it with the die-hards as a necessity for the survival of the Confederacy.

Now, contrast that with Lincoln’s arresting newspapermen who wrote editorials against the government, arresting the bulk of an entire State’s legislature on the suspicion that they were of secessionist leanings, etc. etc.

And Alexander Stephens, soon to be confederate vice president said: "The next evil that my friend complained of, was the Tariff. Well, let us look at that for a moment. About the time I commenced noticing public matters, this question was agitating the country almost as fearfully as the Slave question now is. In 1832, when I was in college, South Carolina was ready to nullify or secede from the Union on this account. And what have we seen? The tariff no longer distracts the public councils. Reason has triumphed. The present tariff was voted for by Massachusetts and South Carolina. The lion and the lamb lay down together-- every man in the Senate and House from Massachusetts and South Carolina, I think, voted for it, as did my honorable friend himself. And if it be true, to use the figure of speech of my honorable friend, that every man in the North, that works in iron and brass and wood, has his muscle strengthened by the protection of the government, that stimulant was given by his vote, and I believe every other Southern man. So we ought not to complain of that...Massachusetts, with unanimity, voted with the South to lessen them, and they were made just as low as Southern men asked them to be, and those are the rates they are now at."

Now for a little historical context. This speech was given on 14 Nov, 1860, and the portion you quote was in response to one argument used by Robert Toombs in favour of secession - which was “the most atrocious tariff bill that ever was enacted, raising the present duties from twenty to two hundred and fifty per cent above the existing rates of duty.” (Toombs, 13 Nov. 1860). If one actually bothers to read Stephens’ comments in their context, we see that he is most certainly NOT arguing that the tariff was no reason for the South to be displeased with the North. Rather, Stephens made the point that the present tariff level (which would have been about the lowest in American history up to that point after the Tariff of 1857 went into effect, lowering the already low duties established by the Walker Tariff) was low because the Northern States had “seen the light” and acted with reason to vote with the South to lower tariffs in 1857. Toombs argued that the Morrill Tariff (recently passed through the Congress, but not yet signed by President Buchanan) was a definite cause for secession. Stephens disagreed, essentially arguing that the North could be made to see the light again through the persuasion of reason and argument. Your out-of-context excerpt does not show that the tariff was not an issue in secession (indeed, Toombs’ speech shows that it WAS), but that it was not enough of an issue to cause Stephens personally to support secession (which he disagreed with, in this speech).

Do you even stop and think for one moment just how ridiculous your claims are? Or Adams' claims if you want to blame him. In 1860 total tariff revenues were about $60 million, so according to you the North only accounted for about $9 million of that. The first question would have to be what did the South import in such massive quantities.

Again, you completely ignore pass-through effects from tariffs. Adams is first and foremost a tax historian - that is his area of specialisation. When he cites his numbers, he does so while tacitly bundling in the indirect effects of tariff policy. Unfortunately, when you read this, not having the benefit of this same tacit knowledge, you miss the point entirely.

But the second question involves Lincoln's 1864 message to Congress. In that he mentions that federal tariff revenue for the fiscal year ending June 1864 was around $110 million. How could tariff revenue increase that much that fast? How could the North go from importing almost nothing to importing 11 times as many goods as they had only 3 years before? Any ideas floating arouond int that fertile imagination of yours?

A few, yes. First, of course, your numbers are not correct. In his 1864 address to Congress, Lincoln’s stated that in the previous year, the income from all customs was (rounding here) around $102 million. McPherson, however, states that, “Congress revised the tariff upward several times during the conflict, but wartime customs duties averaged only $75 million a year - scarcely more, after adjustment for inflation, than the $60 million annual in the mid-1850s.” (J.M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 443).

So, how did the North manages to increase tariff revenue so much, even to the more realistic lower levels cited by McPherson? It’s simple. The North was importing more to meet the demands of the war effort than it had been before, and the much higher tariff rates (by the end of the war, the rates made the Morrill Tariff look free-tradish) were resulting in an increased cash flow into the Treasury, even without the South’s contributions.

Oh, and according to federal documents in the year prior to the rebellion about 95% of all tariff income was collected in three Northern ports. If 87% of all imports were destined for Southern consumers then why weren't the goods delivered to them? Why were they sent North, where according to you there was no demand?

Because Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were the three largest ports on the North American continent - period. Imports destined for the South (whose port facilities were underdeveloped due to the Southerners’ dislike for using public monies to fund infrastructure) came through Northern ports because those were the facilities that could handle it, and were where the shippers did business. If you’re a Liverpool shipping magnate, why would you choose to ship to an underdeveloped New Orleans, which is another 2500 miles further, than simply ship to New York where the port facilities and transportation network are already in place and save the added expenses?

And has been. Southerners will go to any extreme to deny slavery as the cause for their rebellion. But the dollars don't add up and for every document mentioning tariffs, many more mention slavery.

