And both typically respond to challenges by first posting yet more quotes and then descending into insults before finally disappearing.
All that in mind, here's my response to FLT-bird's most recent.
Enjoy!
FLT-bird: "No, there had long been large sectional differences especially in tariff and trade policy, the size and scope of the federal government, the existence of a central bank, corporate subsidies, etc etc. "
Sectional differences? Maybe.
But they were never strictly "North vs. South", and I'll cite again that of the four Whig presidents, three were Southern born slaveholders.
We can also note the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations" was not strictly "North vs. South" since it was opposed by many New Englanders and supported by such Southerners as Henry Clay (KY), Andrew Jackson (TN) and even, for a time, by John Calhoun (SC).
FLT-bird: "The letter from Jefferson I cited complaining about Northerners "draining our (ie the South's) substance" was a direct reference to the rapacious tariff policy that was proving economically ruinous to the South but which benefitted Northern special interests greatly."
I've seen no such quote, and would challenge it, for starters, considering that average tariff rates under President Jefferson were 1/3 higher (10.7%) than they had been under the previous Federalist administration (8%).
How else was Jefferson going to pay for the Barbary Wars and Louisiana purchase?
FLT-bird: "Why limit it to "fire eaters"?
Seems like somebody is trying to stack the deck here."
Because Southern Democrat Fire Eaters were the people who truly mattered politically in the 1850s and 1860 -- they constantly pushed for secession, first threatened secession in 1856 if Abolitionist Republican John Fremont was elected president, in 1860 they split their own Democrat party in two and when Lincoln was elected, they immediately pushed for secession, then war against the United States.
When it came to secession & war, Fire Eaters mattered like no others because their views won out.
FLT-bird: "There were plenty of prominent Southerners who felt slavery's days were numbered.
Those included Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, The Chairman of the Confederate House Ways and Means committee Duncan Kenner..."
Totally irrelevant since none of those were in charge of the secession votes, and when push-came-to-shove at Fort Sumter, Jefferson Davis listened to his Fire Eaters (i.e. Louis Wigfall) first, and ignored perfectly reasonable warnings like Robert Toombs':
- "Mr. President [Davis], at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North.
You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death.
It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."[19]"
CSA Secretary of State, Robert Toombs, April 9, 1861
But they were not in charge in 1860-61, Fire Eaters were and Fire Eaters had no intentions of letting abolition happen.
FLT-bird: "Now you're just outright lying.
Southerners complained bitterly about the Tariff of Abominations.
That's what caused the Nullification Crisis. "
Sorry, but no, you're mistaken, starting here: not all Southerners opposed the 1828 Tariff of Abominations, and not all Northerners supported it.
In the beginning notable Southern supporters included Henry Clay (KY), Andrew Jackson (TN) and even John Calhoun (SC).
Sure, as negotiations progressed Calhoun flipped sides, however, the majority of New Englanders also opposed the new tariff -- so it was not about "North vs. South".
FLT-bird: "The compromise solution was to get rid of those rapacious tariffs.
It was only a matter of time before Northern special interests would be back to try again.
Aside from the fact that Lincoln was a huge supporter of massively high tariffs, the Morrill Tariff had already passed the House in 1860 and was sure to pass the Senate given they only needed to pick off one or two Senators and that could easily be done with good ole' log rolling. "
Sorry, but again you're mistaken, beginning here: the highest rates in the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations" were reduced in gradual steps from 1832 to 1860 such that by 1860 average rates reached roughly levels of President Washington in 1792 = 15%.
The last major reductions were the 1846 Walker Tariff and the Tariff of 1857, both supported by Southern Democrats.
The lowest Tariff of 1857 resulted in less Federal revenue, but greatly increased Democrat government spending doubled the national debt from 1856 to 1860.
So, in 1860 the original Republican Morrill proposal was to return tariffs to roughly their 1846 Walker Tariff levels, increasing revenues, reducing the national debt and protecting all American manufacturing (not just Northern factories) against cheaper imports.
