Posted on 01/13/2004 9:01:35 AM PST by Aurelius
Dust jackets for most books about the American Civil War depict generals, politicians, battle scenes, cavalry charges, cannons[sic] firing, photographs or fields of dead soldiers, or perhaps a battle between ironclads. In contrast our book {[url=http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2XGHOEK4JT&isbn=0842029613&itm=7]Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War Mark Thornton, Steven E. Woodworth (Editor), Robert B. Ekelund[/url]features a painting by Edgar Degas entitled the "Cotton Exchange" which depicts several calm businessmen and clerks, some of them Degas’s relatives, going about the business of buying and selling cotton at the New Orleans Cotton Exchange. The focus of this book is thus on the economic rationality of seemingly senseless events of the Civil War – a critical period in American history.
What caused the war? Why did the Union defeat the Confederacy? What were the consequences of the War? The premise of the book is that historians have a comparative advantage in describing such events, but economists have the tools to help explain these events.
We use traditional economic analysis, some of it of the Austrian and Public Choice variety, to address these principal questions and our conclusions generally run counter to the interpretations of historians. In contrast to historians who emphasize the land war and military strategy, we show that the most important battle took place at sea. One side, the blockade runners, did not wear uniforms or fire weapons at their opponents. The other side, the blockading fleet, was composed of sailors who had weapons and guns but they rarely fired their cannons in hopes of damaging their opponents. Their pay was based on the valued of captured ships. Historians often have argued that the Confederacy lost because it was overly reluctant to use government power and economic controls, but we show the exact opposite. Big Confederate government brought the Confederacy to its knees.
Some now teach that slavery was the sole cause of the Civil War – an explanation that historians have developed in the twentieth century. However, this analysis does not explain why the war started in 1861 (rather than 1851 or 1841) and it fails to explain why slavery was abolished elsewhere without such horrendous carnage.
We emphasize economics and politics as major factors leading to war. The Republicans who came to power in 1860 supported a mercantilist economic agenda of protectionism, inflation, public works, and big government. High tariffs would have been a boon to manufacturing and mining in the north, but would have been paid largely by those in the export-oriented agriculture economy.
Southern economic interests understood the effects of these policies and decided to leave the union. The war was clearly related to slavery, but mainly in the sense that Republican tariffs would have squeezed the profitability out of the slave-based cotton plantation economy to the benefit of Northern industry (especially Yankee textiles and iron manufacturing). Southerners would also have lost out in terms of public works projects, government land giveaways, and inflation.
The real truth about wars is that they are not started over principle, but over power. Wars however, are not won by power on the battlefield, but by the workings and incentives of men who go to work in fields and factories, to those who transport, store and sell consumer goods, and most especially to the entrepreneurs and middlemen who make markets work and adapt to change. This emphasis and this economic account of tariffs, blockade and inflation, like the focus of Degas’s "Cotton Exchange" reveals the most important and least understood aspect of war.
LOL, aaaagggghhhh, I am outta here, back to the threads on dating, and Why I went to the Philippines for a woman.
So why did all the Union soldiers go to war?
Dang... popcorn's cold. Guess I'll pop more. This rabblerousing is hungry work.
i wonder when exactly the spelling of many words "standardized"????
free dixie,sw
lincoln was nothing more or less than the evil twin of wee willie klintoon, separated by 130 years.
NEITHER could be trusted with the truth and/or your sister/mother/wife. period,end of story.<P.free dixie,sw
lincoln was nothing more or less than the evil twin of wee willie klintoon, separated by 130 years.
NEITHER could be trusted with the truth and/or your sister/mother/wife. period,end of story.
free dixie,sw
Yes, the cite from honest Abe was provocative, but surely you do not dispute that there are others?
Maybe the Declaration of Causes of the South Carolina Convention will jog your memory:
"...they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to enloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes..."
Because they were told to... that the United States was being attacked... to preserve the union.. by force.. suborning the soverignty of the other states... as it is today.. and that states were not soverign entities.. makeing the United States a democracy... as it is now.. and no longer a republic.. long since defunct..
