Dickens hated slavery, but hated Northerners more because he thought them only interested in cheating him out of money.
So it was a very small leap to universalize his own experiences onto the Union as a whole.*****
Ah so anybody who says something you don’t like is not credible because.....errr......reasons.
But I think it’s fair to say that in his travels in America before 1867, Dickens never met a Republican. His critique here, similar to our own Lost Causers, is of the Democrats who cheated him.****
He traveled all over the country. I’m sure he met plenty of Republicans.
Regarding Dickens last 1867 trip to the US:
“During his travels, he saw a change in the people and the circumstances of America.
His final appearance was at a banquet the American Press held in his honour at Delmonico’s on 18 April [1868], when he promised never to denounce America again. “
It appears obvious to me that in 1867 Dickens finally met some Republicans.****
LOL! It appears obvious to me that the Federals had won the war and held all the power and the money at that point, and Dickens did not want to alienate a significant source of his income.
Sure, Boston Democrats can be expected to see everything through their own economic prisms, and ignore the importance of slavery to Southerners. But one man’s “pretext” is another’s “sincere reason” and visa versa.****
They were not alone in seeing it this way. Several Northern sources also said the same thing.
The fact is, as this editorial reports, that the majority of average Southerners were unmoved by issues like tariffs, or “Northeastern power brokers” or “Money flows from Europe”, but were vitally concerned about any attacks on slavery.****
It says in essence that Calhoun couldn’t move the needle by only making an economic argument (though note that the economics were a major issue even in 1850) but instead needed to fire people up over the slavery issue.
By the way, the slavery issue also meant things like the Northern states violating the constitution quite openly. It meant financiers in the North providing money for domestic terrorists sent into the South to try to start a bloodbath (see Harper’s Ferry) AND the Northern states then not making any real attempt to punish the financiers of terrorism so long as it was directed against Southerners - be they slave owners or not.
This is a similar theme that Fire Eater Robert Rhett expressed in his December 1860 “Address to the Slaveholding States”:
“The one great evil from which all other evils have flowed, is the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States.
The Government of the United States is no longer the government of a confederate republic, but of a consolidated democracy.”
But remember, this was after 60 years of nearly continuous Democrat rule in Washington, DC, during which years Southerners were more than happy with conditions they controlled.****
Stop right there! No, Southerners were NOT “more than happy with conditions” and they did not “control” the federal government no matter how many times you try to claim they did. That makes zero sense. The Southern states were in the minority. The federal government enacted several policies they hated. That would hardly have happened had they been in control.
That was a lie in 1861 and is still a lie today.*
Nope! It was just as true then as it is today. It also shows the importance of the economic argument here - something you and the other PC Revisionists are trying to gloss over.
In fact, virtually everything Southerners “imported” they imported from the North.***
False. They imported manufactured goods from Britain and France on a large scale. That was precisely what Northern business interests were trying to crush with the high tariffs.
That’s where Northerners got the money to purchase foreign imports, tariffs on which supplied Federal revenues.****
The North’s main sources of revenue were manufactured goods which they sold in competition with foreign suppliers as well as the shipping industry over which they held a virtual monopoly thanks to the navigation laws, as well servicing Southern exports (insurance, banking, merchants, shipbuilding, etc). Oh and let’s not forget the thriving illicit slave trading they were engaged in.
The North had made a LOT of money from slave trading and servicing goods produced in significant part, by slave labor.
And what exactly were those foreign imports producing Federal revenues? The top items were woolens, brown sugar, cotton, silks, iron & coffee.****
Textiles, agricultural equipment and various household goods were the major imports. Yes, include Coffee too.
About 85% of these imports went to Northern ports, especially New York, about 15% to Southern ports.
That’s the truth of this matter, regardless of Fire Eater propaganda.*****
Right, and as I’ve explained to you multiple times already, the port, the city, the state does not pay the tariff. The owner of the goods does. That owner either directly or indirectly was overwhelmingly the Southern exporter.