In December 1860 Robert Rhett briefly mentioned tariffs in his "Reasons for Secession" letter, but does not mention that Senate Democrats defeated the Morrill bill in 1860, or that in the House enough representatives abstained to have defeated Morrill, if they really wanted to.
Bottom line: in 1860 Democrats successfully opposed the Morrill bill which would have returned tariff rates to roughly levels Democrats had supported under Democrat President Polk in 1846.
FLT-bird: "As for claims that Southerners did not mention it or complain about it bitterly and repeatedly before - that's the most laughable lie.
I've posted newspaper articles, statements from the declarations of causes of secession as well as the statements of numerous Southern politicians showing what a lie it is you're trying to spread here.
Anybody who reads this thread can see it for himself."
Sorry, but again you're mistaken, starting here: you've misstated my views.
What I've accurately reported is that none of the "Reasons for secession" documents before Fort Sumter mentioned the Morrill Tariff as a reason -- indeed, the word "tariff" does not appear in any of the four official documents.
Neither do the unofficial reports of Robert Rhett or Alexander Stephens dwell at length on it.
Indirectly, Rhett says this:
- "For the last forty years [meaning, since 1820] the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North.
The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue -- to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures."
In fact, the very first US Tariff of 1789, under President Washington -- pushed through the House by Congressman James Madison -- states, as its purpose:
- "Whereas it is necessary for that support of government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and the encouragement and protection of manufactures, that duties be laid on goods, wares and merchandise:"[1]
Here's where average rates went under following presidents:
- Southern Federalist President Washington: 15% average tariffs.
- Northern Federalist President Adams (Tariff of 1792): 8%
- Southern Democrat President Jefferson: 10.7%
- Southern Democrat President Madison: 10.1%
- Southern Democrat President Monroe (1816 Dallas Tariff): 20%
- Northern Democrat President Adams (Tariff of 1824): 22%
- Southern Democrat President Jackson (1828 Tariff of Abominations): 35%
- Northern Democrat President Van Buren: 14%
- Southern Whig Presidents Harrison/Tyler: 24%
- Southern Democrat President Polk (1846 Walker Tariff): 23%
- Southern Whig President Taylor/Fillmore: 22%
- Northern Democrat President Pierce: 22%
- Northern Democrat President Buchanan (Tariff of 1857): 15%
FLT-bird: "The denial of it is another of the big PC Revisionist Lies.
The real truth is the North was replete with greed and corruption.
Its how the whole society worked.
Note I did not say "Republicans".
I said the North - especially New England.....Y'know the guys who sold all those slaves in the first place."
Your criticism is only potentially accurate if by "the North" you mean Northern Democrats -- the globalist financial interests who served King Cotton commerce, corrupt Big City Democrat immigrant bosses like NY's Tammany Hall, Democrat political allies of large Southern plantation owners, etc.
Those are the corrupt Northerners, allies of Southern Democrats, who ruled over Washington, DC, from roughly 1801 until secession in 1861 -- not Republicans.
So, FLT-bird, you can criticize Democrats all you wish, North or South, and you'll get no grief from me for it.
But when you start throwing in pre-1860 Republicans then I'll call you on it, because that's pure nonsense.
FLT-bird: "The PC Revisionist Big Lie is to try to push the Myth of the Virtuous North.
That is, to pretend the North was motivated by some deep and abiding sense of morality and that their finely tuned morals were just so offended by the existence of slavery in the Southern states."
Throughout the period before 1860 over half the North was closely allied, both politically and economically, with Southern Democrats.
These people had all the political power in Washington, DC, and all the economic power in Big Cities like New York.
They were very likely just as corrupt as you imagine them, and as they are today.
But they were not Republicans.
Republicans were a very different group of people, then just as today.
Republicans were born, circa 1854, as the anti-slavery party, a moral value Republicans first learned in their churches, and from books like "Uncle Tom's Cabin".
So Republicans never claimed to be more moral than anybody else, but they did understand slavery as a moral abomination against God, and that slavery should be restricted where ever possible.