Ah, so that’s why you’re so snippy - you think I’m a “Southerner” who wants to “deny that slavery had anything to do with it”. Let me remind you what happens when you assume. First of all, it’s questionable whether I would even be classified as a “Southerner” to begin with - the first two thirds of my life were spend in northern Missouri near Kansas City, a thoroughly Breadbasket region of the country. If anything, I‘m a Midwesterner. Also in fact, I‘m not even particularly an apologist for the South‘s part in the war and the events leading up to it, and I‘m certainly not one of those “Lost Causers“. I believe the Southern States had (and still do, in fact ANY State still does) the constitutional right to secede from the union, if they suffer from a long train of abuses and cannot abide continued political union with the other States, but this doesn‘t mean that I think the South was justified in actually doing so in 1860-1. I don‘t think high tariffs are a credible example of a “long train of abuses“ (though the secessionists, obviously, felt otherwise), and certainly buttressing slavery was not - it‘s ridiculous and hypocritical to argue that you are seceding for the sake of freedom when that “freedom“ includes the “right“ to hold other men created in the image of God in involuntary bondage. My bone to pick in this debate is simply that I am offended by the childish and simpleminded formula of “It‘s all about slavery, and it‘s all the South‘s fault“. It‘s not all about slavery, and the Northerners bear some of the blame for the way things turned out into civil war.

Second, I would challenge you to produce ANY statement on my part to the effect that I denied that slavery had any part in the Southern States’ decision to secede. I’m not worried about your being able to do so, since I’ve never said it. What I DID say, and which your reading skills apparently disallowed you from seeing and understanding, is that slavery wasn’t the ONLY cause for secession - it was a major cause, but by no means the ONLY one. I said this earlier, and you challenged me to provide another reason for secession, which I did - the tariff. I then provided several examples, from a much longer list that could have been produced, where Northern efforts at increasing tariffs (esp. the tariff policy of the Republican party, and the Morrill Tariff) were cited as a grievance and cause for secession. So in effect, I proved my case. If you want to try to move the goalposts now because you lost the argument on that point, that’s your problem, not mine.

Further, have you considered how silly it is to presume that slavery was the only reason for the secession of at least the four Upper South States - Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas - when these States didn't even secede as a result of Lincoln's election? An anti-slavery President was elected, and they didn't secede - until he actively called up troops to suppress the secession, and these four States refused on State sovereignty grounds. In fact, an call for secession in North Carolina was called at the time of the secessions of the Deep South States - and failed by a wide margin. Obviously the Upper South wasn't as interested in seceding to maintain slavery so much as they were on upholding their views on the rights of States as sovereign entities, which is why they only seceded when the latter, and not the former, was at stake.

It seems more likely that your arguements are drawn from your imagination, for several reasons. Let me point out a few of your more imaginative claims.
"The Buchanan administration have made agreements with the government of South Carolina and with the Confederate government to remove the troops and war materials from Ft. Sumter."
Complete nonsense. Buchanan at no time and under no circumstances I'm aware of ever promised to remove the troops or supplies from Sumter. In early December he did meet with a group of South Carolina congressmen who were heading home. After discussions, the written agreement was that South Carolina would make no assault on any federal facility in South Carolina so long as Buchanan took no steps to reinforce the garrison in Charleston. Buchanan kept his word, no attempt was made to reinforce or resupply the garrison until after South Carolina had seized Fort Moultrie, Castle Pinkney, and the Charleston armory. Prior to the meeting, in his 1860 message to Congress, Buchanan had vowed to retain control of federal property. Following Anderson's move to Sumter Buchanan refused to condemn his move or order him out. At no time did Buchanan order Charleston be abandoned. So based on all evidence I'm aware of, your claim is false.

Sources: "Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War" by David Detzer Offical Record of the War of Southern Rebellion (OR)

Morison and Commager, in their Growth of the American Republic, Vol. I, intimate that Buchanan had done just that - given the Southerners reason to believe that he would evacuate the forts, including Ft. Sumter. FWIW, M&C make it sound as if the South Carolina delegation who met with Buchanan early on had bullied him into this position. After Buchanan reorganized his Cabinet (and, most notably, Sec. Floyd made his departure), Buchanan withdrew from that position, and later took the softer position of merely agreeing not to reinforce and resupply the forts.

Now, even in Buchanan’s tenure, this agreement was broken with the clandestine resupply of Ft. Pickens in Florida. When Lincoln came to office, his efforts to resupply the fort, and the clandestine effort to reinforce the fort, were viewed by the South as definite violations of the agreement made with the Northern government. In light of the publicized plan by Fox to reinforce Ft. Sumter by stealth, it’s no surprise that the South felt that they had been double-crossed.

There was no agreement in place for Lincoln to have basically ignored. And even had their been, such agreements would have been between Buchanan and South Carolina. And even has such an agreement been in place it would have lapsed when South Carolina joined the confederacy and the Davis regime became the government in control.

This answer is based more upon your personal prejudices than on any actual basis of fact. Buchanan was the President - he was the foreign policy representative for the nation, regardless of which foreign entity existed at the time. While in office, his dealings with Southern representatives had an official stamp upon them.

