Lincoln's Tariff War

Lew Rockwell ^ | 5/13/02 | Thomas Dilorenzo

[Non-Sequitur]

Look up what I said in any good history book or check it out on the web.

Here's a good history book for you. "Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running During the Civil War" by Stephen Wise. In it he gives a table that showed over 95% of all tariff income was collected in three Northern ports - New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. How could tariffs be such a bone of contention when the overwhelming majority of them were paid by northerners?

[Colt .45]

It would seem the die-hard Yankee whiners have totally forgotten why the 10th Amendment to the Bill of Rights was placed there. They also conveniently forget that this is supposed to be a government "of the people" ... a representative republic. They really need to study their Jefferson and Madison, who by the way, DID win the argument over Federalism.

[4CJ]

Some states - yes. But even so it was still legal - had been (and still was in some places) practiced in Northern states, and protected under the Constitution. Being deprived of $4 BILLION illegally doesn't concern you? The north ratified the Constitution, yet failed to uphold their end of the bargain. Compensated emancipation (not paid for by Southerners - why pay yourself?) was a choice - not theft.

[Treebeard]

As I recall, God used the jawbone of an ass to accomplish a part of his will.

Your post proves He still hasn't tired of the idea...

[Non-Sequitur]

You say compensated emancipation was an option and I would ask how? Ending slavery in any way, shape, or form would have required a Constitutional Amendment. I think that we can both agree on that. With 15 slave states that would mean that you would most likely have had at least 30 votes in the Senate against any amendment ending slavery. THere is no way that any such amendment would have gotten the necessary 2/3rds votes it needed. And that would have been against ending slavery under any conditions, compensated or otherwise, because the slave states saw no reason to end it. Why should they? Plantation agriculture was the source of their prosperity and that industry was fueled by slave labor. So a Constitutional resolution was out of the question.

So the south went to war. And once the war was ongoing then what use was a compensated emancipation plan? Even though Lincoln proposed it on more that one occasion as a chance to bring southern states back into the Union it never had a chance to succeed. The southern states were not about to drop their rebellion and rejoin the Union. And then after the Emancipation Proclemation who would he have compensated? All slaves in the areas in rebellion were immediately free, at least legally. Why compensate for someone that was already free.

So I would be interested in your view of how your compensated emancipation plan would have worked?

[stainlessbanner]

95% of all tariff income was collected in three Northern ports

If that number is true (of which I am sketical), I think it makes sense - the North set up tariffs to spur industrialism. The South is exporting agricultural goods, cotton, tobacco, etc. to the North and Europe. Tariffs and land sales were the federal governments two sources of income. Land sales were down from settlers/homestead acts out west, so tariffs are bumped.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I missed the cartoon where that Wascally Wabbit performed a brain transplant on you and forgot to put in the new brain. Must have been a good one.

[4CJ]

You say compensated emancipation was an option and I would ask how? Ending slavery in any way, shape, or form would have required a Constitutional Amendment. I think that we can both agree on that.

Compensated emancipation could have been offered via Amendment, or simply by federal legislation (as long as slavery was not outlawed). I think many slaveowners would have agreed to that - those that wanted slaves could contine, and those that wanted to emancipate their slaves could do so - without losing a fortune in the process.

The southern states were not about to drop their rebellion and rejoin the Union. Even when Lincoln offered "permanent" slavery. Considering their refusal, that ought to indicate that states-rights were more important.

So the south went to war.

No, Lincoln went to war. He refused diplomatic solutions and compensation for federal property within Confederate territories. Would the US have allowed the British to maintain their forts and garrisions on our property?

All slaves in the areas in rebellion were immediately free, at least legally

No - not legally. Lincoln himself understood his actions to be illegal, and SCOTUS ruled in ex parte Milligan Justice Davis said:

The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government.

If it was illegal before the war, it was illegal during he war. It still took a constitutional amendment.

[4CJ]

I need a new keyboard, to learn HTML, take typing lessons, and use a spell-checker. contine=continue.

