I quoted from the Memphis Daily Avalanche article as it was posted on line. If there's any distortion here, it was in the passage of the story from newspaper to newspaper, article to article, book to book, not anything I did. That was sort of my point: this purported quote became part of the folklore passing from mouth to mouth and pen to pen and being changed in the process.
Your comment is a stretch. The informant said where he couldn't hear or perhaps the conversation went too fast for the informant to follow. But the informant appears to have heard much of the discussion, or else he would say like he did, that he couldn't follow this part or that part.
You are assuming good will or trustworthiness on the part of "our informant." His comments show that he had no goodwill towards Lincoln and no willingness to give him the benefit of the doubt. As for trustworthiness, here's another version of the conversation, also attributed to the Baltimore Exchange:
Mr. Lincoln replied that, mathematically speaking, the troops could not crawl under Maryland, nor could they fly over it, and consequently they would have to come through it. If he was to follow the advice of Dr. Fuller, he would have no Government at all. France and England would recognize the Southern Confederacy, and his revenues would be broken up, and the Government would be worth nothing.
Whether this came from the same informant or not it certainly qualifies the other report. It wasn't all about "my tariff." It was about preserving the government and the country, and revenues were only a part of what was in peril. It was clear that secessionists were going to seize on the idea of the whole conflict being about "my tariff," but the context given here makes very different interpretations possible and likely.
The Baldwin meeting is sketchier than the Fuller encounter, since a bloody war had happened by the time Baldwin reported the quote, with Baldwin on the other side from Lincoln. Plus, the role of Robert Dabney, a notorious lost cause proponent, further muddies the waters. By the time Baldwin made his testimony, "What about my tariff?" was so much a part of the mythology that inserting it into his testimony may have been too hard for him to resist.
I haven't looked at the Baldwin-Dabney reports for a while. In general, though, I have a hard time judging the validity of a lot of these reports because the language is so flowery that it seems obviously unnatural to our ears. Plus, the person making the report usually portrays himself in hindsight as so clearly right about everything and the other person as so wrong or boorish that it's hard not to suspect some distortion happened between the conversation and the recording of it.
You are assuming good will or trustworthiness on the part of "our informant."
I think the informant reported what he heard Lincoln say. Baldwin reported similar remarks from a different meeting with Lincoln earlier that April 1861. Future tariff revenue was a major topic in the newspapers of the time. It would have been very surprising if Lincoln had not been concerned about it too, making what he reportedly said on April 23 and April 4 to be quite likely his true sentiments.
Below are excerpts from newspaper articles and editorials of the time previously posted on FreeRepublic -- some by me, some by others. Some came from posts I archived whose entire threads were later deleted by FR because of unrelated flame wars.
- I will indent excerpts from each post I extract information from.
- Extracts of editorials and articles will be shown in small indented fort.
- Bold red font will be used for anything I want to emphasize.
[Prediction] From the New York Post of March 2, 1861 [the day the Morrill Tariff was signed into law by Buchanan]
That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the port must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources, which supply our treasury, will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe.
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.[Prediction and explanation] From the New York Times of March 30, 1861:
With the loss of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many hundred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior? They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers...Once at New Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country duty-free. The process is perfectly simple... The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North..."
"We now see clearly whither we are tending, and the policy we must adopt. With us it is no longer an abstract question---one of Constitutional construction, or of the reserved or delegated powers of the State or Federal government, but of material existence and moral position both at home and abroad.....We were divided and confused till our pockets were touched." [Underline emphasis added][Predictions and very early results] from the New York Herald of March 2, 1861:
The effect of these two tariffs, then, upon our trade with the best, and most reliable part of the country will most disastrously be felt in all the Northern cities. We learn that even now some of the largest houses in the Southern trade in this city, who have not already failed, are preparing to wind up their affairs and abandon business entirely. The result of this as regards the value of property, rents, and real estate, can be readily seen. Within two months from this time it will probably be depreciated from twenty to forty percent.
[NYC results] From the New Orleans Daily Crescent newspaper of May 15, 1861 quoting the New York Day Book newspaper.
All New York is failing. The suspensions and failures of the past few days have been fearful, and the war promises to bankrupt every merchant in New York. The retail business is as bad off as the wholesale. Nobody is purchasing anything, and trade is killed.
The following is a comparative statement of the imports of foreign dry goods at the port of New York for the week ending April 27:
For the week. ……….……1860 ……..….1861
Entered at the port, ………...$1,503,483 …...$393,061
Thrown on the market, …….$1,650,790 ..….$396,992
The imports of dry goods are very small this week, probably the least reported for many years.
Well may Mr. Lincoln ask, "What will become of my revenue?"
…
[There] "have been over 200 failures in New York since the 22d April, and within the last month not less than 300. Real estate has no sale at any price and rents are comparatively normal. Total bankruptcy stares all in the face, and starvation will become a daily visitor to the abode of the poor."