Lincoln did inform Governor Pickens that he intended to land food and supplies. Lincoln had little choice; in virtually every communication sent North Major Anderson had warned he was running out of food. So far as Lincoln knew Anderson would soon be forced to surrender or starve. Lincoln chose to make the attempt in as non-confrontational manner as possible, by outlining plans well ahead of time. He sent the message by personal representative, Robert Chew and not Ward Lamon, and laid out his intent....

Source: "Lincoln" by David Herbert Donald "Team of Rivals" by Doris Goodwin Official Record (OR)

Fascinating, but entirely fanciful. At no time and under no circumstances had either Buchanan or Lincoln promised to surrender the fort to Southern demands.

Wrong again. Lincoln's administration, in the first month of its existence, sent out all kinds of signals - and many of these were signals to the Southerners that the forts would be evacuated. Lincoln himself did continue Buchanan's policy of violating the original agreement to pull out - over and against the advice of five of his seven Cabinet advisors, who voted this way on the basis of General Scott's initial and unfavourable assessment as to the feasibility of resupplying and holding the forts. Those around Lincoln, however, basically told the South that the forts would be evacuated. Seward was in constant contact with the Southern leadership using Justice Campbell as an intermediary. Seward even went so far as to assure Jefferson Davis via personal correspondence that Fort Sumter would be evacuated, and even apologised to Davis for the delay when the evacuation was not forthcoming. Lincoln's own emissary to Charleston, Ward Lamon (not Chew), seems to have told both the South Carolinians and Maj. Anderson that Anderson's presence would be pulled out. Seward was acting on his own authority - but how were the Southerners supposed to know this? This all occurred after the incident with the Star of the West, in which both resupply and reinforcement had been attempted. What the South saw coming out of the Lincoln administration, even from Lincoln's own personal emissaries, was vacillation, and at times, promises to turn the forts over to the Confederacy. First, the position was resupply and reinforcement and don't give up the fort. Next, it was give up the fort. Then, don't give up the fort, resupply, but don't reinforce. Then, it was a Union fleet appearing outside Charleston harbour in the early morning hours of April 12, giving all the appearances of being the resupply AND reinforcement fleet which Gustavus Fox had talked Lincoln into sending, news of which had already been leaked to the press and was thus common knowledge. It's hardly surprising that the Confederates felt that April 12 was do or die - either stop the reinforcements, or have a hostile fort sitting at the mouth of one of your most important ports.

Sources: J.M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 267-270
Letters from William Seward, cited in J. Davis, Rise and Fall of Confederate Government, Vol. I, pp. 272-273

It was more a case where the South was not interested in peace or the status quo, and chose war instead....The question of war or peace was entirely left up to the confederacy, and we know what they chose.

This is the sort of nonsense you've routinely been spewing on this thread, and it's simply not substantiated by the facts. Lincoln engaged in a resupply AND reinforcement effort - we know that there were troops on the USS Baltic who were intended as reinforcements for Anderson, something which Lincoln (again) had said he wouldn't do. Lincoln was putting Fox's plan into action, while trying to hide this effort from the Southerners. Lincoln knew that this act would precipitate war - which is perhaps why he did it. Lincoln's ear by this time was firmly given to those of his advisors who most consistently counseled reinforcement regardless of whether it would lead to war, such as Blair and Fox. He knew his action would provoke the Confederates to attack the fort, and he chose the course of action which DID do so. There are a number of mainstream historians who hold that Lincoln knew that his actions would provoke the South to attack, and there are some who even think this was his specific intention, so as to give the federal government a reason to suppress the secessionist States without generating too much undue political opposition (since, hey, the South started the war!) Lincoln and his advisors (all around) bear blame for the start of the war as well as does the South. BOTH followed a chain of events which made the war practically inevitable.

I didn't even mention some of the apparent efforts by members of Lincoln's cabinet to push for a military resolution to the Ft. Sumter seige (which was ultimately overruled by Lincoln, at least officially).

But not unofficially, since he sent the fleet Fox had suggested (Fox, in fact, led this fleet) for the more aggressive purpose which Fox had intended the fleet to be used.

Nor did you mention recommendations by members of the Buchanan administration for reinforcing the Charleston garrison. The fact of the matter is that both Presidents had recommendations to reinforce the forts and recommendations to surrender the forts. And both men, to their credit, decided to hold to the public promises both men made to retain control of the property of the United States in the face of Southern demands.

The difference is that Buchanan didn't have Cabinet members operating outside their authority, giving assurances to the South that the forts would be turned over. Buchanan early on in the crisis gave such indications, but then backed off of them, and kept his Cabinet in line so that further mixed signals weren't sent. Lincoln's Cabinet helped to precipitate the conflict, though Lincoln's acting on the most aggressive option presented to him didn't help matters much either.

Orders to bombard the fort into surrender, and the bombardment had actually started, long before an Union ships appeared off the harbor.

Er, no. Actually, the relief fleet had already begun to gather outside the harbour an hour and a half before the bombardment began. Once this was observed, Beauregard sent his ultimatum - which went unheeded, and began firing at 4:30 AM. The relief fleet, in the meantime, was scattered by a squall and unable to provide assistance to the fort.

