House drops Confederate Flag ban for veterans cemeteries

politico.com ^ | 6/23/16 | Matthew Nussbaum

[ColdOne]

A measure to bar confederate flags from cemeteries run by the Department of Veterans Affairs was removed from legislation passed by the House early Thursday.

The flag ban was added to the VA funding bill in May by a vote of 265-159, with most Republicans voting against the ban. But Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) both supported the measure. Ryan was commended for allowing a vote on the controversial measure, but has since limited what amendments can be offered on the floor.

[BroJoeK]

rustbucket: "Finally, you now seem to understand that the average tariff rate for the 1857 US tariff didn't apply to specific imported items, such as most manufactured items. You are making progress!"

No, I've understood all along, but object to your focusing on outlier high rates when the overall average rate was 15%.
Indeed, in the same paragraph where you mention the Union's top tariff rates, you also generously allow the Confederates an average tariff rate of 15%.
In fact, on Day One of the Confederacy those two rates were exactly the same, but you chose to focus on the highest Union rates while mentioning only the average of Confederates.

Clearly, rusty, you are a master of propagandists, able to convey lies while telling just the facts!
My hats off to your skill, sir, but you never fool me.

rustbucket: "FYI, on February 16, 1861, the provisional Confederate Congress adopted the same tariff rates as the 1857 US tariff.
Then on February 18, 1861, they exempted a number of items from that tariff."

Items exempted were food and weapons, which means the majority of the old 1857 rates remained in effect.
New lower tariffs did not take effect until September 1861 by which time nearly all such commerce had ended.

Bottom line: Confederate tariffs were not the great earth-shaking change which might drive otherwise sober Northerners into a frenzy of war-fever against the South.

So the focus of Northern attention during early months of 1861 was not Confederate tariffs, it was elsewhere, beginning with Fort Sumter.

FYI, here is an interesting analysis of Morrill from the then Republican-friendly New York Times:

"Under the protection of this Tariff act it was supposed that our New-England factories would find constant employment; that new factories and factory villages would spring up all over the land, until a factory would be as indispensable to a flourishing village as is the church and school-house; that the factory bell would be heard in every village where church bells called the people to worship, or the academy bell called the children to school.

"Indeed, some feared that the Tariff was so high on most articles that foreign goods would almost entirely cease to seek our markets, and that our own people would spend such vast sums of money, in erecting and providing factories here, that at some future day a crash would come when circumstances should have rendered it necessary to relax the prohibition, as they termed it, of the importation of foreign goods.

"That ruin would, at a future time stare our great manufacturers in the face, and a crisis throw out of employment thousands and thousands of operatives at a time when other employment could not be found.
Such was the picture some of the opponents of the Tariff act of last March painted for the contemplation of themselves and those that would listen to them.

"But these predictions and forebodings had not the effect to prevent the passage of the act.
But not sooner was it passed, and the rates it prescribes levied on the goods arriving here, than the war-clouds which had been gradually growing larger and larger, and blacker and blacker, burst, with a tempest of iron rain, over the land.
The bombardment of Fort Sumter roused the Northerners to a sense of their danger, and, as one man, they sprang to their feet, and vowed that such treatment should not pass unpunished.

"A new direction was given, not only to the thoughts of the people, but to the channels of trade.
Those who had opposed the passage of a Tariff bill, which should raise the duties on imported merchandise, joined with those who had originated it and had urged its passage, and both parties soon concluded that the rates of duty, of which they had complained as too high and as prohibitory, should be still further increased, for, said they, we must keep our money in the country; we must now encourage our own people; we must not squander our substance in purchasing light wines, fine silks, and foreign fruits, when our Government is in danger; we must husband our resources and only seek abroad those articles of necessity for the war which we cannot procure or manufacture in our own land.
And thus thinking our Congressmen framed a new bill in August last..."

~ New York Times, March 15, 1862

[rustbucket]

No, I've understood all along, but object to your focusing on outlier high rates when the overall average rate was 15%. ... Clearly, rusty, you are a master of propagandists, able to convey lies while telling just the facts!

I cited a Northern paper that pointed out that high tariffs on manufactured items in the 1857 tariff were benefitting Northern manufacturers and Northern laborers. The South did not have that much of a manufacturing industry that would benefit from those high tariffs. Because of that, the South ended up essentially paying some of those high tariff rates cited by the Chicago paper to Northern manufacturers who were selling their items to Southerners at tariff-inflated prices. Or did the Northern manufacturers only boost the prices by 15% on their manufactured items protected by even higher tariffs? No? I thought not.

