Posted on 11/11/2002 1:23:27 PM PST by l8pilot
Evidence Builds for DiLorenzo’s Lincoln by Paul Craig Roberts
In an excellent piece of historical research and economic exposition, two economics professors, Robert A. McGuire of the University of Akron and T. Norman Van Cott of Ball State University, have provided independent evidence for Thomas J. Dilorenzo’s thesis that tariffs played a bigger role in causing the Civil War than slavery.
In The Real Lincoln, DiLorenzo argues that President Lincoln invaded the secessionist South in order to hold on to the tariff revenues with which to subsidize Northern industry and build an American Empire. In "The Confederate Constitution, Tariffs, and the Laffer Relationship" (Economic Inquiry, Vol. 40, No. 3, July 2002), McGuire and Van Cott show that the Confederate Constitution explicitly prohibits tariff revenues from being used "to promote or foster any branch of industry." By prohibiting subsidies to industries and tariffs high enough to be protective, the Confederates located their tax on the lower end of the "Laffer curve."
The Confederate Constitution reflected the argument of John C. Calhoun against the 1828 Tariff of Abominations. Calhoun argued that the U.S. Constitution granted the tariff "as a tax power for the sole purpose of revenue – a power in its nature essentially different from that of imposing protective or prohibitory duties."
McGuire and Van Cott conclude that the tariff issue was a major factor in North-South tensions. Higher tariffs were "a key plank in the August 1860 Republican party platform. . . . northern politicians overall wanted dramatically higher tariff rates; Southern politicians did not."
"The handwriting was on the wall for the South," which clearly understood that remaining in the union meant certain tax exploitation for the benefit of the north.
October 16, 2002
Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions Evidence Builds for DiLorenzo’s Lincoln by Paul Craig Roberts
In an excellent piece of historical research and economic exposition, two economics professors, Robert A. McGuire of the University of Akron and T. Norman Van Cott of Ball State University, have provided independent evidence for Thomas J. Dilorenzo’s thesis that tariffs played a bigger role in causing the Civil War than slavery.
In The Real Lincoln, DiLorenzo argues that President Lincoln invaded the secessionist South in order to hold on to the tariff revenues with which to subsidize Northern industry and build an American Empire. In "The Confederate Constitution, Tariffs, and the Laffer Relationship" (Economic Inquiry, Vol. 40, No. 3, July 2002), McGuire and Van Cott show that the Confederate Constitution explicitly prohibits tariff revenues from being used "to promote or foster any branch of industry." By prohibiting subsidies to industries and tariffs high enough to be protective, the Confederates located their tax on the lower end of the "Laffer curve."
The Confederate Constitution reflected the argument of John C. Calhoun against the 1828 Tariff of Abominations. Calhoun argued that the U.S. Constitution granted the tariff "as a tax power for the sole purpose of revenue – a power in its nature essentially different from that of imposing protective or prohibitory duties."
McGuire and Van Cott conclude that the tariff issue was a major factor in North-South tensions. Higher tariffs were "a key plank in the August 1860 Republican party platform. . . . northern politicians overall wanted dramatically higher tariff rates; Southern politicians did not."
"The handwriting was on the wall for the South," which clearly understood that remaining in the union meant certain tax exploitation for the benefit of the north.
October 16, 2002
Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions
Why is it that all I can think of is Charlie Daniels:
"I'm a faithful follower of Brother John Birch,
And I belong to the Antioch Baptist Church."
I haven't broken any commandments in admiring Lincoln. You've broken some in attacking him, though.
Walt
Kind of reminds me of some places in our country today. H.K. Edgerton has been seriously, physically threatened when he set up a booth at a Kwanzai festival with pictures of his Confederate ancestors. My brother was there (as part of security at the festival), and told me a crowd of brainwashed Blacks were going to kill one of their own for telling people the truth about his lineage.
Hitler was stroking the left until he felt he could do without them. He took power in 1933. The Night of the Long Knives was in 1934.
In 1935 he abolished all labor unions.
That ain't much stroking.
Walt
See above. It's a way a Soviet socialist named Joe Stalin tried as well for that matter.
The Soviets did, after a fashion, adopt socialism. Certainly there was no private ownership. When the Nazis crashed in and advanced almost to Moscow, Stalin adopted more of a defense of the motherland motif and played down the socialist idea.