FLT-bird: "Firstly I did not say "Republican".
You falsely assumed that's what I was saying."
It's certainly what you intended, because all Lost Causers must desperately work to hide the distinctions between their own Northern Democrat allies and a very different group of people named Republicans.
So here's the deal: say what you wish about Northern Democrats, they were likely just as corrupt as you claim, and as they are today.
But Republicans before 1860 -- for whatever their actual faults might be -- were not your corrupt Big City big business, financial & political bosses.
FLT-bird: "They also benefitted from the subsidies the federal government gave (paid overwhelmingly by Southerners) to the building of railroads, canals, etc.
As well as corporate subsidies which went overwhelmingly to the North."
First, the great Southern Democrats Big Lie is that somehow Southerners "paid overwhelmingly" Federal revenues.
You might even label it: the Lie that Launched the Civil War.
But the real truth is: Confederate state economies generated roughly 15% of total US GDP in 1860 -- about $660 million of $4.4 billion -- and so 15% was the initial 1861 loss of Federal revenues after secession.
Sure, 1860 cotton exports did gross roughly $200 million, about half of total exports including specie.
But Southerners also "imported" about $200 million in manufactured goods from the North -- i.e., woolen & cotton clothing, shoes, iron stoves, railroad equipment, farm implements & nails, paper, soap, candles, etc.
In 1861 when such Confederate state "imports" ended, then net results reduced Federal tariff revenues about 15% -- that was the overall importance of the Confederate states' economy to the US total.
By the way, the equivalent number today is roughly 30% of US GDP.
Second, in your complaints about alleged favoritism for Northerner spending, which never actually existed, the whole idea would be completely blown away by remembering one thing: the 1854 Gadsden Purchase.
At a time when total Federal "infrastructure" spending averaged about $2 million/year, in 1854 at the urging of Democrat Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, Congress approved $10 million to purchase land from Mexico for a transcontinental railroad Southern Route.
Now that was Federal favoritism, explicitly for the South and especially to benefit Davis personally, since the proposed Southern Route ran near his plantation in Mississippi.
Third, your term "corporate subsidies" is nowhere to be found in any 1860-1 "Reasons for Secession" document.
What you can find is Georgia's complaint about "bounties" for "fishing smacks" which they claim total $500,000 per year, a number for that time which cannot be accepted uncritically!
Turns out, when we look it up, that $500,000 figure was disputed by Alabama Senator Clay, who said it was only $200,000.
Second, the "bounty" was first supported & enacted under Secretary of State Jefferson, then renewed by Southern Democrat presidents & Congresses every year until 1860.
Third, as for preferential treatment, it was pointed out the Federal government spent in one year more money removing Indians from Georgia (Trail of Tears) than in all 70 years of bounties to "fishing smacks".
Point is, all those secession-justifying complaints are just political nonsense.
FLT-bird: "This is mostly false.
It was the Whigs and later Republicans who were backed by big business.
Lincoln was the chief counsel and lobbyist for the huge Illinois Central Railroad after all. "
Whose chief executive was Democrat George McClellan!
Republican Lincoln was just their hired-gun, the real executive powers were Democrats.
Then as now, Democrats ruled New York City's corrupt politics, global finances, big business manufacturing and transportation, not to mention entertainment.
Those Northern Democrats allied with Southern Democrat big-business plantation owners to rule over both the Northern economy and national politics until 1861.
Small-town, small-business, middle-class religious & conservative Republicans had nothing to do with any of that.
FLT-bird: "This is again false.
The South had been outvoted in the House of Representatives from day one.
They never had the population the North did."
Sorry, but you are again mistaken because, on Day One there was no "South vs. North".
Delaware & Georgia were among the first to ratify the Constitution in 1787, North Carolina (1789) and Rhode Island (1790) were the last -- so it had nothing to do with "North vs. South".
The first President (Washington) was a Southerner and so were the third, fourth, fifth, seventh, ninth, tenth, eleventh & twelfth.