And you say I shouldn't mention all that or that I am telling lies when I do?

The fastest thing the Confederacy could do with respect to getting tariff revenue to support their new government was to use the existing 1857 tariff which was already in place in Southern ports. After putting that in place quickly, they kept working on a tariff that would reduce tariff rates. They achieved that in only three months, changing the tariff rates on hundreds of imported items including manufactured goods. They succeeded in negotiating a reduced sugar tariff with Louisiana with its many sugar plantations. The Confederacy completed that May version of their tariff before the North really made the blockade effective.

Bottom line: Confederate tariffs were not the great earth-shaking change which might drive otherwise sober Northerners into a frenzy of war-fever against the South.

That's your opinion, and you are welcome to it. Serious minded Northerners were quite aware of the problem the two different tariffs posed for the Northern economy. Northerners had shot themselves in the foot with the Morrill Tariff. A crafty Northern politician plotted to instigate war as a way of overcoming the two tariff problem.

So the focus of Northern attention during early months of 1861 was not Confederate tariffs, it was elsewhere, beginning with Fort Sumter.

Shoot! All those businesses failing in NYC, all those papers saying the Northern economy was going to be ruined by the two tariffs, Northern merchants upset. Papers advocating that Southern ports be blockaded, the Morrill tariff should be repealed, Lincoln should convene the Congress, the South should be allowed to go in peace. All that never dominated the news? Apparently I missed that it was all about Fort Sumter in the papers.

Dadgum it, I'll have to throw away all my copies of old newspaper articles that conflict with today's politically correct Northern version of history that you've just related. I'll have to chuck those newspaper articles down the Memory Hole.

[BroJoeK]

rustbucket: "I cited a Northern paper that pointed out that high tariffs on manufactured items in the 1857 tariff were benefitting Northern manufacturers and Northern laborers.
The South did not have that much of a manufacturing industry that would benefit from those high tariffs.
Because of that, the South ended up essentially paying some of those high tariff rates..."

In fact, some Southern states did have manufacturing, just not as large as the North's.
Nor were most Southern states as dependent on manufacturing as many Northern states.
The number one reason, which you well know, was cotton.
Cotton by itself represented roughly half of all US exports, including specie.
And earnings from these exports paid for imports on which Federal tariff revenues depended.

But here's a key point: those protective tariffs protected all US manufacturing, North, South, East or West.
The fact that Southern states generally had less manufacturing does not mean such businesses were less protected.
Further, Federal revenues had to come from somewhere, and protective tariffs on luxury goods meant they were being paid most by those who benefitted most from the US economic system.

rustbucket: "Or did the Northern manufacturers only boost the prices by 15% on their manufactured items protected by even higher tariffs?
No? I thought not."

Your point being what?
That it wasn't average tariffs (i.e. 15%) which effected Northern manufacturers' prices, but rather specific item tariffs which might be much higher, or lower?
Sure, of course.

But remember that Federal tariffs were first imposed in the 1790s at a time when Southerners dominated Washington, DC, that levels went up & down over the years in response to political pressures and that the 1857 tariff was as low as any in decades.
These tariffs were not somehow "imposed" by Northerners on unwilling Southerners, but rather were agreed to politically based on common understandings of the nation's best interests.

Yes, the new Morrill tariff was a somewhat different matter, but it could not pass Congress so long as Southern Democrats remained there to prevent it.

rustbucket: "And you say I shouldn't mention all that or that I am telling lies when I do?"

Of course, you are "telling lies" when you imply that the first Confederate tariff was substantially different than what went before.
It wasn't, it was the same thing, modified only slightly by exempting food & weapons.

rustbucket: "They succeeded in negotiating a reduced sugar tariff with Louisiana with its many sugar plantations."

Which you mention without noting how the old Union tariff had also protected those Louisiana sugar producers.

rustbucket: "The Confederacy completed that May version of their tariff before the North really made the blockade effective."

But it did not go into effect until September 1861, by which time Southern international commerce had all but ceased.
So, effectively, the only tariffs the Confederacy ever actually collected were at the old 1857 Federal rates.

rustbucket: "That's your opinion, and you are welcome to it.
Serious minded Northerners were quite aware of the problem the two different tariffs posed for the Northern economy.
Northerners had shot themselves in the foot with the Morrill Tariff.
A crafty Northern politician plotted to instigate war as a way of overcoming the two tariff problem."

