House drops Confederate Flag ban for veterans cemeteries

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.

But they didn't actually. They were a part of the slave trade and a part of the cotton trade, but they never dominated either. Both were international and there were plenty of other players who had a larger role in both.

You are grasping for straws. What other countries had prominent influence in the Southern Slave and Cotton trade in the 1850s? The Navigation act of 1817 made it ruinously expensive for Foreign merchants or ship builders to engage in such trade.

Obsessed is more like it.

And why shouldn't I be? It demonstrates at a glance that something is *SERIOUSLY* wrong with this picture. It only becomes obvious when people know the source of the bulk of Trade Exports. Most of those coins stacked on Top of New York would be stacked at New Orleans if the trade conditions were normal. That is where much of the products represented by those coins were exported.

The Map is upside down in terms of money and profits by regions for normal trade conditions. That map is the lynchpin of evidence as to why the Union invaded the South to stop their independence.

Stephen Colwell examined the same data in Five Cotton States and New York and came to the conclusion that it was the cotton states that were dependent on New York.

I have no doubt that someone can come to that conclusion, but again they are examining artificial conditions imposed on the South, and not contemplating how those conditions would change in the absence of the onerous laws which created them. Yes, the South depended on New York to ship their cotton, because all the laws had been Jiggered to favor New England Shipping/Insurance/Banking/Warehousing. They couldn't use foreign Ships without paying ruinous rates, so they were left with no other choice than to depend on New York/New England shipping.

You are getting stuck in the mud because you only contemplate conditions as they existed, and seemingly have no interest in contemplating what differing conditions would have resulted had the South been able to maintain independence. Eliminate the barriers to Trade, and they would have less and less need to depend on New York/New England shipping with every passing year.

He did not want to allow economic competition to become established. Again, that is the *ENTIRE* reason for the war. It is that threat of Southern economic competition and it's commensurate loss of profit and industry that the Union couldn't stomach.

Nonsense. Blockades are intended to weaken the enemy's fighting capacity. Finance is directly related to the ability to fight. Confederates recognized that. They believed cotton would win them the war. The Union took them at their word and struck at the source of their wealth.

Seriously, economic competition as the "*ENTIRE* reason for the war"? That's crazy. You are so in love with your idea that you don't see how ridiculous it is. In 1860 even the North was still agrarian and not that well off, the idea that the South was going to leap to affluence simply by imposing lower tariffs is absurd.

It would create them wealth, which over time equates to power.

Cotton planters already had wealth. They weren't about to turn that into industrial capacity or mass affluence. They had no intention to do anything like that. There were industries in the South, but there were limits to how closely slave society and modern industry could mesh.

Slave labor undercut free wages. Free workers didn't want to go to the slave states. Slaveowners wanted tight control over their labor force to the point where it hurt the economy. And even those Britons who loved Southern cotton recognized that slave societies were inherently unstable and didn't like to invest in them.

If you are going to keep applying modern morality in an anachronistic fashion, you are just going to keep the discussion going around in circles. Stay with the zeitgeist currently in discussion.

You like to accuse people of judging the past by present-day standards. You do the same thing -- only worse. You say that slavery couldn't be an issue because Northerners weren't immediatist abolitionists or color-blind anti-racists, that Northerners were indifferent to slavery because they weren't lovingly kind and accepting of Blacks.

That wasn't going to happen. But people can morally object to the treatment of an oppressed group without wanting to live with them. They can care about freedom without being paternalistically occupied with every aspect of the well-being of others. That desire for freedom isn't wholly selfish. A desire for a prosperity and economic growth isn't wholly materialistic. If you'd rather live in a free society or a wealthy society, than an enslaved or unfree society, are you only being selfish and materialistic?

You give your beloved cotton planters every benefit of the doubt. Every Northern attitude is crudely reduced to materialistic terms, but what's by your own standard a very mercenary and materialistic motive on their part is accepted without investigation as legitimate. Of course it's possible to criticize Northern attitudes to slavery and race and find them lacking by today's standards. But one has to apply the same degree of scrutiny to Southern attitudes and behavior or one's analysis is worthless.

Nonsense. Blockades are intended to weaken the enemy's fighting capacity.

It didn't.

The Union took them at their word and struck at the source of their wealth.

They struck at the source of Wealth that was denied them because of Southern Independence. The losses of that Wealth to the Union were immense, and the competition which would have been created by normalized Southern Trade with Europe would have been even more immense.