The confederates had transportation and resources enough to get the prisoners to the camps, but they didn't have resources enough to provide them with food?

Men march. Food doesn't.

Exchanges were stopped because the South refused to treat black Union soldiers as POWs but instead said that they would be sent into slavery and their officers shot. The South also threatened to execute, without trial, specific Union generals.

An unfortunate stance on the part of the Southerners but, ultimately, not consequential to the point I had actually made. The North had a choice to free its soldiers - and didn't. Irregardless of the stated reasons for doing so, they chose an option that led to thousands more dying in overrun, under-supplied Confederate prison camps.

I disagree. Both sides are culpable because both sides could have provided decent care for their POWS and neither side did. Both could have provided decent food, but didn't. Both sides could have provided decent shelter, but didn't. Both sides could have taken steps to reduce the fatalities, but didn't. Abuse and mistreatment was deliberate both North and SOuth.

Ridiculous. The South couldn't even give sufficient supplies of clothing, shoes, and food to its soldiers who were in the field. What makes you think they were going to magically call up adequate supplies for thousands of enemy soldiers? But also, why would the North be expected to do so, either? Production was geared towards supplying the war effort - and the North, as much as the South, didn't have nearly enough resources to divert to POW camps which didn't serve to sustain the war drive. While there was some deliberate mistreatment on both sides (notably the Confederates summarily executing captured black Union soldiers), I do not believe that prisoner mistreat was a systematically applied policy at either the national or theatre level.

And you apparently miss the overall point of Madison's letter, which is to address "the question whether the Constitution of the U.S. was formed by the people or by the States, now under a theoretic discussion by animated partizans." And Madison comes down, for the most part, on the side of "the people," saying:
"the undisputed fact is, that the Constitution was made by the people, but as imbodied into the several states, who were parties to it and therefore made by the States in their highest authoritative capacity. "

In short, the Constitution is not an association of states, but an association of the people, who are simply organized by state.

Sorry, but no. What Madison concludes is that there really IS no cause for controversy between the two - "the people" are "imbodied" into the several States - the States are the vehicles by which the people make their will done, which is quite obviously the case from the entire federal set up of the Constitution (for instance, it is why, originally, Senators were chosen by State legislatures, not by popular election). Saying "the people" is much the same as saying "the States". Madison's point is that the theoretical controversy between "the States" and "the people" is moot. I will requote the portion of his letter which you earlier reproduced,

"the undisputed fact is, that the Constitution was made by the people, but as imbodied into the several states, who were parties to it and therefore made by the States in their highest authoritative capacity."

Emphasis added. The people express their political constitutive power THROUGH the States, which are the entities which enter into the constitutional compact.

I almost think that if your view of the issue was intended, then emigration of individual persons would, or should, be illegal, since it would be rebellion and revolution (notably, some authoritarian govts HAVE classified it as such).

Indeed. But in this you are in a different place, than, say, Jefferson Davis, who said, in his first inaugural,

Well, Jefferson Davis wasn't in tune with Madison, then.

Men march. Food doesn't.

Do you never read up on anything? Andersonville was on a railroad line. That's how the prisoners got there. Food and supplies could have gotten there the same way, had the confederates chosen to do so.

An unfortunate stance on the part of the Southerners but, ultimately, not consequential to the point I had actually made. The North had a choice to free its soldiers - and didn't. Irregardless of the stated reasons for doing so, they chose an option that led to thousands more dying in overrun, under-supplied Confederate prison camps.

And once again you totally ignore the root cause. The confederacy refused to treat captured soldiers like prisoners. They passed laws saying captured black Union soldiers would be returned to slavery and their officers executed for inciting slaves to revolt. So the Union leadership could treat all confederate soldiers as soldier and exchange them for those Union soldiers that the confederacy felt like dealing with. Or they could refuse to deal with a dishonorable Davis regime until they agreed to treat ALL Union soldiers equally. It chose the later. And the confederates never came around.

Do you never read up on anything? Andersonville was on a railroad line. That's how the prisoners got there. Food and supplies could have gotten there the same way, had the confederates chosen to do so.

Trains can't run on rail lines that are cut, as the lines were near the end of the war, which is when conditions in Andersonville were at their worst. Sorry, but most credible historians now attribute the terrible conditions at Andersonville to the collapse of the Confederate military and economy, not to especial Confederate wickedness.

And once again you totally ignore the root cause. The confederacy refused to treat captured soldiers like prisoners. They passed laws saying captured black Union soldiers would be returned to slavery and their officers executed for inciting slaves to revolt. So the Union leadership could treat all confederate soldiers as soldier and exchange them for those Union soldiers that the confederacy felt like dealing with. Or they could refuse to deal with a dishonorable Davis regime until they agreed to treat ALL Union soldiers equally. It chose the later.

Nope, I'm not "ignoring the root causes" so much as simply pointing out the negative side effects on Northern soldiers for their leadership's policy choice.

Further, another cause of the cessation of prisoner exchange was the fact that the Confederates were returning paroled POWs to active service.

And the confederates never came around.