You do know america is a de-facto democracy don't you... the american constitution was given as a limitation of the federal government not as an entitlement to mess with state inherent rights <<-- also long since a mirage.. yeah!.. a democracy(mob rule) is what we are in the U.S.A. a republic is only is a mirage in the minds of SOME republicans as they plug on to preserve what don't even exist anymore.. pity too... to be so delusional.. democrats are not illusional they know america is a democracy... and not a republic... its the republicans that should slapped and slapped again until they start speaking this fact BUT that would require actions they are cowards to face...
Speaking the truth would make the democrats rise up and gnash their teeth for being so exposed.. and probably kill the messager.. republicans being the cowards they are is probably the reason for the gibberish they mouthe..
And thats the truth... as I see it..
But what did he know, right?
After all, the idea that the war was about slavery was only developed by historians in the twentieth century...
No no, he's got it all wrong, just ask the FR Unionist batallion.
When reading Stephen Sears books on Chancellorsville and Antietam and Stackpole's and Furgenson's book on Chancellorsville... they offer overwhelming proof that the Civil War did not start out as a fight for and against slavery.
Sears does extensive work showing that Lincoln chose to change the war from a fight for preserving the Union to one about Slavery for purely political reasons -- one main reason was to so that terms of the conflict could be defined as a "fight against slavery" to keep England and France from joining the conflict on the South's side. Sears is not alone is this analysis. All three authors mentioned above quote extensively from leading Northern newspapers and correspondance from both Union/Confederate soldiers to show each sides anger that Lincoln would not only change the terms of the conflict, but reduce it (or bottomline it) to this.
Did some Union soldiers fight to free the slaves. Yes! Joshua Chamberlain in his books says he went to war because he believed that slavery was wrong. He is just one of many examples. And I could find Southern examples of men fighting to preserve slavery.
But, these men seem to be in the minority when you look at the overwhelming negative reaction in both the North and South to the Emancipation Proclamation.
You are looking at one side of the equation. Lincoln was opposed to slavery, it is true. He did look forward to the day when it would end, but he did not consider it his duty as president to end it. His stated goal of the war, and for the North in general, was to preserve the Union. That remained the goal throughout the war, and the actions taken to end slavery were taken to further the cause of Union victory. The end of slavery as an institution were a happy result of the Union victory. So in that Sears, McPhearson, et.al. were correct.
But from the southern viewpoint, the single most important reason for the rebellion was defense of the institution of slavery. For them, it was a fight for slavery.
NOBODY authorized the "declarations", except the authors themselves;few even knew they were published;even less people CARED what a handfull of slaveowners thought/wrote/published.
only about 5-6% of southerners owned slaves;almost NOBODY who was NOT a slave owner cared if ANYONE owned any. this was true in both the north & south.
Professor Henry Tyrone Bliss,a prominent black scholar from Dillard University said in 1998 at the LA Consortium of Scholars in Social Sciences at Shreveport that "in 1860 there were not 10,000 people in all of the USA who cared a damn about the plight of slaves. hardly anyone was willing to fight even one battle over slavery;nobody was willing to fight a major civil war over a dying institution."
face it, DIS-honest abe was LYING through his teeth (it is the NATURE of politicians to LIE!) about what the WBTS was about. in point of fact, lincoln HATED & FEARED all "persons of colour", as well as Jews, Roman Catholics, Latinos, recent immigrants & "muddy coloured people" (mixed-bloods like ME for instance!).
lincoln was a stone RACIST & anti-Semite of the most vicious sort. any fair reading of his private correspondence (rather than his public pronouncements) will force you to admit that he was a "man with forked tongue" & "a man of two hearts" (NEITHER is a compliment among AIs!), NOT a truthspeaker.
free dixie,sw
Unlike some in the Civil War debates... I don't have a dog in the fight...so I am not trying to justify or vilify one side at the expense of the other side.
I am talking about the historical evidence on both sides regarding the negative and bitter reaction to the Emancipation Proclamation. Both sides (and the letters and editorials confirm this) believed that Lincoln changed the terms of the conflict. That instead of the conflict being about the "preservation of the Union" versus "states rights", the war had been suddenly been bottomlined to a fight solely against slavery with the North being for the freeing of slaves and the South being against it.
That's the gist of my post.... that's what the editorials and letters confirm about the period of Sept 1862 to May 1863... (and these letters and editorials are not just found in Sears, Furgusons, or Stockpoles' books... they are found in many other books as well.)
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