Lincoln's Tariff War

When Charles Adams published his book "For Good and Evil", a world history of taxation, the most controversial chapter by far was the one on whether or not tariffs caused the American War between the States. That chapter generated so much discussion and debate that Adams's publisher urged him to turn it into an entire book, which he did, in the form of "When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession."

Many of the reviewers of this second book, so confident were they that slavery was the one and only possible reason for both Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency and the war itself, excoriated Adams for his analysis that the tariff issue was a major cause of the war. (Adams recently told me in an email that after one presentation to a New York City audience, he felt lucky that "no one brought a rope.")

My book, "The Real Lincoln", has received much the same response with regard to the tariff issue. But there is overwhelming evidence that: 1) Lincoln, a failed one-term congressman, would never have been elected had it not been for his career-long devotion to protectionism; and 2) the 1861 Morrill tariff, which Lincoln was expected to enforce, was the event that triggered Lincoln’s invasion, which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

A very important article that documents in great detail the role of protectionism in Lincoln’s ascendancy to the presidency is Columbia University historian Reinhard H. Luthin's "Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff," published in the July 1944 issue of The American Historical Review. As I document in The Real Lincoln, the sixteenth president was one of the most ardent protectionists in American politics during the first half of the nineteenth century and had established a long record of supporting protectionism and protectionist candidates in the Whig Party.

In 1860, Pennsylvania was the acknowledged key to success in the presidential election. It had the second highest number of electoral votes, and Pennsylvania Republicans let it be known that any candidate who wanted the state’s electoral votes must sign on to a high protectionist tariff to benefit the state’s steel and other manufacturing industries. As Luthin writes, the Morrill tariff bill itself "was sponsored by the Republicans in order to attract votes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey."

The most influential newspaper in Illinois at the time was the Chicago Press and Tribune under the editorship of Joseph Medill, who immediately recognized that favorite son Lincoln had just the protectionist credentials that the Pennsylvanians wanted. He editorialized that Lincoln "was an old Clay Whig, is right on the tariff and he is exactly right on all other issues. Is there any man who could suit Pennsylvania better?"

At the same time, a relative of Lincoln’s by marriage, a Dr. Edward Wallace of Pennsylvania, sounded Lincoln out on the tariff by communicating to Lincoln through his brother, William Wallace. On October 11, 1859, Lincoln wrote Dr. Edward Wallace: "My dear Sir: [Y]our brother, Dr. William S. Wallace, showed me a letter of yours, in which you kindly mention my name, inquire for my tariff view, and suggest the propriety of my writing a letter upon the subject. I was an old Henry Clay-Tariff Whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject than any other. I have not since changed my views" (emphasis added). Lincoln was establishing his bona fides as an ardent protectionist.

At the Republican National Convention in Chicago, the protectionist tariff was a key plank. As Luthin writes, when the protectionist tariff plank was voted in, "The Pennsylvania and New Jersey delegations were terrific in their applause over the tariff resolution, and their hilarity was contagious, finally pervading the whole vast auditorium." Lincoln received "the support of almost the entire Pennsylvania delegation" writes Luthin, "partly through the efforts of doctrinaire protectionists such as Morton McMichael . . . publisher of Philadelphia’s bible of protectionism, the North American newspaper."

Returning victorious to his home of Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln attended a Republican Party rally that included "an immense wagon" bearing a gigantic sign reading "Protection for Home Industry." Lincoln’s (and the Republican Party’s) economic guru, Pennsylvania steel industry publicist/lobbyist Henry C. Carey, declared that without a high protectionist tariff, "Mr. Lincoln’s administration will be dead before the day of inauguration."

The U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Morrill tariff in the 1859-1860 session, and the Senate passed it on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration. President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian who owed much of his own political success to Pennsylvania protectionists, signed it into law. 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 tax burden would about triple. Soon thereafter, a second tariff increase would increase the average rate to 47.06 percent, Taussig writes.

So, Lincoln owed everything--his nomination and election--to Northern protectionists, especially the ones in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He was expected to be the enforcer of the Morrill tariff. Understanding all too well that the South Carolina tariff nullifiers had foiled the last attempt to impose a draconian protectionist tariff on the nation by voting in political convention not to collect the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations," Lincoln literally promised in his first inaugural address a military invasion if the new, tripled tariff rate was not collected.

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. Then along comes Lincoln and the Republicans, tripling (!) the rate of tariff taxation (before the war was an issue). Lincoln then threw down the gauntlet in his first inaugural: "The power confided in me," he said, "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 force against, or among the people anywhere" (emphasis added).

"We are going to make tax slaves out of you," Lincoln was effectively saying, "and if you resist, there will be an invasion." That was on March 4. Five weeks later, on April 12, Fort Sumter, a tariff collection point in Charleston Harbor, was bombarded by the Confederates. No one was hurt or killed, and Lincoln later revealed that he manipulated the Confederates into firing the first shot, which helped generate war fever in the North.

With slavery, Lincoln was conciliatory. In his first inaugural address, he said he had no intention of disturbing slavery, and he appealed to all his past speeches to any who may have doubted him. Even if he did, he said, it would be unconstitutional to do so.

But with the tariff it was different. He was not about to back down to the South Carolina tariff nullifiers, as Andrew Jackson had done, and was willing to launch an invasion that would ultimately cost the lives of 620,000 Americans to prove his point. Lincoln’s economic guru, Henry C. Carey, was quite prescient when he wrote to Congressman Justin S. Morrill in mid-1860 that "Nothing less than a dictator is required for making a really good tariff" (p. 614, "Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff").

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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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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