You are being foolish if you do not recognize how much lost *MONEY* was at stake for the Union.

In 1860 even the North was still agrarian and not that well off, the idea that the South was going to leap to affluence simply by imposing lower tariffs is absurd.

Why do you keep cutting off pieces of my argument? Lower Tariff's would have had a role in enriching the South, but returning the profits directly to their places of origins (such as New Orleans) would have a greater role.

That excerpt I quoted in an article above indicated that New York/New England shipping/banking/insurance/etc was skimming off forty percent of the value of that trade.

Are you going to tell me that a 40% increase in your income stream would be irrelevant to an increase in your wealth?

Direct Trade would build Banking/Insurance/Warehousing/etc industries in the ports to which such trade was entering and leaving. Cutting New York out of the loop would result in a buildup of Industries in the source ports for exports. More involved manufacturing would eventually follow.

Those in a position to lose great sums of money from an independent South could see those losses clearly, even if you do not seem to be able to do so.

rustbucket to rockrr: "As I've said many times over the years, I believe it was Lincoln's intention to provoke a war.
Lincoln sending the fleet down with the stated intention to force their way into South Carolina's waters if resisted was an act of war."

Once again, the analogy is Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Regardless of what Communists claim or threaten, US resupply or reinforcement ships to Gitmo cannot be provocations or "acts of war."
Just as Lincoln had, the US at Gitmo has every right to support our forces there, and any threats against us are themselves provocations for war.

By definition and law, Confederate threats against Fort Sumter were provocations of war, the Confederate assault an act of war.
Sure, had Lincoln's ships landed troops to invade Charleston proper, that could be a provocation or act of war.
But in fact that April he never did or intended anything of the sort.

rustbucket: "The US government and the South (Florida at the time) had agreed to a truce that the North wouldn't reinforce Fort Pickens if the South didn't attack it.
Lincoln's orders to break the truce at Fort Pickens by reinforcing it with troops and ammunition without telling the other side of the truce was also an act of war. "

Regardless of Confederate demands, Union actions to resupply or reinforce its troops in Union forts cannot be an "act of war" or "provocation".
At most it could be an excuse if Confederates, for reasons of their own, were looking for one.
So, claiming Lincoln's resupply missions were "provocations" is equivalent to saying:

President Roosevelt "provoked" the Japanese by moving the US fleet to Pearl Harbor.
In fact, that's just what happened, so the Japanese attacked, starting WWII for us.
But FDRs actions were totally lawful, while the Japanese attack was a clear act of war.
Same with Lincoln's missions to Forts Sumter & Pickens.
The US "provokes" Communist Cuba by sending troops & supplies to Gitmo, despite Cuban claims the base is unlawful.
In fact, such resupplies & reinforcements are totally lawful, while a Cuban attack on Gitmo would be a clear act of war.
The Brits "provoked" war with the US from 1783 through 1797 by refusing to abandon half a dozen of their forts in New York, Ohio and Michigan, despite their promise to do so.
Instead they continued to resupply and reinforce their troops for 14 years, until patient negotiations by John Jay finally, finally got them removed.
Fourteen years!
That's how long a country seriously interested in peace can put up with such a problem.
The Confederacy by contrast waited less than 14 weeks.

rustbucket: "Lincoln's cabinet had told him that Fox's Fort Sumter expedition would result in a shooting war. "

As did Roosevelt's military war him about moving our fleet to Pearl Harbor.
Regardless, in both cases the Presidents' actions were lawful and peaceful.
So your excuse here amounts to nothing more than the rapist's claim: "she was dressed provocatively".
Dressing is not ever a crime, but raping always is.

rustbucket: "Some of us can see through Lincoln's ruse. Others on this thread cannot."

Ruse?
There was no ruse, since Lincoln announced his mission to SC Governor Pickens.
That cannot possibly be a "ruse".
Instead, it was absolutely necessary, since the Confederacy's demands for surrender of Fort Sumter were themselves provocations of war, and Lincoln's only honorable response was to maintain the fort as long as possible.

rustbucket: "~~Lincoln's~~ Jefferson Davis' War cost over 600,000 lives and almost as much money as it would have taken to buy all of the slaves and set them free."

I noticed you made a typo there, so fixed it you.

Sure, you're welcome, sir, no problem at all.

