The figure is from Congressional reports quoted in "Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running During the Civil War" by Stephen Wise. For the year prior to the rebellion, net tariff revenues for the three busiest Northern ports totaled about $42.5 million dollars. Net tariff revenue from the eleven busiest Southern ports for the same period totaled less than $3 million.
If 95% of imports are going into northern ports, then the tariffs were effective in shutting the south out of the world's market.
If 95% of all imports are going to Northern ports then wouldn't that indicate that the overwhelming majority of imports are destined for Northern consumers? It makes no sense otherwise. If they were destined for Southern consumers then they would have gone to the Southern ports. At the same time those goods were flooding into New York, Boston, and Philadelphia over 3.1 million bales of cotton were being exported, and over 2.8 million were leaving from Southern ports. So access to the world's markets wasn't the issue. Demand was.
Vallandigham was arrested for the "crime" of speaking out against the war. And the "law" he broke was an order by a Union General---not an act of the legislature. The first amendment, in the understanding of today as then, protects this sort of dissenting speech. Vallandigham was unconstitutionally deported. What good is a trial when the offense isn't a crime?
Vallandigham was arrested and tried by a military tribunal, a process that was legal under the laws in effect at the time. The Supreme Court would rule in 1864 that they didn't have the right to issue a writ of habeas corpus in military cases, though they would also rule the following year that courts shouldn't have been suspended in the first place since they could operate openly and freely. As for the unconstitutionality of the deportation I fail to see what clause was being violated by Lincoln's act of compassion that spared Vallandigham time in jail.
Firstly, nothing I've written in this thread was in support of the south, slavery or racism; nor are these the original topic of debate, which was Lincoln's defense/abuse of the Constitution.
And into which you interjected your opinion that Lincoln was also a white supremacist. If you want to judge him by today's standards then shouldn't you also admit that any Southern leader you would care to admit was worse?
But pointing to southern ignorance as wicked while ignoring Lincoln's equal perception of white superiority is senseless.
But slandering Lincoln while ignoring the South is OK, is that it?
He had a bunch of schemes to relocate slaves to Africa and just about anywhere else but American shores.
Lincoln was a supporter of voluntary emigration, key word being voluntary. And given what blacks in the U.S. faced in both the North and the South, just what was so evil about that? Considering Southern leaders like Lee and Davis considered them fit for slavery and nothing else and considering that the Supreme Court had ruled that blacks were not and could never be citizens and had no rights that the white man was bound to respect, where was Lincoln so God awful sinister by suggesting that they might do well to carve out their own life free from the bigotry they faced in this country at the time? Can you explain that?
Furthermore, what does the racist attitude of southern slaveholders have to do with Lincoln's official actions with respect to defending the Constitution?
You're the one who started down the racist path. Are you back tracking?
If 95% of all imports are going to Northern ports then wouldn't that indicate that the overwhelming majority of imports are destined for Northern consumers? It makes no sense otherwise. If they were destined for Southern consumers then they would have gone to the Southern ports. At the same time those goods were flooding into New York, Boston, and Philadelphia over 3.1 million bales of cotton were being exported, and over 2.8 million were leaving from Southern ports. So access to the world's markets wasn't the issue. Demand was.
Or it means that tariffs were effective in shielding northern firms from foreign competition, forcing southerners to buy goods at artificially high prices from northern firms (but still cheaper than foreign goods). The south had the choice of either paying tariffs for imports or paying interests in the north. And since federal spending was northern-weighted (even if only by population), it meant the money went there no matter what.
As for the unconstitutionality of the deportation I fail to see what clause was being violated by Lincoln's act of compassion that spared Vallandigham time in jail.
As chief executive, Lincoln is accountable for the acts of his officers. His officer was subverting the Constitution with General Order 38. It should never have gotten to deportation. The Fifth Amendment provides that No person shall be... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. It's hard to call the tribunal a due process of law, seeing as how it convicted him of violating an unconstitutional decree. You also own your citizenship and Vallandigham was deprived of it.
But slandering Lincoln while ignoring the South is OK, is that it?... And into which you interjected your opinion that Lincoln was also a white supremacist. If you want to judge him by today's standards then shouldn't you also admit that any Southern leader you would care to admit was worse?
It's not slander when it's a fact. And I haven't defended the south, and I never said that what they did was right. You keep forgetting that and are trying to tie me to the Confederacy---to which I don't belong.
You're the one who started down the racist path. Are you back tracking?
No, actually I didn't start that. See iowamark's posts 30 and 76 where he accused me of being racist and a KKK-member. You interjected in that debate (I'll euphemistically call it a debate).
...where was Lincoln so God awful sinister by suggesting that they might do well to carve out their own life free from the bigotry they faced in this country at the time? Can you explain that?
You presuppose that it these refugees would be accepted at their destinations. But no, it wasn't sinister for him to want to help slaves. But it also doesn't change the fact that he was a white supremacist and white separatist.
I was here last night, and thought this thread was dead. I see it came back to life, and I see you have been presenting some of the finest, most logical and well-informed opinions on this subject I have ever read. I consider myself well-read on the history of the period; you sir are an expert. Thanks for spending the time to set out, through debate, the facts of the matter.