Posted on 01/19/2014 5:51:53 AM PST by BigReb555
“Here I greet you in the shadow of the statue of your Commander, General Robert E. Lee. You and he left us memories which are part of the memories bequeathed to the entire nation by all the Americans who fought in the War Between the States.”
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
Always present on every thread honoring southern leaders and southern heritage but clueless on historical facts. Clueless about the enourmous wealth of the South due to cash crops like Cotton, Tobacco and Sorghum. Clueless about the levy on cotton that came to millions of dollars. Clueless apparently that the cotton trade to Britain and Europe from the South would amount to billions nowadays. Why do you think that is?
If I could only think of it. Oh wait TROLL! That’s it Troll! :-)
Troll: submit a deliberately provocative posting to an online message board with the aim of inciting an angry response.
Trolling from your third floor walk up in Queens? :-)
You’re in my prayers.
In the 1850s almost all raw cotton was produced in the American South. There was no need or point in putting a protective tariff on cotton fiber.
There were tariffs, protective and otherwise, on finished cotton material imported from other countries.
Any trade war between US, UK etc. would have been over cotton cloth, not raw cotton, which was what the South exported. Northern mill owners and workers might have been affected, the South would not have been.
Southern apologists seldom understand the tariff issue. There never were any tariffs on exports, before or after the WBTS. They are prohibited by the Constitution.
During the War of 1812, the USA was severely impacted in its economy and war effort by a lack of industry. British blockade stopped imports and caused huge problems.
After the war, protective tariffs were put in place to ensure that in future wars the US wouldn't have essential products cut off. The leader in this push was Henry Clay, a southerner and large slaveowner.
Over the course of time, tariff rates went up and down, peaking in the 1830s and generally declining thereafter. In 1860 they were about as low as they had been since the War of 1812.
Tariffs were paid only on imports, at the port of entry. An Iowa farmer or a Pennsylvania miner paid (indirectly) exactly the same tax as a Georgia planter or a Texas cattleman, on tariffed items.
Protective tariffs on some items gave US-made products an advantage over imports. Southerners had exactly the same opportunities to take advantage of this protection as northerners, but they mostly chose not to engage in the industries that would have allowed them to do so.
So even though individual southerners paid exactly the same taxes and prices on protected goods as northerners, those factory owners and workers who benefited from the protection were found disproportionately in the North.
IOW, the protective tariff was not a transfer of wealth from South to North, it was from consumers throughout the nation to producers in the protected industries. Most of them happened to be in the North.
Do you seriously contend that cotton taxes passed in 1861 and later were the cause of secession?
A Naval blockade is the ultimate tariff.
Also a Southern patriot and an American hero.
Please provide evidence that I have ever claimed the South was not wealthy prior to the War.
While you’re at it, I’m still waiting for evidence that a levy on cotton, to the amount of millions of dollars, or for that matter a single dollar, existed prior to the war and can therefore be a possibility as a cause of the war.
There never was any such levy.
Please feel free to post facts showing where I’m wrong. Calling names only makes the caller look stupid, especially when you initiate it. My responses to you and others have always been respectful in tone, even when you post egregiously inaccurate “facts,” and then claim that the fact that they are untrue is irrelevant.
FWIW, I have repeatedly defended RE Lee and other southerners as men of honor, in contrast to some around here who call them traitors.
Didn't help. The cotton tax was 1% per pound, not insignificant. Morrill Tariff was a greater contributor over cotton taxes.
Okey, dokey.
Please post your evidence of a naval blockade prior to secession that could therefore have conceivably have been a cause of secession.
That was after secession.
Second since major industries have moved South since 1860's and most of the non union right to work states are in the South I am against "Free Trade" as it is practiced now. int the mid 18th century Great Brittan was a major trading partner for the mostly agricultural South, so naturally they hated tariffs. But the 21st century is not the 18th century. Economies change, the issue of states rights does not however.
Tariffs lead to trade wars, trade wars lead to certain areas and industries being affected more than others, then you have strife. It seems to me a tariff on foreign cotton goods would be good for the south but they hated them. It would be the same today, tariffs are nothing but a big headache which solve nothing and only cause excessive hatred.
How about some proof? I looked up cotton levies of the 1850s and found nothing. Where is this cotton levy you speak of.
The cotton tax was one cent per pound, not 1%. It was a war tax that went into effect in October, 1862.
Do you seriously contend it was a contributing factor to southern states seceding in late 1860 and early 1861?
http://www.jstor.org/stable/25106505
Reduced or non existent tariffs are good if the exporter’s standard of living is the same or better than your countries standard of living. However what we have now is a progressive income tax combined with low(or no) import tariffs which is importing a 3rd standard of living into the USA. The worst possible combination. None of this relates to the situation in 1860 but interesting non the less.
Right I meant to correct that 1 cent not 1%.
Morrill Tariff was a large contributor to Southern issues with FedGov™.
Only $3 million was collected(I guess in border states) prior to the end of the war from cotton taxes. Not that significant.
Am I wrong in that interpretation?
"Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.
Well, I hate the progressive income tax so we agree on that. If I were emperor for a day, I'd institute a low flat income tax, a land tax over a real estate tax, get rid of all tariffs, get rid of the Corporate tax, get rid of the government fining lawbreakers (all crimes punished by time served, no financial incentive for the government to make criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens). That's all we need to fund the government.
All income taxes are a drain on personal productivity, tariffs and other consumption based taxes are not.
The passage of the Morrill Tariff was a consequence of secession, not a cause.
It passed the Senate by 25 to 14, but only after the seven initial CSA states had seceded. Until then, Democrats had controlled the Senate, and the measure didn’t even come to a floor vote. Had these states remained in the Union, presumably any vote would have been 28 to 25 against.
It is also interesting that the measure was signed by Buchanan two days before leaving office. He was, of course, a Democrat.
There was a lot of disagreement with this from your heroes of the 1850s.
You are quite correct. The theory behind the Emancipation Proclamation was that it was a war measure. In essence it confiscated the property of rebels. It expanded on previous Confiscation Acts that put somewhat less extensive abolition measure into effect.
Lincoln made no attempt, in this proclamation, to free slaves in areas not presently in rebellion, on theory that he had no power under the Constitution to do so.
It should be noted, however, that Lincoln repeatedly encouraged and supported abolition efforts in Union slave states, including offers to provide federal funds for compensation of slaveowners.
This resulted in emancipation in all but two Union, and several occupied, states before the end of the war. So that 13A freed only about 50,000 slaves in KY and DE. 98.75% of all slaves were freed before the war ended.
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