Tariffs were paid at the point of ships unloading and warehousing. But our Lost Causer claims that they were really “paid for” by “Southern exports” are totally bogus.
At most, cotton would “pay for” half of imports.****
Again, WHERE they were paid is irrelevant. WHO paid is what is relevant. It was the Southern exporters either directly or indirectly who owned those manufactured goods and who paid the tariff. That’s something you PC Revisionists cannot face up to. James McPherson made a complete fool of himself trying to argue this. All he showed was that like most Leftists, he doesn’t have a clue about economics.
But in reality, virtually all cotton export earnings went to pay for imports from the North and very little left over for foreign imports.*****
False. It was precisely because Northern manufacturers were finding it so difficult to compete with foreign goods that they screamed for protective tariffs.
So, that map is a valid representation of Federal tariff revenue sources.*****
Not even close.
More from those Southerners who were only concerned about slavery and weren’t at all motivated by the economics.
In a speech delivered in the Virginia Convention of 1788, Patrick Henry had predicted that the South would eventually find itself economically subjugated to the North once the latter had secured to itself a majority in the new federal Government: “This government subjects every thing to the Northern majority. Is there not, then, a settled purpose to check the Southern interest?... How can the Southern members prevent the adoption of the most oppressive mode of taxation in the Southern States, as there is a majority in favor of the Northern States?” Henry’s prediction was not long in being realized. As early as 1789, the first impost bill was introduced in Congress which protected the New England fishing industry and its production of molasses, and exhibited, in the opinion of William Grayson, “a great disposition... for the advancement of commerce and manufactures in preference to agriculture.” Thus, when the Union under the Constitution was but two months old, many Southerners felt that their States were already being obliged to serve the North as “the milch cow out of whom the substance would be extracted.” In a pamphlet published in 1850, Muscoe Russell Garnett of Virginia wrote:
The whole amount of duties collected from the year 1791, to June 30, 1845, after deducting the drawbacks on foreign merchandise exported, was $927,050,097. Of this sum the slaveholding States paid $711,200,000, and the free States only $215,850,097. Had the same amount been paid by the two sections in the constitutional ratio of their federal population, the South would have paid only $394,707,917, and the North $532,342,180. Therefore, the slaveholding States paid $316,492,083 more than their just share, and the free States as much less.
From the days of the illustrious Henry onwards, the South had generally stood in the way of the Northern goal to make such an unjust system of taxation permanent. According to John Taylor of Virginia, a high protective tariff system, like that which existed in Great Britain, was “undoubtedly the best which has ever appeared for extracting money from the people; and commercial restrictions, both upon foreign and domestic commerce, are its most effectual means for accomplishing this object. No equal mode of enriching the party of government, and impoverishing the party of people, has ever been discovered.” Nevertheless, the North clung tenaciously to its protectionist policy and managed to push through the tariff legislation of 1828 which provoked South Carolina to resistance to the general Government and nearly to secession from the Union during the Administration of Andrew Jackson. It should be noted that, by 1828, the public debt was near to extinction and, at the current rate of taxation on imported goods, a twelve to thirteen million dollar annual surplus would have been created in the Treasury. Thus, the excuse for a high tariff system as a source of Government revenue was a flimsy one at best; the so-called “Tariff of Abomination” really served no other purpose than to “rob and plunder nearly one half of the Union, for the benefit of the residue.” James Spence of London explained the effects of such a high tariff on the Southern economy:
This system of protecting Northern manufactures, has an injurious influence, beyond the effect immediately apparent. It is doubly injurious to the Southern States, in raising what they have to buy, and lowering what they have to sell. They are the exporters of the Union, and require that other countries shall take their productions. But other countries will have difficulty in taking them, unless permitted to pay for them in the commodities which are their only means of payment. They are willing to receive cotton, and to pay for it in iron, earthenware, woollens. But if by extravagant duties, these be prohibited from entering the Union, or greatly restricted, the effect must needs be, to restrict the power to buy the products of the South. Our imports of Southern productions, have nearly reached thirty millions sterling a year. Suppose the North to succeed in the object of its desire, and to exclude our manufactures altogether, with what are we to pay? It is plainly impossible for any country to export largely, unless it be willing also, to import largely. Should the Union be restored, and its commerce be conducted under the present tariff, the balance of trade against us must become so great, as either to derange our monetary system, or compel us to restrict our purchases from those, who practically exclude other payment than gold. With the rate of exchange constantly depressed, the South would receive an actual money payment, much below the current value of its products. We should be driven to other markets for our supplies, and thus the exclusion of our manufactures by the North, would result in a compulsory exclusion, on our part, of the products of the South.
