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 If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources, which supply our treasury, will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next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.
Your post frames and adds accurate perspective to the rapidly worsening financial conditions in the north.
No reserves in the US Treasury. Very high government debt. Domestic and international investors unwilling to buy debt.
No money to pay themselves.
So, loss of cash revenue would not be foremost on Lincoln’s mind?
I think not.
Exports from the United States were raw materials, foodstuffs, and manufactures that were surplus goods over and above the needs of the people. They found their way to the shipping centers of the Northeast and were sent to the foreign countries that paid the most for the goods.
Upon analysis of Census and Customs data of the 1850s, it is clear that the export trade of the country, with regard to the origin of the exports, was three quarters of the whole of Southern origin. Much of raw materials used in manufacturing was of Southern origin.
Specifically, in 1860, the total value of exports as measured at US Customs houses before shipment was $316 million. Items of Southern origin such as cotton, tobacco, rice, naval stores, sugar, molasses, hemp, wheat and other products, along with the value of the cotton used in Northern export manufactures comprised 78% of the export issue.
The manufactures of the North were a small proportion of US trade. Those companies had been operated under the protective system, avowedly because they could not compete with the English manufacturers in the US market, and therefore certainly could not in a European market.
The greatest increase in Northern manufacturing had taken place in cotton based goods, which had raw materials supplied in greater amounts due to increases in Southern production in the 1850s. The South afforded raw material for Northern manufacturing.
New England, where the barren hills did not produce either the metals or other raw materials for durable goods, or the fields to produce grain for food, was especially vulnerable to change. Improved transportation and the resulting competition from Western farmers caused farmers in the Northeast to reduce their production of grain and shift to dairy farming and truck gardening, both of which provided them with products to sell to city dwellers that would not face competition from Western farmers
If secession occurred and faced without a market for their manufactures, the people had no source of raw materials for their employment, or payment for their food.
According to census figures, in the 1850s, the South produced twice the amount of food per person than the New England states. In fact, New England grew less than the amounts needed to sustain their population, but the large manufacturing interest of that section enabled it to import food from the South and West in exchange for merchandise. New England was a net importer of its food, largely from the South.
Northern cities and states bought corn, flour, sugar, rice, tobacco, lumber, hides, beef, pork, lard, molasses, naval stores, hemp, vegetables, oysters, and fruits from the South. The value of Southern goods shipped North in 1860 was $460 million.
The Northern states had their raw materials and food brought to them, and sent back goods manufactured under the cover of protective tariffs
In 1860, the South imported $346 million dollars worth of products. Of this list of goods, $240 million came from the Northern manufacturers and suppliers, and imported goods sold to the South was $106 million.
The entire country imported $336 million dollars in goods for that same year.
Grasping the significance and the magnitude of difference between the new Confederate tariff and the recently passed Morrill tariff, and the likelihood that the South would now transfer this demand to European goods and trade directly with Europe, Northern businessmen, politicians, and newspapermen knew that the demand for goods from the South was immense and would have a far reaching impact on their economy.
Practically every New England citizen would be affected by the loss of Southern goods traveling through the North.
Any artisan engaged in building in the shipping trade would be hurt. Any carman engaged in carrying, any agent who sold manufacturers, any merchant who sold to consumers in the South, any shipper, ship builder, lumberman, or laborer would be hurt.
Any brokers, exchange dealers, bankers, insurers, warehousemen, or suppliers of goods to these people would be hurt.
The profits to Northern coffers that were about to be lost were:
Bounties to fisheries, per annum………………………………$1,500,000.
Customs, per annum, disbursed at the North…………………$40,000,000.
Profits of northern manufacturers…………………………….$30,000,000.
Profits of importers…………………………………………...$16,000,000.
Profits of shipping, imports, exports………………………….$40,000,000.
Profits of Travelers……………………………………………$60,000,000.
Profits of agents, brokers, commissions……………………….$10,000,000
Profits from capital drawn from the South…………………….$30,000,000.
Total Annual Revenue Lost………………………………… $226,500,000.
Sources: US Dept. of Treasury; "Southern Wealth and Northern Profits", Kettel; W. E. B. Dubois; Statistical History of the U.S.
In other words, the Union went to war over their pocket book, and not a moral crusade to either "save the Union" or to "free the slaves."
Those claims were just propaganda for the Masses.
From the Lincoln-supporting Philadelphia Press on March 18, 1861
The publisher of the Press supported Buchanan and gradually shifted over to the Republicans. It shouldn't be assumed that he was staunchly "Lincoln-supporting" at that point. The Philadelphia Public Ledger was very much a Copperhead paper and looking for anything that could undermine the unionist cause.
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.
In the same way that the Confederate government would be forced to "blockade" its Northern border to keep its labor force from running off? In both cases, mass smuggling and mass runaways were things that might happen further on in time, not the pressing concerns of the present moment.
From the New Orleans Daily Crescent newspaper of May 15, 1861 quoting the New York Day Book newspaper [again, my emphasis below]:
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 famous New York Day-Book Weekly? "Acknowledged the Best of the Democratic Weeklies ... Having the best circulation of any Democratic Weekly in the country ..."? They even put "Caucasian" in the masthead in the 1860s. And added the slogan "White Men Must Rule." Not exactly an unbiased source of information. New York's economy in ruins! Mass bankruptcy! Okay, if you want to believe that. In the mean time, you might want look up the publisher, John H. Van Evrie. If his paper is evidence that the war was all about tariffs, it really is a lost cause.