PeaRidge: "This ended the slavery problem for the Union states.
The issue of slavery no longer had any political influence or social impact on the Union states or the territories.
Those that remained preoccupied with it were needing a rationalization for their personal issues."

Only a small percent of Northerners were "preoccupied" ardent abolitionists.
For the rest, they were content to "live & let live", so long as slavery seemed to be progressing towards gradual abolition.

What they didn't want was the Slave Power pushing its "peculiar institution" into their own states via Supreme Court rulings (Dred-Scott) or Federal fugitive slave law enforcement.

When seven Deep South states declared secession, that certainly eliminated the Slave Power's hold over Congress, but those old Northern concerns were quickly replaced by the new specter of Confederate military might (100,000 Confederates versus 17,000 Union troops) threatening United States existentially.

That excerpt I quoted in an article above indicated that New York/New England shipping/banking/insurance/etc was skimming off forty percent of the value of that trade.

Hey guys! Diogenes believes insurance is a scam. For punishment he should have to do with out insurance and put up with total losses when disaster strikes. Or -- what's worse -- spend a few evenings with an insurance agent.

He also believes banking is a scam. He's on solider ground there, but if you have money in the bank, it's not like the bank stole it from you or skimmed it off. You can't say, "I have all this money invested but I should also have it in cash in my pocket or it's not fair." You can't have your cake and eat it too, even if you are the kind of rich cotton planter Diogenes wishes he was.

For that matter, if slave driver Diogenes doesn't actually have ships to take his cotton to market he's going to have to hire some -- and then complain about how the profits he created with his own hands have once again been stolen from him.

Seriously, isn't everybody getting tired of his theory? It takes a lot for a city to rise to economic preeminence. Sometimes not all the factors are present. The idea that a change in the tariff would have made Charleston something like New York is nonsense. For one thing, Charleston never wanted to be like New York. You can read about the contempt Southern planters had for Northern money grubbers.

Beyond that, slave societies had trouble attracting free labor. The also had trouble attracting investment because they were seen as inherently unstable. And wherever unpaid slave labor was available, technology lagged.

5.There were 13 Republican abstentions, which must mean that, in fact, they opposed the bill but feared bucking their party.
Since two Republicans did vote against, those others could likely be flipped.

So, 97.8% of Republicans who voted voted for the Morrill Tariff. A high protectionist tariff was a key element of the Republican platform in 1860. Yet you feel that 86.7% of the 15 abstaining Republicans would vote no if they had to vote.

Let's look at the abstainers.
- George Pendleton (D-OH, no) paired with Boteler (D-VA, yes)
- Thaddeus Stevens (R-PA) paired with Craig (D-MO)
- Kilgore (R-IN) paired with Maynard (Opp-TN)
- Curtis (R-IA) paired with Barrett (D-MO)
- Dunn (R-IN, for) paired with Vance (D-NC)
- Longnecker (R-PA for) paired with Harris (D-VA, no)
- Perry (R-ME, for) didn't name who he was paired with
- Porter (R-IN) paired with Hill (D-GA)
- Theaker (R-OH, for) paired with Davidson (D-LA)
- Wilson (R-IN) paired with Pryor (D-VA)
- Harris (D-MD, for) paired with Rust (D-AR)

The 11 pairings above were reported in the Congressional Globe. That means that if they had voted, each side's total would go up by 11. That would bring the total vote to 116 to 75 with 33 remaining abstainers. If all 33 remaining abstainers voted no including the six remaining Republican abstainers, that would make the total vote 116 yes to 108 no. The Morrill Tariff bill passed the House.

I'm sorry, BJK, but you attributed very unlikely vote intentions to the abstainers in order to support your argument. Easily disproven by looking at the Congressional Globe. I suggest you be more careful in future posts.

Given the population growth of the North, by 1819 the North had 105 votes in the House compared to 81 for the South. With further immigration to the North after that, the North's regional advantage in the House grew even larger. They didn't always have the complete support of Northern Democrats as this tariff vote showed.

rustbucket: "The 11 pairings above were reported in the Congressional Globe.
That means that if they had voted, each side's total would go up by 11. "

Possibly you're reading some other Congressional Globe, or a different vote, since this data also purports to come from the same source:

So, 55 abstentions minus 13 Republicans, minus 12 Northern Democrats, minus 13 Southern Democrats, minus 8 Southern Oppositionists & Americans = 9 paired abstentions.
The clear implication is that those other 46 votes were not paired and so could be candidates for flipping.

