Posted on 01/31/2004 11:18:21 AM PST by GOPcapitalist
And secessionists threw in lots of stuff to pad their speeches and make their position look respectable-but that issue was not the one that caused the South to leave.
Thirdly, Lincoln rightly refused to meet those representatives. The South can only leave via negotions with the senate. The South wanted to speak to Lincoln on the diplomatic terms as an equal and seperate state. It was not officialy so. The South should have stayed in the Senate and congress - worked out an equitable agreement, etc.
Yeah, and the same confederate constitution would have been in place after the war as before it. That constitution prohibited intentionally protectionist tariffs.
And secessionists threw in lots of stuff to pad their speeches and make their position look respectable-but that issue was not the one that caused the South to leave.
It was hardly "padding" for speeches - they were entire speeches on nothing but tariffs consuming pages upon pages in the congressional record.
Thirdly, Lincoln rightly refused to meet those representatives.
Now wait a minute...a few posts ago you were complaining, and incorrectly so, that the south acted without using the options of diplomacy. When it was pointed out to you that they did indeed use diplomacy only to be ignored by Lincoln, you applaud him for doing so. You can't have it both ways, Destro. Either the south did or did not seek a diplomatic solution. Either Lincoln was right or wrong for refusing to negotiate with them.
The South can only leave via negotions with the senate.
Newsflash: the southern negotiators DID actively meet with members of the senate and present their case to them. Before the first six states seceded almost all of their senators specifically made their case on the floor of the senate chamber. One of them, John Slidell of Louisiana, used his speech to make terms of offering for the payment and peaceful transfer of federal facilities in the south. After those six states left and began sending negotiators, they came to Washington and immediately established contact with sitting senators who were still in Congress. They sought out Robert M.T. Hunter, a moderate senator from the border state of Virginia, who actively offered to mediate between the confederates, the president, the senate, and practically any other part of the government that was willing. The confederate negotiators were even housed during their stay by Louis Wigfall, a secessionist senator from Texas which had not yet recalled its congressional delegation.
The South wanted to speak to Lincoln on the diplomatic terms as an equal and seperate state.
Wrong again. They initially requested a formal diplomatic meeting with Lincoln. Knowing that the possibility was strong he would refuse, they contented themselves to meet with him informally or through an intermediary if that was what it took to simply secure negotiations and avert war. They tried to do so through Sens. Hunter and Wigfall. A supreme court justice also offered to mediate informal negotiations in which Lincoln would never have to convey any formal recognition by simply meeting. In each and every case Lincoln adamantly refused. He refused because he wanted war and had been plotting for war since at least the previous December.
The South should have stayed in the Senate and congress - worked out an equitable agreement, etc.
Several of them tried. The senators who eventually sided with the confederacy from Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri ALL remained in their seats for the special one month session of the Senate after Lincoln's inauguration. This infuriated several of the yankee senators who actually put up a bill to expel one of the remaining southern senators who they believed was causing too much trouble for them (he responded by pledging to go so long as they recognized his state was out of the union but vowed to stay for the session and continue doing his job as a member of that body if they would not).
Ha! I figure that Wlat's on the channel with the MASH reruns about now. Too bad though - he's missing a decent game (though that half-time crap with the crappy hip hop "artists" was crappier this year than the crap they normally do).
I can't speak for Non-Seq though. As the earlier posts in this thread indicate, he seems to have slipped into some sort of bizarre mental lapse of late. For inexplicable reasons he mistook me for Owen Glendower and accused me of lacking the power to "summon spirits from the vasty deep." He must be one such spirit though, as he came along. When I pointed that contradiction out to him he realized his goof and retreated to wherever he came from - presumably the "vasty deep" - and hasn't been heard from since...so maybe he was a Shakespeare spirit after all!
I missed the halftime show, too.......did you get to see the exhibitionism at the end of the show? Local infobabes were telling us on Film at Ten that the NFL bonzes were torqued and were swearing up and down that MTV will never again be part of an NFL halftime production. Sounds pretty hugh and series.
Maybe he was Aimee Semple McPherson and is greatly wounded to be confounded with companions of Beelzebub.
In a very few days after, another confidential agent, Colonel Lamon, was sent by the President, who informed me that he had come to try and arrange for the removal of the garrison, and, when he returned from the fort, asked if a war vessel could not be allowed to remove them. I replied, that no war vessel could be allowed to enter the harbor on any terms. He said he believed Major Anderson preferred an ordinary steamer, and I agreed that the garrison might be thus removed. He said he hoped to return in a very few days for that purpose.
A "confidential agent" is a person of no official capacity and with no portfolio to negotiate anything. But if you continue reading, Pickens goes on:
Then, on the 8th of April, Mr. Chew, an official in the State Department, was sent, in company with Lieutenant Talbot, and read to me a paper, which the President of the United States, he said, had directed him to read to me, in relation to sending in supplies to the fort. He gave me no information as to anything, but only read the paper, and said he was not even directed to ask my reply.Considering that Pickens had already directed his insurgents to fire on US troops back in December, I think Lincoln was rather moderate in dealing with him. If Andy Jackson had been president in 1861, Pickins would have been hanging from a tree by April. Any President who would not attempt to at the minimum re-supply troops under siege should be impeached. Buchanan should have been impeached, and Lincoln was far too easy on the South Carolina jihadists. I would have shelled the damn statehouse in hopes of catching Pickins and his dead-enders the same way we tried to get Saddam.
