[you]: That was one possibility. The other was that the rebels wouldn't fire on the fort. That would prolong the stand-off situation, and perhaps make it likely that cooler heads would prevail and the situation would be resolved. And that would also have suited Lincoln.
It appeared from his inaugural speech that that Lincoln would have been satisfied and wouldn't send obnoxious strangers down South if he could have all the tariff revenue from imports to the South, hold the forts the Union still held, and possibly reoccupy those taken by the South. His inaugural speech words were somewhat ambiguous and unclear about forts already taken by the South. Perhaps he simply wanted Union troops in those forts throughout the South which would basically make the South a military-occupied province. This was perhaps a step down from the colony status the South had held for years with respect to the extraction of Southern wealth via the tariff.
If Lincoln thought the South wouldn't fire, then he badly misjudged the attitude of the South and South Carolina. However, I don’t think he misjudged the South at all – he wasn't stupid – he expected the South to fight. Didn't Lamon and Hurlbut impart to Lincoln after their trip to Charleston that the South would fight?
Here is an April 6 article reporting the situation as seen from Charleston: [Richmond (VA) Daily Dispatch, April 9, 1861]:
I do not believe he [Anderson] will surrender unless his Government orders it, and, as I have all along said, I do not believe they will order it.--The truth is, the old (I was about to say Washington, but I will never again associate that dear name with the rotten and treacherous party now in power,) Government — the Black Republican Government --has become a stench in our nostrils. We put no confidence on earth in what they say. They declare they have no intention of reinforcing. Everything goes to prove that false; and I will predict that Pickens will be reinforced in a week, and that an attempt will be made here, too. I also predict, and you mark it, that Anderson will not come out of Sumter until he is shelled out. Mark another thing: that he will be shelled out in less than a week. We cannot bear it longer. Our sons, brothers, clerks and mechanics are all away from business, and we do not intend to bear with it longer.--Three fire-engines were sent to Morris' Island yesterday. Should the soldiers' quarters be fired by ball or shell, we will put it out. … (signed) Virginius
The author of that piece, Virginius, whoever he or she was, was spot on in those predictions.
One could perhaps judge what the South would do based on what they had already done. South Carolina had fired on the Star of the West that was trying to sneak 200 troops into Sumter in January. In late March Governor Pickens had told Lincoln’s messenger Lamon that any warship that entered the harbor would be fired at. On April 3, the Confederates fired on the Rhoda Shannon, an ice schooner from Boston, when it headed into the harbor and hoisted the Union flag after a shot across the bow [New York Times, April 8; Richmond Daily Dispatch, April 6].
With the permission of General Beauregard, Anderson sent Lieutenant Talbot to the Rhoda Shannon to find out what it was doing attempting to come into the harbor. Later, on April 7, Talbot met with the US Secretary of War, Lincoln, and General Scott in Washington [Brooklyn Eagle, April 8]. I imagine he mentioned the Shannon incident to them. The Richmond article above also mentioned the firing on the schooner.
The notion that somehow a differential in tariffs would immediately enrich the CSA and impoverish the USA doesn't work for me. Financial journalists may talk like that, but the tariff's effects would take longer to materialize.
Here is an April 2 article about how rapidly the negative effects began to materialize in New York City. This was a day after the Morrill Tariff’s higher rates started applying on April 1. Remember that at this point in April the nation thought Fort Sumter would be evacuated. The fort had not yet been attacked. [Source: The Memphis Daily Appeal, April 6, 1861]:
Effect of the Morrill Tariff
Washington, April 2. – The disastrous effects of the Morrill Tariff, which went into effect yesterday, are already becoming visible.
The news from New York is appalling to the Republican politicians here, and the Administration sympathizes with the dismay.
A letter just received from the collector of New York city (sic, no caps) says that that port is virtually in a state of blockade in consequence of the tariff, fully as much as if a hostile fleet were at the entrance of the harbor.
All importations are suspended, and the foreign trade is at a stand still.