Factually incorrect. The exchange cartel began again in January 1865, when the Confederates broke down and began to treat all classes of prisoners the same.

So you don’t see the connexion between the tariff and demand for Southern exports? This doesn’t surprise me.

I don't, no. It seems a case of apples and oranges. Great Britain consumed a great deal of Southern cotton in its textile industries, and would have done so regardless how high the tariff on pig iron was. But I also realize that you Southron supporters have to twist things to try and make your case.

The North consumed much fewer imported goods than did the weakly-industrial South - the North could make their own manufactured goods (which was what they were trying to protect in the first place), whereas the South imported manufactured goods from Europe (where they were more cheaply made, due to economies of scale).

Which is, of course, BS. If this were true then U.S. imports should have fallen during the rebellion. They didn't.

The first connexion is simply that an increase in tariffs, especially a drastic increase such as was seen with the Morrill Tariff, can invite reciprocal protection on the part of other nations - something which in fact was seriously considered by ideologically free-trader Great Britain in response to the Morrill.

And you, of course, have a quote supporting this?

In a nation which was at war for most of its existence, and whose confederal system made such a court impractical. I’m not sure the lack of a Confederate Supreme Court would be an “infraction” (which implies that the Confederate Constitution required, rather than provided for, the nation to have a SC) as it would be simply a sloppy way of handing its affairs.

I direct you to article 3, section 1 of the confederate constitution: "The judicial power of the Confederate States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish." Looks like an infraction to me.

During his time in office Davis managed to go through 3 secretaries of state, 3 treasury secretaries, 5 war secretaries, and 4 attorney's general. None of those were required by the confederate constitution. But a supreme court, the third branch of government that provided the checks and balances against abuse by the other two branches, was. The failure to establish one was deliberate on the part of Davis and the confederate congress.

Since Kenner’s mission failed, we have no idea HOW Davis planned on emancipating the slaves.

Either he planned on emancipating them, despite the fact that he had no constitutional authority to do so, or he was lying to Europe. Which do you suppose it was?

Which means we also don’t know that he wasn’t planning on trying to push it through the Confederate constitutional system, arguing it with the die-hards as a necessity for the survival of the Confederacy.

It's questionable if the confederate constitution allowed for ANY end to slavery under ANY circumstances. If you read up on the amendment process you will note that while the amendments initiated in the states the congress had to summon a convention of the states to consider any proposed amendments. The confederate constitution also said that no law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves could be passed by congress. It would make an interesting constitutional question on how congress could pass a law summoning states to a convention to consider an amendment banning slavery when congress was not allowed to pass any laws impairing slavery. A question for the supreme court...had such an institution existed that is.

Now, contrast that with Lincoln’s arresting newspapermen who wrote editorials against the government, arresting the bulk of an entire State’s legislature on the suspicion that they were of secessionist leanings, etc. etc.

Exaggerations aside, I'll point out that one was more likely to be arrested and jailed without trial in a Jeff Davis confederacy than in Lincoln's Union. Jeff Neeley wrote two books on the subject that outlined this fact.

Toombs argued that the Morrill Tariff (recently passed through the Congress, but not yet signed by President Buchanan) was a definite cause for secession.

That would be hard to argue because the discussion between Toombs and Stephens occured in November 1860 and the Morrill tariff didn't pass until March 1861.

Again, you completely ignore pass-through effects from tariffs. Adams is first and foremost a tax historian - that is his area of specialisation. When he cites his numbers, he does so while tacitly bundling in the indirect effects of tariff policy. Unfortunately, when you read this, not having the benefit of this same tacit knowledge, you miss the point entirely.

No, I'm just pointing out how illogical your 'pass through' effect is given what happened. Quibble over my $8 million error all you want, the fact remains that the amount of tariff revenue that you attribute to the North went up by a factor of 11 or 12. Your claim that it was due to the Morrill tariff makes no sense. Protectionist tariffs, by their very nature, are designed to discourage imports. They want to protect domestic industry by pricing out foreign goods. By rights the tariff income should have gone down on that basis alone. But that's not your claim, is it? You contention all along is that it was the South's exports and their imports that drove the tariff and accounted for almost 90% of it. So on that basis alone imports should have dried up and the tariff reduced to nothing. But that didn't happen.

The North was importing more to meet the demands of the war effort than it had been before, and the much higher tariff rates (by the end of the war, the rates made the Morrill Tariff look free-tradish) were resulting in an increased cash flow into the Treasury, even without the South’s contributions.

Like what? What was it importing to meet the demands of the war effort AND taxing at the same time? Are you suggesting that the Union placed a tariff on guns, and powder, and other weapons of war? Or are you suggesting that the North had to import items to make up for those lost when the confederacy left. That still begs the question, what? What did the North get from the South AND tax at the same time?

Because Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were the three largest ports on the North American continent - period. Imports destined for the South (whose port facilities were underdeveloped due to the Southerners’ dislike for using public monies to fund infrastructure) came through Northern ports because those were the facilities that could handle it, and were where the shippers did business.