This is a consideration of no importance to the Northern manufacturer, whose only thought is the immediate profit he may obtain, by shutting out competition. It may be, however, of very extreme importance to others — to those who have products they are anxious to sell to us, who are desirous to receive in payment, the very goods we wish to dispose of, and yet are debarred from this. Is there not something of the nature of commercial slavery, in the fetters of a system that prevents it? If we consider the terms of the compact, and the gigantic magnitude of Southern trade, it becomes amazing, that even the attempt should be made, to deal with it in such a manner as this.
George McDuffie of South Carolina stated in the House of Representatives, “If the union of these states shall ever be severed, and their liberties subverted, historians who record these disasters will have to ascribe them to measures of this description. I do sincerely believe that neither this government, nor any free government, can exist for a quarter of a century under such a system of legislation.” While the Northern manufacturer enjoyed free trade with the South, the Southern planter was not allowed to enjoy free trade with those countries to which he could market his goods at the most benefit to himself. Furthermore, while the six cotton States — South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas — had less than one-eighth of the representation in Congress, they furnished two-thirds of the exports of the country, much of which was exchanged for imported necessities. Thus, McDuffie noted that because the import tariff effectively hindered Southern commerce, the relation which the Cotton States bore to the protected manufacturing States of the North was now the same as that which the colonies had once borne to Great Britain; under the current system, they had merely changed masters.
Robert Barnwell Rhett, who served in the House of Representatives and then in the Senate, said in 1850: “The great object of free governments is liberty. The great test of liberty in modern times, is to be free in the imposition of taxes, and the expenditure of taxes.... For a people to be free in the imposition and payment of taxes, they must lay them through their representatives.” Consequently, because they were being taxed without corresponding representation, the Southern States had been reduced to the condition of colonies of the North and thus were no longer free. The solution was determined by John Cunningham to exist only in independence:
The legislation of this Union has impoverished them [the Southern States] by taxation and by a diversion of the proceeds of our labor and trade to enriching Northern Cities and States. These results are not only sufficient reasons why we would prosper better out of the union but are of themselves sufficient causes of our secession. Upon the mere score of commercial prosperity, we should insist upon disunion. Let Charleston be relieved from her present constrained vassalage in trade to the North, and be made a free port and my life on it, she will at once expand into a great and controlling city.
In a letter to the Carolina Times in 1857, Representative Laurence Keitt wrote, “I believe that the safety of the South is only in herself.” James H. Hammond likewise stated in 1858, “I have no hesitation in saying that the Plantation States should discard any government that makes a protective tariff its policy.”
John H. Reagan of Texas, who would later become Postmaster-General of the Confederate Government, expressed similar sentiments when addressing the Republican members of the House of Representatives on 15 January 1861:
You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue laws, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay you to build up your great cities, your railroads, your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of northern capitalists. You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights and institutions....
We do not intend that you shall reduce us to such a condition. But I can tell you what your folly and injustice will compel us to do. It will compel us to be free from your domination, and more self-reliant than we have been. It will compel us to assert and maintain our separate independence. It will compel us to manufacture for ourselves, to build up our own commerce, our own great cities, our own railroads and canals; and to use the tribute money we now pay you for these things for the support of a government which will be friendly to all our interests, hostile to none of them
See that last quote....to manufacture for ourselves? Yet some would tell us Southerners weren’t at all interested in industrialization - nevermind that it had taken the western world by storm by the middle of the 19th century.