It's about both.
But for you, the Confederates are choirboys, saintly types who never do anything out of self-interest.
You mistake me. I have little doubt that the wealthy of Charleston would have became the exact same sort of pretentious Controlling bastards that we now have running the country from New York. I make no claim that they are morally superior to the robber barons of New York, I think people are people, and they will always behave like people.
My point here is that they were exercising a right to self determination, while the Northerners were trying to suppress their right of self determination. The boundary line at determining fault is based on who was trying to oppress who. The Southerners were not trying to invade New York, or any other Northern territory. They were no threat to the United States, and they should have been left alone to seek whatever form of government they wished, even if they were a bunch of evil bastards.
One's right to self determination is not based on a subjective standard of "evil." It exists for any group of people, even people with whom we disagree.
Tariffs were low after 1846. Southern states didn't have a legitimate grievance over existing tariff rates.
Tariffs were just part of their problem. Various laws passed by the Northern coalition had jiggered trade so that it all went through New York, and according to one of BroJoeK's sources, 40% of that income was siphoned off as a consequence. Usage of the word "tariffs" minimizes the larger economic picture. It was bigger than just the losses caused by tariffs.
1) The CSA was going to tax exports. This would make their cotton more expensive and encourage foreign processors to seek other sources.
You can only claim that it would make it more expensive by giving us some numbers, and comparing it to the losses caused by the taxation of imports and the cost to the South of all the trade going through New York. (where investors were also getting profits.)
You can't make a blanket statement that because they were going to tax exports, this would have made cotton more expensive than what they already had with the Union. That is highly unlikely. Even with a tax on exports, they would have likely had significantly reduced costs elsewhere, and significantly reduced taxes on the things their money would buy from Europe.
Once again, you are trying to take a small piece of the picture, and make it into the entire story without taking into account the other bits.
It would also mean more of them money from cotton exports would end up in the pockets of the government, ...
This is true. Taxes put money in the pockets of the government, but it is a necessary evil if one is to have a government.
rather than those plantation owners...
That is non sequitur. The fact that they are getting taxed does not necessarily mean they will have less money in their pockets. They were already getting taxed on the back end from import tariffs, so putting it on the front end (exports) will only cost them money in their pockets if the tax rate exceeded that which they were already paying on the back end.
I think their taxes would have come out cheaper over all, and I also think their cost of doing business would have become dramatically cheaper when they could use foreign shipping to carry their trade, and when they didn't have to drop off profits in New York.
... you care so much about.
And here you are throwing another nasty ad hominem at me. No, I don't care about wealthy plantation owners. I merely recognize that they had a right to do what they wanted, even if they were evil @$$holes.
2) Confederate tariffs would apply to all imports from the United States. In practice, this would mean that Southerners in the CSA would pay more in tariffs, not less.
I very greatly doubt that. I think you are just throwing out another non sequitur in the hopes I won't notice that your claim has no underlying support.
Why did Argentina, a country settled largely by Europeans and one of the richest countries in the world at one point, become "backward" and "third world"? By thinking they'd become fabulously wealthy if they cut out the middlemen.
I've never heard "Socialism" referred to as "middlemen" before. Argentina at one time had something like the third most powerful economy in the World, and then the fools voted in Socialism, and it all went to sh*t.
Why did Russia, again a rapidly developing economy before the revolution eventually become an basket case?
Why did Russia, a rapidly developing economy before the revolution, eventually become a basket case?
Um, I'll take Communist revolutions for $1,000 Alex! Seriously, I can't believe you asked that question, and on a conservative website to boot!
Why did non-White China and Japan become such great economic successes?
Uh, Capitalism? (Of course China went through a *LONG* period of terrible economic depression while they were Communist.)
You can't pronounce it as dogma that the Confederacy would be an economic success, especially since cotton prices would eventually come down.
Sure they would have eventually come down, but what do you suppose would have happened to all that capital that would have been created before that happened?
Do you think people would just put it in the bank and swim in it like Scrooge McDuck? You would have to be a spectacularly stupid sort of rich man to let money do nothing but sit in a bank.
That money would have gotten invested, and those investments would have paid dividends into the future. The entire social/economic structure would have been raised as a consequence of capital and investment created by that larger flow of money into their system.
They wanted to break off all the slave territory they could. They wanted Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland, even Arkansas. Weakening the US in other ways would help them to achieve this. Davis, Stephens and the others weren't idealists seeking "self-determination." They were government guys playing Realpolitik and seeking to increase the sphere of their power and the viability of their new state.
Various laws passed by the Northern coalition had jiggered trade so that it all went through New York, and according to one of BroJoeK's sources, 40% of that income was siphoned off as a consequence.
So you say. But maybe New York City was more efficient at what it did and the effects of such laws was trivial. And really, I doubt BroJoe would agree with you that money was being "siphoned off."
You can't make a blanket statement that because they were going to tax exports, this would have made cotton more expensive than what they already had with the Union.
That is not at all what I said. I said, taxes on cotton would make European producers look to other sources. There was no great bonanza coming by cutting out New York. Most likely money would go to London businessmen, rather than to New Yorkers. But the deflection of trade resulting from export taxes and revulsion at slavery would have had major repercussions for the Confederate economy.
I very greatly doubt that. I think you are just throwing out another non sequitur in the hopes I won't notice that your claim has no underlying support.
On the contrary. Southerners used a lot of products produced in the North. Those products likely had lower shipping costs than products from Britain or elsewhere. They were probably more adapted to North American conditions. Slapping a 10% tariff on those goods would make many goods Southerners bought and used everyday more expensive. Dismissing that argument as a non-sequitur just indicates how unserious you are.
Similar ideas about commercial middlemen and capitalistic exploiters ruined Russia. You are pedaling the idea that New York capitalists were exploiting the Old South. It's likely that any government that followed your view would wreck the economy with its attempts to expropriate or redirect existing flows of commerce. Your stupid and childish mockery doesn't address the issues involved.
That money would have gotten invested, and those investments would have paid dividends into the future. The entire social/economic structure would have been raised as a consequence of capital and investment created by that larger flow of money into their system.
That did not happen in the West Indies before sugar prices went down. It didn't happen in other countries when rubber or coffee or some other commodity was riding high. It was quite the opposite: providing a single raw material for industrialized countries was a good way to ensure poverty, rather than wealth.
It is impossible to prove a counterfactual -- to prove authoritatively how things would be if some factors were different. You have to allow for a range of possibilities. I'm not saying definitely that the Confederacy would have been an economic basket case. But that was a real possibility. Ignoring possibilities and dogmatically insisting that you know what would have happened makes your argument and posts ridiculous.