If that is true then why did well over 85% of all cotton exported from the U.S. leave from those very same Southern ports you claim didn't have any facilities? One would assume that the same docks that allowed ships to tie up and load with cotton would also allow them to tie up and unload all those imported goods you claim the South imported.

If this were true then U.S. imports should have fallen during the rebellion. They didn't.

Ah, but they did fall. Forgetting about inflation again, non-seq? Remember Federal Imports Dropped Off During the War?

Ah, but they did fall.

Ah, but revenue did not. Look at Table 3 giving all duties collected. Taussig states that duties for FY1861, which ended in June, was $39.6 million. Using Titus's, or Adams', claim that the South accounted for %87 of all tariff revenue then that means the North accounted for $5.15 million of that. In FY1864 Taussig is putting the revenue from duties at $102 million, just like Lincoln quoted. That represents a figure 20 times the size of the amount supposedly provided by the North in 1861, and without Southern exports and Southern consumers. If Titus is correct about who provided what percentage of tariff revenue then even the Morrill tariff and inflation can't account for such a large increase. And if Titus is correct on his levels then then tariff income in FY1862 should have been a fraction of FY1861 and it wasn't. And a year after the war it was higher still, again without Southern consumers and Southern exports. By his explanation that should have been impossible.

Ah, but revenue did not. ... Taussig states that duties for FY1861, which ended in June, was $39.6 million.

Your claim was imports, not import revenue, and you were wrong.

By the way, I've previously shown you that US imports fell off substantially in the first half of 1861, no doubt due to secession of the South and the imposition of the Morrill tariff. Thus, fiscal year 1861 imports (i.e., those through June 30, 1861) are not the proper base pre-war imports to use for comparison. When you use imports from fiscal year 1860 instead (see Taussig Table 1), US imports are down to 36 to 51% of the 1860 levels when expressed in constant 1860 dollars. The war did pinch Northern consumers.

If the South imported as little as you sometimes claim, then US imports should have been essentially unaffected. But they were reduced.

Using Titus's, or Adams', claim that the South accounted for %87 of all tariff revenue then that means the North accounted for $5.15 million of that.

I've never read Adams. I suspect that he was making the argument that on a balance of payments basis the South was providing 87% of purchasing power of the US through its exports and that long term the US couldn't maintain their level of imports without the Southern exports.

I've seen figures in the 70-75% range for the South's pre-war portion of the balance of payments, but the exact percentage probably depends on the particular year used for the calculation. Without those exports, the US would have suffered a balance of payments problem and ultimately experienced currency devaluation and/or inflation.

Consider the present day US. Our imports exceed our exports and have for years. This has caught up with us -- the dollar has been devalued about 40% in recent years.

I don't, no. It seems a case of apples and oranges. Great Britain consumed a great deal of Southern cotton in its textile industries, and would have done so regardless how high the tariff on pig iron was. But I also realize that you Southron supporters have to twist things to try and make your case.

Is that all you have to stand on, is some whiny, repetitious assertion that I’m a “Southron supporter”, even though I’ve already outlined that I am not? I suppose it’s easier for you to simply name-call than to deal with facts and reason.

As for your “argument”, such as it is, I’ll again note that you don’t seem to evince the slightest understanding of how indirect effects of tariffing works. But I guess you know more about it than do economists who specialise in tax history and international trade.

Which is, of course, BS. If this were true then U.S. imports should have fallen during the rebellion. They didn't.

Actually, imports DID fall, during the early part of the war. The total value of imports into the United States at the end of 1861 was estimated at $181 million, half of the $362 million which had been imported in 1860 (New York Times, “Our Civil War and European Trade”, 2 October 1861). This drop was offset somewhat by increased importation to meet wartime production needs, which eventually contributed to a positive trend in total imports by the end of the war. While the North was an industrial giant compared to the South (110,000 factories and workshops to the South’s 18,000), this doesn’t mean the North was at any time an autarky. It still needed to import all kinds of war and civilian materials.

And you, of course, have a quote supporting this?

British anger at the Morrill Tariff is well-known. Editorials railed against it. Charles Dickens (or Henry Morley, whoever ended up writing it) in his article entitled “The Morrill Tariff”, in the 28 Dec. 1861 edition of the magazine All the Year Round, got his knickers in a knot about America’s attack on free trade, and Lord Palmerston, then Prime Minister, assailed the US ambassador, Charles Adams,

"Not unnaturally gave great displeasure to England. It greatly lessened the profits of the American markets to English manufacturers and merchants, to a degree which caused serious mercantile distress in that country. Moreover, the British nation was then in the first flush of enthusiasm over free trade, and, under the lead of extremists like Cobden and Gladstone, was inclined to regard a protective tariff as essentially and intrinsically immoral, scarcely less so than larceny or murder. Indeed, the tariff was seriously regarded as comparable in offensiveness with slavery itself, and Englishmen were inclined to condemn the. North for the one as much as the South for the other. "We do not like slavery," said Palmerston to Adams, "but we want cotton, and we dislike very much your Morrill tariff." (W.F. Johnson, America’s Foreign Relations, Vol. II (1916))

I direct you to article 3, section 1 of the confederate constitution: "The judicial power of the Confederate States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish." Looks like an infraction to me. During his time in office Davis managed to go through 3 secretaries of state, 3 treasury secretaries, 5 war secretaries, and 4 attorney's general. None of those were required by the confederate constitution. But a supreme court, the third branch of government that provided the checks and balances against abuse by the other two branches, was. The failure to establish one was deliberate on the part of Davis and the confederate congress.

