In this “list”, I don’t see where the UNFAIR TARIFFS or the opening of the flood gates to immigrants in the 1830’s were mentioned.
Oh, they were DISCONNECTED from the issue, right?
I think not. Northern industries found out that immigrants were cheaper than slaves, so they opened up the flood gates and let bunches in. You could pay them pennies a day and let THEM feed themselves, cloth themselves, house themselves, etc.etc.
But only after they loaded your “16 Tons.”
In item #1 above, I posted a link to the "Declarations of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify Secession from the Federal Union".
If you will read those, or even do a quick word search, you'll find that neither tariffs nor immigration are even mentioned, much less treated as major items of complaint.
ConradoMontrerrat: "Northern industries found out that immigrants were cheaper than slaves, so they opened up the flood gates and let bunches in."
In fact, seeds for the death of slavery first began when poorer northern & western voters realized that slaves could be trained to do their work and take away their jobs -- jobs which, then as now, were the highest paying in the world.
This is why by 1860, they insisted there must be no further expansion of slavery into states or territories which didn't want it.
Nobody opened any gates, for the simple reason that there were no gates to open. There were essentially no restrictions on immigration at all until the late 19th century, and no real "gates" until the 20s.
BTW, congratulations. You've finally come up with a new justification for secession. I've never seen anybody claim the South seceded over immigration issues, and certainly never seen any evidence of such from the period.
The Know Nothing nativist party was a pretty big deal during the early 50s, but it was a national party, with pockets of support in both north and south.
As far as the unfair tariffs go, they were lower in 1860 than they had been for some time.
The Tariff rate in 1860 was at 15%... among the lowest ever in US history to that point. And the Southern Democrats had controlled both houses of congress for the previous 20 years plus the White house. They all voted for that tariffe rate.
Are you claiming that the Southerners enacted tariffs on themselves that they thought were UNFAIR?
Hummm?
As a 4th generation descendant of a couple of those 'pennys a day' immigrants I just have to wonder why the Slave Owners weren't as intelligent as those nasty bloodthirsty Northern industrialists...
I also wonder why those first in my relationship who came here sent back to the old country to bring their families here with them to work in those damn sweatshops for pennies, and how the hell my G-G grandfather who came here from Europe managed to build a brand new house that stayed in our family for 4 generations. It's amazing they could do all that on 'pennies a day.'
All the slaveholders had to do was free their slaves and pay them 'pennies.' Seems to be a 'no-brainer' to me. Ya... you give up a few things like you can't sell their kids or spouses off for a nice profit if you need some ready cash. And your workers can just pickup and leave you for a better deal if they want, but hell, if you are only paying them pennies a day... what's the big deal?
We could have avoided the Civil War and not be faced with the permanent black entitlement underclass we have today.
Must be some reason why those wonderful Southern gentlemen didn't do that. Let me guess... it was Lincoln's fault? Or maybe Bush's' fault.
< /s (major league) >
At the time of the pretended secession, tariffs were low, at the request of the south. The tariff collection was in part low because false values could be assigned to imports, so that lower than real tariffs could be paid.
That was the real advantage of the new tariffs: Tax was assigned to amounts of goods by type of good. Much harder cheat.
Of course when cheating it was common to buy off the customs official. No wonder they were unhappy. Under straightforward smuggling they didn’t get a cut.