That's your opinion, but it's pure fantasy.
First of all, imports arriving in Confederate ports would have to pay tariffs twice, before they could be sold up North -- first to the Confederate government in, say, New Orleans then to the Federal government in, say, St. Louis.
Since no merchant would do such a thing, imports intended for Northerners would necessarily go to Union ports, etc.
So there would not be "two different tariffs".

Regardless, tariffs were not a problem which needed war to solve, nor did anyone at the time seriously argue such a thing.

rustbucket: "All those businesses failing in NYC, all those papers saying the Northern economy was going to be ruined by the two tariffs, Northern merchants upset.
Papers advocating that Southern ports be blockaded, the Morrill tariff should be repealed, Lincoln should convene the Congress, the South should be allowed to go in peace.
All that never dominated the news? "

Sure, politics, but no calls for military action against the Confederacy were based on economics alone.
"War fever" in the North went up and down from December 1860 through April 1861 based not on tariff laws, but on Confederate military actions against Federal properties, officials and troops.
The Buchanan administration took pains to tamp down such talk, but after Fort Sumter, President Lincoln did what he considered necessary and with solid Northern public support.

So, much as our FRiends here wish to deny it, Fort Sumter was the Pearl Harbor or 9/11 of its time.

rustbucket: "Dadgum it, I'll have to throw away all my copies of old newspaper articles that conflict with today's politically correct Northern version of history that you've just related."

No, you'll have to go back and read them more carefully.
Not one of those Northern articles calls for war based strictly on tariff considerations.
Nor did Deep South "reasons for secession" statements list tariffs as their primary motives.

So what you argue is Lost Causer mythology, not real history.

[rustbucket]

I prefer to discuss history, not respond to what appear to be intentionally obtuse posts.

I wish you well. But I’ll not waste my time responding to your posts.

[BroJoeK]

rustbucket: "I prefer to discuss history, not respond to what appear to be intentionally obtuse posts."

Words like "obtuse" would apply more to your devotion to Lost Causer mythology and unwillingness to deal with real facts of history.

But if you ever encounter cognitive dissonance in that effort, let me know.
I'll be happy to explain things to you.

[PeaRidge]

You saw my post #1477. .

Any of those will help you compute trade data by individual customs house. As you will see, it can be compiled by port, type, and value, but apparently you did not even look at it.

If you do not want to spend time doing that, see post 1435 for the totals. That data was compiled from Customs.

[rustbucket]

I hadn’t seen your earlier posts 1435 and 1477. Great work!

[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge: "You saw my post #1477.
Any of those will help you compute trade data by individual customs house."

I responded to your post #1477 in my post #1,496.

You responded to my post #1496 in your post #1500,
to which I responded in my post #1509, to which you did not respond.
Now, if you wish to revisit that discussion, I'm happy to do so, here in brief:

From my post #1496: Only your Debow's review gives data on shipments by port.
The problem is even Debow does not tell us which states produced what products.

In your post #1500 you responded:

"It would also be relevant to the issue by dropping the question of where exports were originally produced.
It only mattered from where they were shipped, and if they were reshipped through northern ports."

But "states of origin" is exactly the question on the table here because it addresses claims that Federal government was essentially financed on the backs of Southern export producers.
So how much of total US exports (what percentage) were produced in the Deep South, Upper South and Border States.
Claims are often made here it was 87% or 75% and I have argued, no, cotton was about 50% and that was the only product indisputably produced in the Confederate Deep South.

So tables were posted here claiming otherwise, but I noted those are based on the ports of shipment, not states of origin.

Next you claimed raw data is available in your links, but I searched them and couldn't find anything on exports' states of origin.
Finally, in your post #1500 you changed the subject, now claiming states of origin are not important to export data.

But of course, "states of origin" is the very crux of the economic argument for secession.
That argument claims "the South" was being shafted by protectionist tariffs which had Southern exports paying for 87% or 75% of Federal revenues.
In fact, the available data clearly supports 50% for cotton, but nothing significantly higher.

Now, do you wish to pick up the conversation where you left off?

[DiogenesLamp]

Oh, it’s you. I thought it was someone important.

[rustbucket]

Hey Pea,

Here is some information on exports from the years 1860 and 1861 you might be able to use. They come from a volume of 1860 and 1861 statistics that was printed in New York in 1867. I took photos of pages in the book.