Also the eighth, fourteenth & fifteenth Presidents were (highly sympathetic to slavery) Northern Democrats.
In Congress Southerners dominated their Democrat party from the time of Jefferson & Madison until secession in 1861, and Democrats ruled over Congress in all but two terms from 1801 until 1861.
Southerners also dominated in the US Supreme Court, from the beginning, and most especially in 1857 for their Dred Scott ruling.
Bottom line: nothing happened long-term in Washington, DC, before 1861 unless it was approved by Southern Democrats, and that would include such spending as "bounties" for "fishing smacks".
FLT-bird: "PC Revisionists seem to gloss over the fact that at the time the Constitution was ratified it was the South that was by far the richest part of the country.
Being much poorer, the North claimed it needed massive subsidies to get its infant industries on their feet. "
So, first of all, overall US per-capita income in 1790 was roughly 1/3 higher than in, say, England, so no region was truly "poor" on average.
In 1790 average Southern white incomes were about 1/3 better off than New Englanders.
Second, the real point of "bounties" to "fishing smacks" proposed by then Secretary of State Jefferson was that sea-wise fishermen were the first place to look for Navy sailors in case of war.
Another point to remember is these "bounties" made caught-fish more abundant, and therefore cheaper, and Southerners "imported" about $3 million worth of canned & smoked fish yearly from the North.
So, how many Southerners wanted to see prices for Northern canned & smoked fish go up if those "bounties" were eliminated?
That is doubtless the reason such "bounties" persisted over seven decades & 15 different administrations, mostly Southern Democrats.
FLT-bird: "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."
That is a total lie, it's pure propaganda, it was a lie then and cannot become truer by constant repetition.
The reason is that of all the tariffs collected by 1860, far less than 10% were collected at all Southern ports combined.
Over 85% of all tariffs were collected from the big-three Northern ports of Boston, New York and Philadelphia.
From there imports were shipped all over the country until it's impossible to say who finally paid for what.
And all claims that somehow Southerners "paid for" a disproportionate share are belied by the fact that Southerners "imported" huge volumes of manufactured goods, not from overseas, but from the North -- woolen & cotton clothing, shoes, iron stoves, railroad & farm equipment, nails, paper, candles, soap & fish, etc.
On top of that were food products from wheat, corn & livestock.
All that's in part where Northerners earned money to pay tariffs on foreign imports.
FLT-bird: "The bill immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent (according to Frank Taussig in Tariff History of the United States) to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items."
The original Morrill proposal, the one defeated in the Senate in 1860, would have raised rates roughly back to 1846 Walker Tariff levels, which was supported by Southerners like President Polk at the time.
But by early 1861 conditions were changing quickly, Southerners seceded and there was already a threat of war.
So the bill that passed in 1861, and all subsequent revisions, took the new circumstances into account.
FLT-bird: "At the time, Taussig says, the import-dependent South was paying as much as 80 percent of the tariff, while complaining bitterly that most of the revenues were being spent in the North.
The South was being plundered by the tax system and wanted no more of it. https://mises.org/library/lincolns-tariff-war"
That was a total lie then and is still so today, regardless of how often you repeat it.
Here's the real truth: in 1860 the South amounted to about 15% of the US GDP, and roughly 15% was the loss of Federal revenues in 1861, after secession.
FLT-bird: "Lincoln literally promised in his first inaugural address a military invasion if the new, tripled tariff rate was not collected."
And Confederate newspapers of the day pronounced that a "Declaration of War".
But the truth is Lincoln thought he was being mild-mannered, compromising and accommodating, saying:
- "...In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority.
The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion -- no using of force against or among the people anywhere. "
So Lincoln did not need Confederate tariff revenues, but he had sworn to uphold the Constitution and Federal laws, and (unlike, Democrat Biden) could not walk away from his oath of office.
FLT-bird: "South Carolinians in particular were convinced of the general truth of Rhett's and Hammond's much publicized figures upon Southern tribute to Northern interests." (Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, Ordeal of the Union, Volume 2, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950, p. 332)"
Right, nobody I've seen argues that many Southerners didn't believe the published numbers -- why should Southerners doubt such numbers?