You certainly won’t get an argument out of me as to the Confederate government being a failure as a political and governing system. I still think you’re reading your own presuppositions into the “requirement” for a Supreme Court, rather than the provision for one. The ConfedCon says that judicial power is vested in these institutions and no others (I.e. not the legislature, not ad hoc, not the executive, and so forth). The Confederates DID have lower courts, which theoretically shared in the judicial role, for most areas of competence. I do find your apparent attempt at generating a conspiracy theory amusing, however. To what deliberate end do you think Davis and his government had for not establishing a SCOTCS? Maybe he wanted to cover up what was going on at Area 51?

Either he planned on emancipating them, despite the fact that he had no constitutional authority to do so, or he was lying to Europe. Which do you suppose it was?

Again, since you have no idea how Davis planned to do this, you have no idea whether his plan to do so was constitutional or not. You’re just grasping at straws here.

It's questionable if the confederate constitution allowed for ANY end to slavery under ANY circumstances. If you read up on the amendment process you will note that while the amendments initiated in the states the congress had to summon a convention of the states to consider any proposed amendments. The confederate constitution also said that no law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves could be passed by congress. It would make an interesting constitutional question on how congress could pass a law summoning states to a convention to consider an amendment banning slavery when congress was not allowed to pass any laws impairing slavery. A question for the supreme court...had such an institution existed that is.

Calling a convention of the States wouldn’t constitute “Congress passing a law”. If it did, then logically, it’d be next to impossible to amend OUR Constitution. Passing a law is legislation. Calling a convention is not. Our Constitution says that no law can be passed which deprives any citizen of the right to vote, yet it would be perfectly legal in our system to amend the Constitution to strike the 15th amendment. The amendment process doesn’t change statutory law, it alters the underlying legal basis by which statutory law is judged. Your examination falls a bit flat.

Exaggerations aside, I'll point out that one was more likely to be arrested and jailed without trial in a Jeff Davis confederacy than in Lincoln's Union. Jeff Neeley wrote two books on the subject that outlined this fact.

Um, it’s actually pretty well established that Northern newspapermen who wrote in support of secession or against the war were arrested, and it’s well-known that Lincoln had most of Maryland’s legislature arrested because they were suspected of secessionist tendencies. But who knows, maybe if Jeff Davis had had a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of his own, he could have issued a secret warrant for his arrest….

That would be hard to argue because the discussion between Toombs and Stephens occured in November 1860 and the Morrill tariff didn't pass until March 1861.

Again, you are incorrect. The Morrill Tariff passed the House of Representatives on 10 May, 1860. In the Senate, Sen. Hunter of Virginia employed parliamentary tactics to delay consideration of the Tariff until the second session, after the 1860 election. By this point, the South had seceded, and the Senate easily approved the tariff on 28 February, 1861. President Buchanan signed it into law on 2 March, 1861, which may be what you are thinking of.

No, I'm just pointing out how illogical your 'pass through' effect is given what happened. Quibble over my $8 million error all you want, the fact remains that the amount of tariff revenue that you attribute to the North went up by a factor of 11 or 12. Your claim that it was due to the Morrill tariff makes no sense. Protectionist tariffs, by their very nature, are designed to discourage imports. They want to protect domestic industry by pricing out foreign goods. By rights the tariff income should have gone down on that basis alone. But that's not your claim, is it? You contention all along is that it was the South's exports and their imports that drove the tariff and accounted for almost 90% of it. So on that basis alone imports should have dried up and the tariff reduced to nothing. But that didn't happen.

Your error is in assuming that wartime tariff revenue from imports into the North would remain static, even while the North was kicking tariff rates much higher than they had previously been, and was importing more for use locally in the North than it had been before.

Prior to the war, the pass-through burden of tariffs fell on the South, for reasons previously explained. Northern customers and importers didn’t feel nearly as much effect from pre-war tariffs because they didn’t have to buy as many foreign goods as the South did (and we KNOW the South did deal primarily with Europe for its manufactured goods), which is why the South ended up eating a disproportionate share of the bill. Even though tariffs may have been collected in Northern ports, the final passing off of tariff costs fell on the South - which is what Adams tacitly includes in his analysis, and which you consistently seem to not understand. Southern consumers were paying the tariff bill, indirectly, through higher costs instigated by the tariff, and which Northerners didn’t pay nearly so much.

When the South left, and the sections went to war, the dynamics of the situation changed completely. The only thing “apples and oranges” here is your insistence that we compare a pre-war tariff situation with a during-war tariff situation, one with vastly different duty rates and import volumes.