Exports of products by region (South, West, and East):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzLomlO9q9zdTUFKcTRBMVg2MDg/view?usp=sharing

Exports received at New Orleans from up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and the lower Mississippi Valley:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzLomlO9q9zda3dmbG9IWFltWE0/view?usp=sharing

Continuation of the last page
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzLomlO9q9zddUh4SlV6SUJVV1U/view?usp=sharing

The first page shows that the South produced 72% of the value of the total 1860 US exports. This table breaks exports down by product and by region. I imagine the table is consistent with tabulations you have found.

The second and third pages above shows that the bulk of the value of exports held at New Orleans are cotton, various tobacco items, sugar, and molasses. Those four categories total to $142,547,9828. That is 77% of the total up river products held for export from New Orleans. Those four categories were most likely Southern products. Some of the other products from upriver held for export might be from the South also. However, the authors of my source book did take care to attribute products like flour (of which $6,036,325 was held for export at New Orleans) to the Western Region, not the South. They didn’t list flour as a Southern product in their tabulation of Southern products on my first page above.

[BroJoeK]

rustbucket: "The second and third pages above shows that the bulk of the value of exports held at New Orleans are cotton, various tobacco items, sugar, and molasses.
Those four categories total to $142,547,9828.
That is 77% of the total up river products held for export from New Orleans."

77%? I don't think so, and here's why:

1. First, after cotton, tobacco was the number two export value and the tobacco being exported from New Orleans came primarily from Union states like Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana & Missouri plus Union regions of Tennessee & North Carolina.
   
2. Second, US sugar was not exported except to Northern US customers.
   That's because those evil tariffs you so loathe also protected US grown sugar, making it too expensive for real export.
   
3. Third, molasses was not a major export commodity compared to cotton or tobacco.

Bottom line: by 1860 half of US cotton exported directly from New Orleans to overseas customers.
That would make cotton nearly 100% of Deep South products shipped from New Orleans.

Today's tobacco growing regions -- in 1860 west of Appalachians exported through New Orleans:

1860 slave produced crops.
Note tobacco was also produced in Northern states like Ohio & Indiana by free-labor (not slaves) for export through New Orleans:

[BroJoeK]

rustbucket: "The first page shows that the South produced 72% of the value of the total 1860 US exports.
This table breaks exports down by product and by region.
I imagine the table is consistent with tabulations you have found."

Thanks for the highly informative link, but no, not 72%.
Your table shows 1860 exports as:

1. Produced in the West: $61 million= 16%
2. Produced in the East: $83 million = 22%
3. Produced in the South: $229 million = 61%

4. Total exports: $373 million

But even that number 61% is suspect, since tobacco is the number two item and it came mostly from Union states, none from the Deep South in 1860.
Other significant items include cotton cloth, which we cannot know the original sources of.
So a slightly more accurate number using this data would be 54% ($204 divided by $373 =54%).

But even that number is too high, since this source (page 605) shows total 1860 exports as not $373 million but $400 million, including specie.
That makes Deep South produced products just 51% at most.

Finally, it's hugely important to notice just what happened in 1861:

1. Southern exports fell by over 70%, but nearly all the reduction was in raw cotton.
   Other Southern exports held up pretty well, suggesting they really came from Union states, not the Deep South.

2. Western exports increased by 80% suggesting that outside cotton itself "Southern exports" were highly replaceable from other Union states.

3. Eastern exports also increased, slightly, suggesting that whatever Eastern exports came from Southern raw materials were not overly dependent on them.

[rockrr]

Southern exports fell by over 70%, but nearly all the reduction was in raw cotton. Other Southern exports held up pretty well, suggesting they really came from Union states, not the Deep South.

Don't forget that the economic genius davis ordered 2.5 million bales of cotton burned in an insane attempt to coerce the Brits into forming an alliance with the insurrectionists. And we shake our heads when blacks burn their own neighborhoods in order to "show them who's boss".

[BroJoeK]

rustbucket: "Exports received at New Orleans from up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and the lower Mississippi Valley:"

Can you explain how Confederate New Orleans data from 1861 appears in this Union report?

[PeaRidge]

I gave you two links. The first was from the Historical Statistics of the United States. It provides import data by year, by category, and by value.

Despite that, you said: “Those links provide no data I could find on exports or imports by state or region.”

That is because you do not want to find it. When you open the link, it is a listing of chapters. Go to section U.
Here is the link for you.

http://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1975/compendia/hist_stats_colonial-1970/hist_stats_colonial-1970p2-chU.pdf

Go to pages 884-895. The data is there in black and white.