Just ask yourself, why would a Republican abstain on a vote so strongly pushed by his leadership?
The only possible explanation is: the abstainer opposed the bill but didn't want to buck his "powers that be".

What I'm saying is that all these abstainers plus others like Southern Democrats who voted "yes", all those were candidates for flipping, if the effort had been made by anti-Morrill people.
But that effort was clearly not made, likely because they expected the Senate to kill the bill anyway, which it did.

Again, my point is: defeat of Morrill in the House was not nearly as important at the time as Fire Eater secessionists later pretended.
We know that because so many potential "no" votes instead abstained.

x: "Hey guys! Diogenes believes insurance is a scam."

That figure of 40% comes from New York's reporting, though exactly what it consists of is not told.
One can easily suppose that 30% of it came from shipping, transfer & warehousing costs, 7% from interest on loans and 3% from insurance.

Shipping would consist of small packet ships plying east coast waters and picking up small lots of cotton from small ports & river-side docks.
Packets took cotton to a large port (i.e., NYC) where it was transferred and warehoused until arrangements could be made for shipments on larger ocean packets to Europe, or elsewhere.
Each time cotton changed hands, so would money and possibly ownership, such that by the time bales reached manufacturers in, say, Manchester, England, it's price could easily be double what the small planter in, say, Georgia, received for it.

So that's the middle-man markup driving our poor DiogenesLamp crazy.
As a born Marxist, he thinks there must be something immoral or illegal about all those middlemen making profits off the sweat of his slaves!
And he thinks there just must be "jiggered" laws forcing the poor Southern planters to use all those evil, wicked Northern merchants to transport & sell their cotton.
And that's why they went to war!
They needed to protect their privileged economies, and so they invaded the South to force slaves to continue growing cotton and selling it to Northern merchants.

Oh... wait...
Northern armies didn't force slaves to grow cotton, they freed the slaves.
Plus both during and after the war, the cotton economy went to h*ll anyway, so it was a lose-lose all around...

Oooops, never mind.

Hey guys! Diogenes believes insurance is a scam.

Okay, now how did you get that assertion out of anything I've said?

He also believes banking is a scam.

Another Strawman assertion. My position is that people should employ banking, insurance and shipping when they wish to do so, not because someone is forcing them into it.

It is the difference between consent and coercion. The Northern monopolies were using government enforced coercion to compel patronage of these industries, and *that* was wrong.

At the time, hiring ships outside of that Northern Coastal monopoly, you would pay 55 cents per ton in taxes/penalties. (Because of that Navigation act of 1817.) Hiring American ships under the control of that monopoly cost only 6 cents per ton, but they charged higher rates such that they were just barely under the cost of penalties for hiring a foreign ship. Again, this was simply more "Protectionism" for this North-Eastern shipping monopoly.

I mentioned how they jiggered the laws to favor the North East. This is but one example of that.

The idea that a change in the tariff would have made Charleston something like New York is nonsense

There you go again, cutting off pieces of my theory and then attacking the remnant. I keep telling you that the tariff's were only a part of the bigger picture. According to that excerpt I posted above, New York was siphoning off about 40% of all Cotton revenues.

Slice it any way you like, but 40% more money will have a substantial economic impact on ports which are shipping out the product. Most of those piles of coins represented in that Map I post would have ended up in New Orleans. It would have been a huge loss to the New York economy.

I cobbled this together quickly, and it is likely not accurate, but it more closely resembles what the eventual trade would have looked like had the North Eastern Crony Capitalists not convinced their Mercantilist President to launch a war to prevent it.

Don't lie to yourself. Southern Trade unencumbered by protectionist laws favoring the North East, would have blossomed into a large economic powerhouse.

And *THAT* is why the North Eastern controlled Union invaded the South. *THAT* is why they launched a war to protect their money stream and stop competition.

I welcome any input from any of you that would assist me in creating a more accurate representation of import/export trade value which would likely occur with Southern Independence.

My starting premise is that trade, with minor variation, must over time balance, and money must eventually return to the place of origin for exported products.

This is the untold story of the war, and I believe this map methodology makes it clearer what was occurring in terms of potential money lost to the North, and *that* makes it clearer as to why they were so intent on stopping Southern Independence.

You will remember that refusing to allow Independence was the one non-negotiable demand of the Union.

There was big money on the line, and *that* was why they could not allow the South to become independent.

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