According to the Confederate States of America budget for the year 1861 (go to the last page of this pdf.), you are so far off base that it is beyond silly.
For the year 1860, the confederate states "imported" a total of $237M in goods, but, $200M of that was from Northern states and only $37M was from overseas. In 1860, they only paid import duties on $37M of goods from Europe and elsewhere.
The budget projection for the year 1861, by placing their own tariffs on All Imports, both from Northern States and from foreign sources, they predicted total revenues of $33.95M. (You will also not that they had their own "protective tariffs" on goods such as sugar and cigars.) That sounds like some kind of Teddy Kennedy "tax cut" to me.
These so-called "tax resisters" were planning on taxing the Southern economy on a total of $240 M of imports, approximately 8 times more, than what they paid under the Union!
The war "was about tariffs" bunk is the original big lie.
Shortly before the attack on Fort Sumter when the deceit became known, the Confederate Commissioners in Washington publicly accused the Lincoln Administration with gross perfidy because of this lie.
You also forgot to mention the part of Governor Pickens' speech that talked about the duplicity of Gustavus Fox, saying his was a peaceful visit to Fort Sumter, when in fact it was to plan its reinforcement.
After President Lincoln was inaugurated, he sent, in the latter part of March, a confidential agent, Mr. Fox, who was introduced by a gallant officer of our navy. He said he desired to visit Fort Sumter, and that his objects were "entirely pacific." Upon the guarantee of the officer introducing him, Captain Hartstene, he was permitted to visit Major Anderson, in company with Captain Hartstene, expressly upon the pledge of "pacific purposes." Notwithstanding this, he actually reported a plan for the reinforcement of the garrison by force, which was adopted. Major Anderson protested against it. I enclose with this a copy of papers, to be used under your wise discretion, which will place these facts beyond controversy.
That makes three officials connected with Lincoln who were part of this campaign of lies. Fox took part in cabinet meetings, presenting his plan to Lincoln, the cabinet, General Scott and other army officials. Pretty neat for a "confidential agent".
Jefferson Davis argued that Chew's visit was timed for the night before the expected arrival of the fleet, but unknown to Chew and Washington a big storm had delayed the arrival and scattered the fleet.
Yawn. You obviously still do not understand how tariffs work, nor would it seem do your historians of choice from that non-peer reviewed USC piece. The economiceffect of a tariff occurs in its incidence, not in the person it is statutorily collected from. Historians such as McPherson and the USC guys have yet to figure this simple fact out even though it has been known by economists for over 200 years. Aside from the fact that the USC paper does not give an historical source for its data but rather a second hand (at least) source from 1979, what they calculate as goods from the "north" in reality includes foreign goods imported into the country at northern locations yet shipped inland and by coastal means out of warehouses some months later.
(You will also not that they had their own "protective tariffs" on goods such as sugar and cigars.)
Wrong. The so-called protective tariff on sugar was, according to your source, only 20%. By comparative standards of the day 20% was a run-of-the-mill revenue tariff rate. It was only 3% larger than the free trade Tariff of 1857's average rate. The Cigar tariff according to your source was 25% - barely larger than the 1846 United States Tariff's average rates in the 21% range, which was considered free trade by all reasonable standards. Cigars were also considered a luxury good, thus by taxing them at a higher rate than everything else made sense from a revenue perspective.
I seem to recall that you posted that same historically flawed link before on this forum, ditto. I also seem to recall correcting your same shoddy conclusions from it then as well. Oh well, you can't teach dumb dogs new tricks...
A luxury good produced only in the south which was equally "protected" from comptetion under both Union and Confederate protective tariff policies.
But the larger point of my post was that not only did the Confederacy have absolutly no problem with tariffs, including protective tariffs of their key industries that were subject to lower cost foreign competition, but also that the wildly inflated numbers PeaRidge posted claiming that the smallest, poorest section of the country where 30% of the total population was slaves, was somehow paying most of the federal tariff. That is absolute total nonsense.
You also need to explan to the class why foreign shippers would direct their goods to northern ports hundreds or even a 1000 miles or more away from their "prime" market if the south were somehow the source of all of that demand.
You are too damn smart to think that people were that stupid then. British and French ships purchasing cotton for European textile mills entered southern ports loaded mostly with ballast, not trade goods. The old streets of Charleston and Savannah are quite literally paved with ballast from England and France. There was no tariff on paving stones.
Actually, cigars have long been produced in the carribean.
which was equally "protected" from comptetion
By 19th century standards a 25% tariff was not protective. It fell on the higher end of revenue tariffs and was only a few percentages higher than the 1846 Walker Tariff, which was considered friendly to free trade.