With regard to the Agricultural Product by State link, it gives you all the export data by port, type, value, and year.

Either do some research, or let me know and I will give you the data again.

[rustbucket]

Perhaps our interlocutor forgets that back in those times Missouri, Kentucky, and even Maryland and Deleware were considered Southern states. See the following old map of the Southern States: Link

Our interlocutor has his own version of what were considered Southern states at the time, preferring to call states that were taken over or invaded by pro-union troops "Northern" states.

Perhaps our interlocutor forgets the Union Army led by a "Radical Republican" officer who had been sent there in February capturing the Missouri state capital and sending the existing government into exile. Missouri was also invaded by troops from Illinois to help overthrow the existing state government. The exiled state government did pass a secession document, but whether a quorum existed to pass the document is disputed. Here's a history of Missouri: [Link].

Perhaps the poster doesn't remember Lincoln arresting members of the Maryland legislature to prevent them from voting for secession, or "Beast" Butler commanding Massachusetts troops invading and taking over Annapolis and then Baltimore.

What are those words in Maryland's State Song based on an 1861 poem, Maryland, my Maryland? Oh yeah, "The despot's heel is on thy shore ... Maryland! She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb- Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!" Here is a YouTube version of the song: [Link]

Kentucky is another Southern state whose loyalties were split. Lincoln had only gotten 1,364 votes in Kentucky in the 1860 election. A Kentucky group representing 68 of 110 counties adopted a secession ordinance and, like Missouri, was admitted to the Confederacy. The action is perhaps roughly equivalent to the Federal Government accepting West Virginia's secession from Virginia although geographically most of the new state of West Virginia consisted of counties that had voted to secede from the Union. Here is an interesting history of Kentucky during the Civil War: [Link]

[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge: "Go to pages 884-895. The data is there in black and white."

Thanks, I printed out pages 884-885 and hold them here, as Rush would say, in my formerly nicotine stained fingers.
Your data confirms one very important element of my overall argument: total exports for 1860 were $400 million.
It means that Deep South cotton accounted for roughly 50% of all US exports that year.

PeaRidge: "With regard to the Agricultural Product by State link, it gives you all the export data by port, type, value, and year."

I have seen and reported to you here on Debow's numbers by port, etc.
They do not tell us which state originated products shipped from Southern ports like New Orleans or Baltimore.
But studying such numbers as we do have, I conclude that most non-cotton products exported from New Orleans & Baltimore originated in Union states, not the Deep South.

[DiogenesLamp]

Exports of products by region (South, West, and East):

How are the regions defined? I presume "West" meant California, Washington, etc? Or was it referring to the near West?

I assume "East" meant the North Eastern coastal areas.

If we could find out how much each region produced in terms of the Gross National Product, we could determine how significant the European Trade was to the New York/New England area.

(And therefore how much money was at stake if the South became independent.)

[PeaRidge]

Here is the economic data: (from Historical Statistics of the US, Dept. of Commerce, pg. 164)
Receipts of US Government for 1859—$53,486,000

Tariff data: In 1859 tariff revenue was $49,566,000 on $331,333,000 worth of imports.

The exports from the US that bought those goods were worth $278,902,000 at the ports of exit from the US.

Of that amount, the value of cotton, tobacco, rice, naval stores, sugar, molasses, hemp, cotton manufactures (all originating in the South via US Customs house data) was worth $198,309,000 (Statistical abstract of the US, 1936 edition,pgs 435-439) or about 71%.

Adams uses the figures of 87% which is the above amounts, plus he adds the value of tariffs paid on overseas purchases made with cash by Southern governments and the base market value of the cotton used in fabric exports from Northern mills.

If you want the actual tables for mulit-year data, let me know.

[PeaRidge]

BroCanard, in your post #1501, you were giving tariff revenue in the North by year.

But you left out two years’ worth of data....here is what you posted:

1860 = $53 million
1863 = $63 million
1864 = $102 million
1865 = $85 million

Let me help you.

(From the “Statistical Abstract, using US Customs data.”)

In millions of dollars.

1860 = 52.7
1861 = 39
1862 = 46.5
1863 = 63.7
1864 = 96.5
1865 = 80.6

Now you may ask why '64 and '65 data is at some variance. Reason being is that Census/Customs data was published at the end of the callendar year. Treasury data was compiled and published on a June 30/July 1 schedule.