Like what? What was it importing to meet the demands of the war effort AND taxing at the same time? Are you suggesting that the Union placed a tariff on guns, and powder, and other weapons of war? Or are you suggesting that the North had to import items to make up for those lost when the confederacy left. That still begs the question, what? What did the North get from the South AND tax at the same time?

To answer your first and second questions - yes, I AM suggesting that the Union placed tariffs on quite a number of items that were invaluable to the war effort. Even before the war began, the Morrill Tariff levied duties on all kinds of items needed to maintain a war effort - gunpowder, copper, wool products, finished cotton cloth, leather goods, coal, pig iron, boiler plate, railroad iron, cables and chains - just to name a few. They were all listed right there in the Tariff, and duties on these and a goodly number of items continued to increase throughout the war - yet the North imported them because it was fighting a war and needed to make up the difference that even its own native manufacture couldn’t supply. So yes, they did import to meet the demands, and they did tax these imports.

To answer your third question, no, the North didn’t have to import to make for those lost when the Southern States seceded, since the South had little in the way of manufacturing capacity. I think I’ve been pretty clear all along that it was the South who had to purchase Northern manufactures, not the other way around. By “the South‘s contributions“, I am referring to the portion of the tariff bill which ended up coming out of the pockets of the Southerners, which was made up for by Northern imports taxed at much higher duty rates as the war progressed.

If that is true then why did well over 85% of all cotton exported from the U.S. leave from those very same Southern ports you claim didn't have any facilities? One would assume that the same docks that allowed ships to tie up and load with cotton would also allow them to tie up and unload all those imported goods you claim the South imported.

The short and simple answer is that this cited volume of cotton didn’t leave Southern ports. In 1860, the dollar value of exported cotton to Great Britain alone totaled $150 million (New York Times, op. cit.). This figure doesn’t include what was exported to France and other cotton-importers in Europe. Between 1 July 1860 and 31 June 1861, an incomplete figure for total United States exports was slightly in excess of $249 million, of which eight Southern states (excluding Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee, for which numbers are not available) accounted for a bit over $27 million (or roughly 11%). Cotton export to Britain alone accounted for roughly 60% of total US exports, and 85% of this would be around 51% of total US exports, totaling around $127 million, supposedly going through Southern ports. However, exportation from Southern States, as we saw, was only around $27 million. In terms of export tonnage, a total of 4,889,313 tons cleared US ports, with 286,445 tons of this from the South (5.9%). Put another way, the total number of ships, foreign and American, both entering and leaving the country for that fiscal year totaled 43,625 ships, with only 1,975 of these coming in and out of the South (4.5%). Keep in mind, the blockade was only effective for about one to one-and-a-half months of that fiscal year, so it cannot be used as an excuse to explain the South’s small numbers for import/export through its ports. What these numbers mean is that most ship traffic went through Northern ports rather than Southern ports, by quite a wide margin. There is no way 85% of the South’s cotton export could have left through Southern ports. Your numbers simply don’t add up.

>> Where does it say in the Constitution as it existed in 1861 that individual states don’t have a right to succeed from the Union? <<

Article I, Section 10. and Article. VI. They wrote up that handy-dandy stuff in the Consitution saying states are "BOUND by oath to support THIS Constitution" and that individual states "shall NOT enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power" because they had this little pre-Constitution era problem called "Shays Rebellion", where the failed "Articles of Confederation" allowed the states to do whatever the hell they wanted.

American history 101, Freshman year.

Your claim was imports, not import revenue, and you were wrong.

Perhaps I was unclear. Since the claim was made that the North accounted for only 13% of all imports then one would expect imports to have dropped by over 80% which they did not. And after that one year decrease they increased over the next two.

By the way, I've previously shown you that US imports fell off substantially in the first half of 1861, no doubt due to secession of the South and the imposition of the Morrill tariff.

And Taussig's figures do reflect that. But they're most likely due to the uncertainty of the war more than the tariff. Passed in March, the tariff would have been in effect for only 3 months of the fiscal year. And had it been due to the tariff one would have expected imports to remain low or drop even further.

If the South imported as little as you sometimes claim, then US imports should have been essentially unaffected. But they were reduced.

Not by 87%. And the rose again for the next two years. Without the South buying anything or exporting anything.

I've never read Adams. I suspect that he was making the argument that on a balance of payments basis the South was providing 87% of purchasing power of the US through its exports and that long term the US couldn't maintain their level of imports without the Southern exports.

I am quoting Titus in Reply 299 who claims to be quoting Adams. According to Titus, who says he is quoting Adams, the South "the South paid an undue proportion of federal revenues derived from tariffs...the South paid 84% of the tariffs, rising to 87% in 1860." Not balance of payments but actual tariff. And he says that they paid it. The figures don't support this. Either he's wrong or the math is wrong. Which do you suppose it is?

I've seen figures in the 70-75% range for the South's pre-war portion of the balance of payments, but the exact percentage probably depends on the particular year used for the calculation. Without those exports, the US would have suffered a balance of payments problem and ultimately experienced currency devaluation and/or inflation.

Again, that is not the claim.