You know -- nationalism and socialism are opposites.
Walt
Not that you'd have any interest in it considering your tendency to IGNORE what you don't want to hear.
At least I am willing to provide to the readers of the thread excerpts from the record. You are not.
The reason for that is that the record doesn't support you. Most of the content of your posts consist of attacks on people you don't like, not the discussion of the record.
Walt
I already told you where you can find that, Walt. It's in the section on the secession crisis and Corwin amendment. You may also find bias in his incredibly sloppy consideration of regional economics.
If you want to post either of those sections on FR for consideration I suppose you are free to do so. I've already dissected them elsewhere on FR in the past if you want to look there as well. That aside, I did not find it worth my effort to give up $11.99 for a stack of fish rap and accordingly will not buy a copy.
I am the only one, as I recall, who ever quotes BCF.
And that in itself speaks volumes beyond what you could ever imagine. FR, you know, isn't exactly the best place in the world to flood with a barrage of cut n' paste quotes from a marxist democrat historian with known political biases in his work.
To say that socialism is the opposite, by definition, of nationlism is like saying that apples, by definition, are the opposite of oranges. It makes no sense. It makes even less sense than that, actually, because nationalism is not in any way exclusive of socialism, or vice versa. The current Chinese regime is both, for instance. Socialists usually do have a dream of spreading the revolution globaly, but there are mant ways to attempt this, some of which in no way exclude nationlism. The multi-cultural (really just uni-cultural) socialism of our own Left is equally as dangerous and potentially murderous as national socialism, BTW.
You can add that one to your list of lies for the day as well. As any regular reader of these threads could tell you, I regularly post excerpts from first hand historical documents to support my arguments. You simply ignore them because you do not wish to see what they say.
Walt
And there is plenty of Lincoln available on what he said about banks and corporations. See my article, "Abraham Lincoln and the Growth of Government in the Civil War Era," Continuity, Spring 1997.
I'll say again, Lincoln was consistent. He FIRMLY believed that labor was a cornerstone, but only a means to attaining a farm and/or industrial work. Even the socialist historians, like Foner, admit this.
Which post of yours has a quote from a contemporary source?
Walt
Yeah, and in doing so they murdered some 20 million of their own people by way of concentration camp, forced famine, and slaughter fields. Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were similar to an amazing degree. Joe Goebbels certainly thought so.
You know -- nationalism and socialism are opposites.
Demonstrate it, as you have failed to thus far. Quod gratis asseriture gratis negatur.
You would know, for example, that Marx contradicted himself incessantly to prove whatever point he wanted to make; or that he constantly "modified" or altered his "theories." But what Marx thought of Lincoln is irrelevant. There is no serious scholar of whom I'm aware that sees anything "socialist" in the writings of Lincoln, unless it is DeLorenzo.
That must've been to the very end of his life then because Joseph Goebbels was a philosophical marxist of the far left. Hitler stroked Goebbels to the very end of his life and named the latter his successor as Fuehrer before committing suicide. Though they had a political falling out later in the war, Hermann Goering had his own socialist tendencies as well and was stroked by Hitler to the latter days of the reich.
In 1935 he abolished all labor unions.
As I noted earlier, Soviet Poland (as in the Soviet puppet state of Poland for those of you who are too stupid to figure out what that means, Walt) wasn't very fond of labor unions either. Nor was the Vietcong for that matter. That didn't make any of them any less socialist though.
Pure socialism assumes a worldwide brotherhood of workers. Nations and nationalism are to be swept away. As Andy Card said a couple of days ago, the two concepts are at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.
Walt
Yes you have. You've beared false witness to preserve his reputation. That makes one. You've also extended to him certain qualitied of infallability and perfection that he never posessed iin reality, then extended your devoted reverence to that new creation of The Lincoln. That makes two.
Hitler named Admiral Donitz as Fuhrer.
Walt
The strict pure definition of socialism is "the control of the means of production by the people." I see nothing about a "brotherhood" in that Walt. Do you?
Nations and nationalism are to be swept away.
Hitler saw this in his own version. What do you think he was doing when he tried to conquer the world?
As Andy Card said a couple of days ago
Is he your new authority, Walt? Your new McPherson? All I can say is you sure know how to pick 'em!
the two concepts are at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.
That is simply not so, Walt. His purported spectrum is a mindless construct without factual basis. Try again.
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