But the fact remains, those numbers were lies then, are still lies now -- there's no way they can be true.
FLT-bird: "On 18 March 1861, the Boston Transcript noted that while the Southern states had claimed to secede over the slavery issue, now "the mask has been thrown off and it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding states are now for commercial independence.
First & foremost, let's notice here that "Southern states" claimed slavery was their reason for secession.
They dream that the centres of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports....by a revenue system verging on free trade...."
So, sure, anybody might argue there was some "real reason", but slavery is what they claimed.
Second, whatever boogieman 1861 Bostonians may have feared, the reality was that no "free trade" was ever proposed in the Confederacy, that Confederates then intended to charge the same rates as the Union Tariff of 1857 -- they too needed revenue -- and no honest Union merchant would ever pay tariffs twice to import to, for example, St. Louis by shipping through Confederate New Orleans.
FLT-bird quoting NYTimes: "If the manufacturer at Manchester (England) can send his goods into the Western States through New Orleans at less cost than through New York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage....if the importations of the country are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel. "
That manufacturer would certainly be a fool if he shipped via a route which required him to pay tariffs twice -- first to Confederates in New Orleans, then to the Union in, for example, St. Louis.
We might also notice that at roughly this same time, Confederates themselves were debating the necessity of raising tariffs, not just on imports, but also on exports! -- they needed the money.
So suggestions that Northerners would want to pay export taxes to ship through New Orleans is pure fantasy.
FLT-bird quoting: "The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods.
What is our shipping without it?
Literally nothing.
The transportation of cotton and its fabrics employs more than all other trade.
It is very clear the South gains by this process and we lose.
No, we must not let the South go."
The Manchester, New Hampshire Union Democrat Feb 19 1861"
First, I'm not 100% certain if all these quotes are legit, but for sake of argument, I'll stipulate this one is.
The basic fact is that by February 1861 many Northerners, especially Democrats, were content to let Confederates "go in peace".
These are the Democrats who would read the New Hampshire Union Democrat newspaper and think, "can't we all just get along?"
It only slowly dawns of them that... wait a minute... we too could get hurt, big time, and that is what this newspaper is telling them.
Democrats then as now had a different mind-set and responded to different motivations.
FLT-bird quoting: "allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten percent which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York.
The Railways would be supplied from the southern ports."
New York Evening Post March 12, 1861 article "What Shall be Done for a Revenue?""
Again, regardless of what they were told to fear, the reality was that no Union merchant would ship products through Confederate ports and so pay tariffs twice, nor would he use a Confederate port (i.e., New Orleans) to export and so pay Confederate export taxes.
FLT-bird quoting: "The difference is so great between the tariff of the Union and that of the Confederated States, that the entire Northwest must find it to their advantage to purchase their imported goods at New Orleans rather than New York."
No it wasn't!
Confederate tariffs at the time were almost exactly the same as Union Tariffs of 1857.
Sure, those were lower than the new Morrill Tariffs, but not so much as to be completely discounted.
That's why no Union merchant would ship products through Confederate ports and so pay tariffs twice.
FLT-bird quoting: "December 1860, before any secession, the Chicago Daily Times foretold the disaster that Southern free ports would bring to Northern commerce:..."
This quote do I seriously doubt is legit because, first, it's too clever by half as it foretold disaster.
And, second, none of it is actually true.
FLT-bird quoting: "The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country.
Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole..."
And yet another lie, only potentially true if by "Southern products" you first include everything shipped down the Mississippi River for export from New Orleans and then also subtract from total exports the values of California gold and Nevada silver -- "specie".
The true number comes from just one commodity, cotton, and that did amount to about 50% of total 1860 US exports.
It's a big number and cotton did help pay for about $200 million in Southern "imports" from the North.
And, sad to say, as per usual, having copied & pasted his inventory of Lost Cause liar quotes, FLT-bird will now just descend into mindless insults or run away entirely.