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To: GOPcapitalist
Even if your stats were right you are missing the entire point of protectionist tariffs. Raising money is only a side benefit of tariffs. The real issue, as any person with even the slightest background in economics will tell you, is controlling competition. The north made their products competitive on the market by forcing the prices of european substitutes higher.

So what?

No one was talking tarrifs in 1860-61.

The record shows that all southern ports combined collected less in a year in the late 1850's than Philadelphia. It simply wasn't an issue.

That is the sort of hard data that your interpretation totally lacks and also dismisses as irrelevant.

Walt

250 posted on 08/14/2002 10:12:08 AM PDT by WhiskeyPapa
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To: WhiskeyPapa
No one was talking tarrifs in 1860-61.

Your lying again, Walt, and the historical record clearly shows it:

"I say that cotton is king, and that he waves his scepter not only over these thirty-three States, but over the island of Great Britain and over continental Europe, and that there is no crowned head upon that island, or upon the Continent, that does not bend the knee in fealty and acknowledge allegiance to that monarch...You suppose that numbers constitute the strength of government in this day. I tell you that it is not blood; it is the military chest; it is the almighty dollar. When you have lost your market; when your operatives are turned out; when your capitalists are broken, will you go to direct taxation? Burn down a factory that yields ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five thousand dollars a year to its owner and he goes to the wall. Dismiss the operatives, stop the motion of his machinery, and he is as thoroughly broken as if his factory were burnt; for the time he is bankrupt. These are matters for your consideration. I know that you do not regard us as in earnest. I would save this Union if I could; but it is my deliberate impression that it cannot now be done." - Sen. Louis T. Wigfall, United States Senate, December 6, 1860 (my emphasis added)

The record shows that all southern ports combined collected less in a year in the late 1850's than Philadelphia.

True or not (and according to many, your data is questionable and/or misleading) you miss the issue entirely. Tariffs are tools of competition control, hence the concept of protectionism. Protectionism functions just the same no matter what port the goods go through. If you intend to debate tariffs you need to take the time to learn about economic theory of trade as you are obviously not equipped to comment on the subject the way things stand now.

It simply wasn't an issue.

The historical record says otherwise. You just love contradicting that record whenever it disagrees with your agenda, Walt!

257 posted on 08/14/2002 3:54:00 PM PDT by GOPcapitalist
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