I quoted a newspaper article in Post 313 about the effect of the Morrill Tariff on New York by May 1861. I have posted on these threads before about the decreased value of imports to New York in 1861 compared to 1860, but perhaps not to you. Here from one of my old posts are the month-by-month comparisons in the value of the Port of New York imports between 1861 and 1860 [Source: the 1865 Appleton’s Cyclopedia]. There was a significant decline in imports to New York in 1861 compare to 1860, partially no doubt due to the war and the uncertainty that brings and partially to the higher Morrill Tariff.
Month ... % change from 1860 to 1861
Jan ..... 23.5
Feb ..... -15.6
Mar ..... -22.8
Apr ..... -12.3
May ..... -11.5
Jun ..... -34.0
Jul ..... -40.0
Aug ..... -65.7
Sep ..... -55.1
Oct ..... -49.2
Nov ..... -37.5
Dec ..... -54.8
I didn’t post that the effect of the two tariffs on the South would have been large immediately (so we agree) although I think there should have been some fairly quick increase in imports. For the two tariffs to have a huge effect on the South, the South would have to develop a warehouse system like that in New York and Brooklyn where importers could store goods for up to three years without paying tariff duties. From a Brooklyn Daily Eagle article of February 5, 1861 about the Morrill Tariff bill and the warehouse system:
This bill especially affects New York. Under the provisions of the warehouse law, with its facilities for trade, shipping and monied interest has centered here. New York has become to the New World what London is to Europe – a great commercial centre, where vessels bring the produce of foreign nations and from whence they may be re-laden without payment of duties, in assorted cargoes and sail for any part of the world. Under the provisions of the present law a very large export trade is done with Mexico, South American provinces and the Canadas. There is also a very large transport trade from New York to the interior and sea board ports of our own country. This new law will alike affect the interests of the ship-owners, the bankers, the merchants and the capitalists.
It materially interferes with the interests of this city of Brooklyn, Upon our water front there are now built large and commodious warehouses for the storage of the heavier classes of merchandise; they were erected by our capitalists for bonded stores upon the supposition that the warehouse system would be a permanency. In New York there are in use 60 stores for bonded goods generally, and 52 cellars for bonded liquor. In this city 48 stores are used as bonded warehouses for general merchandise. These give employment to a large amount of capital and to hundreds of men. Each proprietor of a bonded store pays to the collector one hundred dollars per month for the salary of the officer of the revenue who is appointed by the government as storekeeper. The rent and all other expenses are held in bond at no expense to the government.
The Morrill Tariff as passed by the House in 1860 reduced the tariff-free period of the warehouses from three years to one month which would have been a heavy blow to the warehouse system; it was later lengthened by the Senate in the final bill.
Southern ports would have been closer to the Mexican and South American markets that New York had been supplying through the New York warehouse system. I think the South could have taken a large chuck of that business from New York if they had not been blockaded and had developed a warehouse system of their own.
I don’t know a whole lot about the actual impact of the two tariffs on the South. Obviously, Lincoln’s blockade had an effect after the blockade began. I did find a couple of mentions in the Richmond Daily Dispatch of early April, 1861 about business in Charleston Harbor:
- [Probably about April 1 or 2 as reported on April 5]: Charleston harbor is well stocked with shipping, and it is odd to see the Confederate flag flying from the Northern masts.
- [April 6 as reported on April 9]: Business is good; more buyers than goods by many.
He (or she) was going on his or her own rage. I guess a lot of people felt the same way, so the prediction turned out to be true. If you weren't on the scene and didn't feel all that rage (or didn't want to believe it existed) your view of the situation might be different.
One could perhaps judge what the South would do based on what they had already done.
Then they would have fired on the ship (or tried to stop it in someway or parlayed with Anderson). They hadn't fired on the fort yet, or tried to reduce it to rubble, so one assumption might be that they wouldn't do so this time.