[Non-Sequitur]

And had there been a compensated plan, by legislation since a Constitutional amendment would have been impossible to pass, it would have quickly become a scheme to dump older slaves past their working life while keeping the profitable ones. Many slave states had laws against emancipating slaves in general, but against emancipating elderly slaves in particular. This was done not through any sense of altruism but to keep counties from having to deal with elderly free blacks who might be a drain on the county resources. And those who sold off their slaves to the government, what would have kept them from buying younger replacements with the money received? THe only way it would have worked would have been as part of an overall emancipation plan that ended slavery on a set schedule. And that still would have taken a Constitutional amenment. One that never would have passed out of the Senate.

[Non-Sequitur]

Here are the net tariff figures for June 1859 thru June 1860 as published by Stephen Wise in his book, "Lifeline of the Confederacy":

New York - $35,155,452.75
Boston - $5,133,414.55
Philadelphia - $2,262,349.57
New Orleans - $2,120,058.76
Charleston - $299,399.43
Mobile - $118,027.99
Galveston - $92,417.72
Savannah - $89,157.18
Norfolk - $70,897.73
Richmond - $47,763.63
Wilmington, NC - $33,104.67
Pensacola - $3,577.60

Wise cites the "statement Showing the Amount of Revenue Collected Annually", Executive Document No.33, 36th Congress, 1st Session, 1860." as his source. If that is wrong then what do you have that shows otherwise?

I'm aware of what tariffs are for, but what these figures show is that the claim that the majority of tariffs were paid by southerners is false. The overwhelming majority were paid up North. Oh the south had busy ports all right. At the same time Mobile was netting $118,000 in revenue on less than a million dollars worth of imports it was exporting good worth 40 times that. Over $38 million dollars worth of exports, mostly cotton, went from Mobile to Europe. Over $107 million went from New Orleans to points overseas. Given the massive amount of exports flowing out of these ports, don't you think that there would be an equal amount of imports coming in if the demand down south had been there? But it didn't. Most of those outbound ships arrived empty, because there wasn't sufficient demand for imports to justify sending them directly to the south.

[4CJ]

Certainly any legislation/amendment could have included a fixed termination date, and included a provision that in exchange for compensation the person could no longer purchase slaves, or requirements that all their slaves be freed as a group. The possibilities were endless.

[Non-Sequitur]

But mere legislation alone could not have ended slavery nationwide. You could have placed limitations on repurchase of slaves, which would not have stood up in court. You could put limits on the length of the program but that would not have meant the end of slavery. Long and short of it is that it would, and did, take was an amendment and nothing you have said indicates that it would have been successful in the face of opposition from the slave states.

[4CJ]

With the courts ruling that slaves were "property" the legislature could effect change via the Commerce clause by simply majority preventing further sale, and Amendment V provided that "private property" could be taken by the government with just compensation.

As a further inducement, emancipation would negate the 3/5ths clause, thereby increasing representation of southern states, certainly something that they would have desired.

[stainlessbanner]

I'm not sure we can tell who paid the tariff fees by these figures. It certainly shows NY ports collecting lots of money, but it doesn't say who paid (was it Southrons, Yanks, Europeans, etc.?).

[stand watie]

free the southland NOW!

[stand watie]

YEP!

as for us of OLD rebel families, we have ALWAYS known the TRUTH about lincoln & damnyankees!

for dixie FREEDOM,sw

[Non-Sequitur]

That answer begs the obvious question: if the southern demand for imported good was so high then why weren’t the goods shipped directly to them? If the south actually did pay a disproportionate amount of the tariff collected, as DiLorenzo claims, then one would assume that they had the economic clout to insist that the goods be sent to them. Why fool around with a stop in New York and the added expense of loading the goods again for shipment south? And it’s not like the south was out of the way. Several million bales of cotton were sent overseas from southern ports each year. The ships that came calling to load the cotton could have brought millions of dollars of goods for import with them, if the demand had been there. The fact that they did not do this is the clearest evidence that southern demand for imported goods was not large enough to make the effort worth while. The south did pay a disproportionate amount of the tariffs collected, but is was a disproportionately small amount.

[Non-Sequitur]

Your answer makes no sense. How could the southerners avoid tariffs by importing the goods through southern ports? Tariffs were uniform and applied to goods imported regardless of the point of entry. The fact that so little tariff income was collected in southern ports is evidence that your claims are wrong.

[Aurelius]

BUMP