But the larger point of my post was that not only did the Confederacy have absolutly no problem with tariffs
You have yet to demonstrate that and your own evidence to date is severely wanting. All you have posted is a list of tariff schedules almost entirely in the 10-15% range, which by 19th century standards made them among the lowest in the world.
including protective tariffs of their key industries
What protective tariffs? The absolute highest tariff in that schedule applies to one single minor luxury item at 25%. By mid 19th century standards 25% was not protective. The second highest tariff in that schedule applies to 2 or 3 items at 20%. By mid 19th century standard 20% was not protective and in fact was a middle range for revenue tariffs that were considered "friendly" to free trade (witness the 1846 and 1857 US tariffs, which both averaged plus or minus only 3% from that 20% figure).
but also that the wildly inflated numbers PeaRidge posted claiming that the smallest, poorest section of the country
I don't recall the exact land area figures, but the south was geographically comparable in size to the north. It may have been something like 60-40, but even there it is dishonest to portray them as a small portion of the country. As for poverty, I seem to recall that virtually all the per capita wealth figures from that era ranked the southern states at the top of the list. The significantly larger working class immigrant populations dilluted northern wealth per capita significantly more than the slaves did to southern wealth per capita.
You also need to explan to the class why foreign shippers would direct their goods to northern ports hundreds or even a 1000 miles or more away from their "prime" market if the south were somehow the source of all of that demand.
Already have. It's called the Warehousing Act of 1846 and it gave importers a strong economic incentive to drop their goods off at one place where there were warehouses (it's the same concept Wal-Mart uses today by shipping its goods through distributorships that are hundreds of miles away from their eventual store destinations). In 1860 that place for not only the south but for all of America happened to be New York City, which had a large preexisting warehousing industry when the act came into being. The result? Many goods destined for virtually anywhere be it Ohio or Alabama went in through New York.
You are too damn smart to think that people were that stupid then.
Why is it stupid to take advantage of an economically prosperous warehousing policy?
British and French ships purchasing cotton for European textile mills entered southern ports loaded mostly with ballast, not trade goods.
You assume that those ships all came directly from Britain and France. They did not. Merchant trading tends to function more in triangular and square routes between 3 or 4 different ports rather than the linear back-and-forth journeys of passenger ships. For example: A ship leaves Liverpool for New York with european goods and drops them off into New York warehouses where they stay until a buyer is found (this is necessary to finance the tariff) and distribution occurs. The merchant then loads other goods out of the warehouses that are ready for delivery (i.e. somebody bought them and cash now exists to pay the tariff) and sails down the coast to Savannah. He unloads his coastal shipment, which then gets placed on railroads and sent to Alabama or wherever else they're going. He then loads himself up with a shipment of cotton and makes for England, this time sailing into Bristol instead. He unloads the cotton there, picks up British goods for the continent and sails to Hamburg. He then picks up goods from the continent in Hamburg and sails back to Liverpool where they are sold, thus completing a round trip in which no stage happens where he is empty of cargo.
Those are called cobble stones and all streets in cities that could afford to do so were paved with them at the time. There are even a few places in New York City today that still have cobble stones and save the urine stench that is on them, those New York ones are identical to Charleston's stones.
Duh. That's my point. The tariff on cigars was high under both the USA and CSA to help reduce the demand for Cuban cigars and help southern tobacco planters and cigar makers. Same goes with sugar.
Look at the CSA import tax on coffee ---- zero percent. How come? Do you think it could be that there was no coffee grown in Dixie? There were no domestic producers to protect.
For example: A ship leaves Liverpool for New York with european goods and drops them off into New York warehouses where they stay until a buyer is found (this is necessary to finance the tariff) and distribution occurs. The merchant then loads other goods out of the warehouses that are ready for delivery (i.e. somebody bought them and cash now exists to pay the tariff) and sails down the coast to Savannah. He unloads his coastal shipment, which then gets placed on railroads and sent to Alabama or wherever else they're going.
You just pulled that out of your hat. Quit making things up as you go along. You should be aware that foreign registry vessels were not, and are still not allowed to participate in the inter coastal trade just as foreign airlines are not allowed today to participate in domestic air routes. They can sail or fly to and from the US, but they can not transport goods or passengers between US destinations. The same is pretty much true for every other nation.
As to the Warehousing Act, I'd say that the Southerners must have been pretty damn stupid if they could not have built a warehouse to accommodate all those fictitious imported goods to satisfy that incredible southern demand right along side of the massive warehouses for cotton, tobacco and rice exports built to satisfy European demands in every southern port. Or maybe they weren't stupid and realized that local demand for imported goods would not cover their warehousing costs.
BTW. Do you realize that in 1860, the farthest south a train could go from New York was Baltimore? From there, every piece of freight needed to be unloaded and hauled by horse and wagon across the city to reach the next rail line heading south. You would think that folks would have figured out that was not too damn efficient, especially if the vast majority of imports entering New York were destined for consumption in the south. Or just maybe they didn't see enough demand for southern-bound freight to care and were more interested in getting goods to Pittsburgh, Cincinnatti or Chicago where rail fright could run all the way from New York and not need to be unloaded even once.
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