[Trade between North and South, the impact on Northern business. T’aint just Northern tariff revenue] From the Lincoln-supporting Philadelphia Press on March 18, 1861 :
One of the most important benefits which the Federal Government has conferred upon the nation is unrestricted trade between many prosperous States with divers productions and industrial pursuits. But now, since the Montgomery Congress has passed a new tariff, and duties are extracted on Northern goods sent to ports in the Cotton States, the traffic between the two sections will be materially reduced.
…
Another, and a more serious difficulty arises out of our foreign commerce, and the different rates of duty established by the two tariffs which will soon be in force.
…
The General Government, … to prevent the serious diminution of its revenues, will be compelled to blockade the Southern ports … and prevent the importation of foreign goods into them, or to put another expensive guard upon the frontiers to prevent smuggling into the United States.[Prediction and what could be done] From the Philadelphia Public Ledger as reported in the Richmond, VA Dispatch on March 19, 1861 (paragraph breaks mine):
The Revenue and Its Collection.
The last act of the United States Congress was to largely increase the rates of duties upon importations; the first act of the secession Confederation was to reduce them. The natural effect of these two diametrically opposite policies is to drive importations away from Northern ports and to send them to Southern ports, to avoid the duties.
There being no interior custom-houses, no collectors at the railroad stations, which extend from one State to another, or upon the great rivers which sweep through Southern and Northern States, there is nothing to prevent these importations into Southern ports from being sent to every Northern city, and foreign articles may be introduced, and sold under the very noses of those who were to be protected by a high tariff to the exclusion of the home production.
The Government can only prevent this by collecting duties at the mouth of Southern harbors, or establishing a chain of internal custom-houses all along the line which separates the United States from the seceding States. The latter there is no authority for till Congress shall authorize it, and the expense would be enormous. The former is attended with difficulties which are almost insurmountable. It might be an easy matter to station national vessels at the mouth of the Mississippi, or at the entrances to Savannah and Charleston, but the collection districts are so numerous that all the unemployed vessels in the American Navy would be required to guard them.
How the difficulty is to be got over is not so clear, though the consequence to Northern commerce of allowing goods to enter Southern ports under low duties, or none at all, are very evident. If secession is to be uninterred [uninterferred?] with, the only way to preserve the commerce of the North will be to open our ports free of duties. This is one of the inevitable consequences of successful revolution in the South, and the fact has got to be faced squarely./blockquote>[Repeal the Morrill tariff] From the New York Herald on March 19, 1861 (paragraph break mine):
" The combined effects of these two tariffs must be to desolate the entire North, to stop its importations, cripple its commerce and turn its capital into another channel; for, although there is specie now lying idle in New York to the amount of nearly forty millions of dollars, and as much more in the other large cities, waiting for an opportunity of investment, it will be soon scattered all over the country, wherever the most available means of using it are presented, and it will be lost to the trade of this city and the other Northern states. There is nothing to be predicted of the combination of results produced by the Northern and Southern tariffs but general ruin to the commerce of the Northern confederacy... “
“The tariff of the South opens its ports upon fair and equitable terms to the manufacturers of foreign countries, which it were folly to suppose will not be eagerly availed of; which the stupid and suicidal tariff just adopted by the Northern Congress imposes excessive and almost prohibitory duties upon the same articles. Thus the combination of abolition fanatics and stockjobbers in Washington has reduced the whole North to the verge of ruin, which nothing can avert unless the administration recognizes the necessity of at once calling an extra session of Congress to repeal the Morrill tariff, and enact such measures as may bring back the seceded States, and reconstruct the Union upon terms of conciliation, justice and right."[Repeal the Morrill Tariff; loan in trouble] From the Cincinnati Enquirer as reported in the Memphis Daily Appeal of March 27, 1861:
The New York and all Eastern Republicans are getting clamorous for an extra session. They now admit that, critical and extraordinary as the condition of the country is, the President is without power to take any effectual step toward its relief. He can effect no fixed and decisive policy toward the seceding States, because no laws give him authority to carry it into effect.
He cannot enforce the laws, because no power has been put at his command for that purpose. He cannot close the ports which refuse to pay Federal duties, nor has he the authority to enforce payment except through the local authorities. These, moreover, are the least of the difficulties which embarrass the action of the Government. This loan is called for, but there is no prospect of revenue to render it safe. The seceded States invite imports under the tariff of 1857, at least ten per cent. lower than that which the Federal Government has just adopted. As a matter of course, foreign trade will seek southern ports, because it will be driven there by the Morrill tariff. It has been stated that Secretary Chase has been heard to say that the tariff bill must be repealed.I’ve shown in other posts that the war, inflation in the North, and the Morrill Tariff seriously impacted Northern tariff revenue during 1861 and the rest of the war.
x, if all of these newspapers recognized the situation the North was in, but Lincoln didn’t, that would have been very odd. Lincoln was shrewd and smart. Though you may not accept it, his words to the delegation from Baltimore and separately to Baldwin in April 1861 are consistent with what a smart guy like Lincoln would have recognized. Or, perhaps you might argue that he was dumber than the newspapers and therefore couldn’t have believed those things or said them to his visitors in April 1861.