It appeared from his inaugural speech that that Lincoln would have been satisfied and wouldn't send obnoxious strangers down South if he could have all the tariff revenue from imports to the South, hold the forts the Union still held, and possibly reoccupy those taken by the South. His inaugural speech words were somewhat ambiguous and unclear about forts already taken by the South. Perhaps he simply wanted Union troops in those forts throughout the South which would basically make the South a military-occupied province. This was perhaps a step down from the colony status the South had held for years with respect to the extraction of Southern wealth via the tariff.
1) The federal government was hardly going to be able to collect tariffs without the ports. My own supposition is that tariffs, like the mails were one of the few ways that the federal government interacted with citizens. If Lincoln were going to maintain the pretext that the union was undivided, then tariffs, mail, and forts were what he'd have to talk about, so that's what he talked about. Tariff collection could provide a pretext for a blockade, though. That may not have been on Lincoln's mind, but it was a logical step for the future.
2) Does Guantanamo make Cuba our militarily-occupied province? Does Gibraltar make Spain a militarily-occupied province of Britain? Did Hong Kong make China a militarily-occupied province of Britain? Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe those are difficult questions. But having two forts, one near Charleston and the other near Pensacola and two further out off the Florida coast wouldn't have made the Confederacy anyone's militarily-occupied province. Leave all the emotionality aside for a minute: a fort or base or two was a pittance to pay for independence if that's what was desired.
Think of the context here. Davis wanted Maryland. Some Marylanders agreed. What would that have done to Washington, DC. Or even Philadelphia? And if all of Virginia had seceded: what would it have meant to have rebel troops less than 150 miles from Lake Erie, poised to cut the United States in half?
3) The South was a colony? Maybe. To the extent that they didn't develop their own industries and had to rely on others to supply them with finished goods. But Southern planters wanted that kind of colonial dependence. The notion that the South payed the lion's share of tariffs is a lot more dubious. Southerners did produce much of America's exports -- I guess we're talking about slaves, here. But it's not clear that they bought most of America's imports, which are what was taxed.
If Lincoln thought the South wouldn't fire, then he badly misjudged the attitude of the South and South Carolina. However, I don’t think he misjudged the South at all – he wasn't stupid – he expected the South to fight.
One argument is that war was inevitable -- that we were already at war -- and Lincoln just wanted to make sure that the rebels fired the first shot. That's a little different from saying that he "tricked" or "forced" the enemy into firing first. The secessionist leaders did have free will after all. On the other hand, it's well documented that Lincoln thought that unionist sentiment in the South was stronger than it was, and that cooler heads might prevail. I think you have to look at the other side. If somebody says you won't have a war unless you start it yourself, and you start a war, talk about being manipulated into it is beside the point.
The idea that the Confederates were tricked or forced into war goes back to Davis and Stephens. Probably it goes back further, but if I'm not mistaken you find it expressed in their interminable books in very similar language. In their version they are principled and passive and only reacting to events, and Lincoln is unprincipled, active, and initiating the events that the rebels can only react to. He has free-will and they are slaves of circumstance. But come on, Lincoln did have principles. You might not agree with them, but he did have them. And Lincoln was as much reacting to events as creating them, as much a creature of circumstances created by others as a molder of them.
How do we separate the effects of the Morrill tariff from the general effects of the secession crisis? Surely the prospect of national collapse could also have effected trade.
And what is the Collector of the Port of New York doing writing to newspapers whether in New York or in Memphis?
Would that be the old collector who was a pro-Breckenridge DNC chairman, or the new one, and abolitionist who was married to Lewis Tappan's daughter?
Anyway, some have said that the country teetered on a fiscal cliff in 1861, not so much due to the Morrill tariff, as to Buchanan's mismanagement. The original rise in tariff rates (lower than what they eventually became) was, perhaps misguidedly, intended to remedy the situation.
FWIW, most of the collectors are biographed on Wikipedia. I did not know that Chester A. Arthur held the post. Rutherford B. Hayes got rid of him and tried to replace him with Theodore Roosevelt's father, but Roscoe Conkling, Arthur's patron, killed the nomination.