The South and the Northern Tariff

The South and the Northern Tariff - Speech of Senator Thomas Clingman, North Carolina, March 19, 1861 (Congressional Globe 36-2 p. 1476-77)

CLINGMAN: Mr. President, I admire the closing rhetoric of the Senator form Rhode Island (Simmons); but I want to call his attention to one or two questions which I put to him, and which he does not apprehend, but which I think are practical. The Senator attaches very little weight to the imports that go into the seven States that have seceded. He thinks it a matter of very little moment whether those States remain out or in. I endeavored to show him the error; but perhaps too hurriedly for him to apprehend my meaning; and I beg leave to recapitulate, for I think if there is a practical mind on the floor of the Senate, the Senator?s is one, and I want to see how he will get this Government out of the difficulty. I say to him, that I am as yet a representative of the Government of the United States, and shall faithfully represent what I believe to be in its interests, while I stand here. But let us see how this will affect the revenue. There were made last year about four million six hundred thousand bales of cotton. About two hundred thousand bales of it were made in North Carolina, and I suppose about as much in Tennessee, and about the same amount in Arkansas. There were very nearly four million bales of cotton made in the seven States that have seceded, worth fully $200,000,000. Very little of it was consumed in those States ? not more, perhaps, than three or four millions? worth ? and the rice crop exported exceeded that, and Louisiana made, I believe, about twenty millions? worth of sugar. I do not know what the amount of the sugar crop was last year; it has fluctuated; but it must have been at least that; it has sometimes been more. I think it fair, therefore, to assume that those seven States sent out of their limits from two hundred to two hundred and twenty million dollars? worth of produce. They get back a return in some way. It is not to be supposed it was given away. My friend from Texas suggests to me that they got it in wood-screws. No doubt they did get some of them; and they may have been gotten up in the State of Rhode Island, for aught I know. I was about to say that they must have got back $220,000,000 worth of products in some form. A portion of the money ? not very much ? went for horses and mules; and grain and other agricultural products, but much the larger amount of it went for articles that were dutiable. All of them were not actually imported, as many of them came from New England and elsewhere; but they were dutiable articles, and, but for the duties would have been furnished at a lower rate from abroad. I take it, therefore, that off the dutiable articles there must be twenty or thirty million ? certainly twenty million ? of revenue that would, in the ordinary course, be collected off those States with the tariff which we had last year.

Now, it is idle for the honorable Senator to tell me that the importations at Charleston and Savannah were small. I know that the merchants have gone from those cities to New York, and bought goods there; that goods are imported into New York are bought there, and then are sent down and deposited at Charleston, New Orleans, and other places. But, in point of fact, here is an enormously large consumption of dutiable articles, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty million. These people make their own provisions mainly, and cotton to sell, and do very little in the way of manufactures. Their manufactured goods came from the United States, or from foreign countries. I put the question to the honorable Senator, how much duty does he think this Government is going to lose by the secession of those States, supposing, of course, that they do not pay us any duties; for if New England goods are to pay the same duty with those of Old England, and Belgium, and France, we all know that the New England goods will be excluded, unless they make up their minds to sell much cheaper than they have been heretofore doing? I was curious, the year before last, in going through Europe, to ascertain, as well as I could, the value of labor and the prices of articles, and I was astonished at the rate at which goods may be purchased all over the continent, compared with similar articles here. The reasons they are not furnished as cheap here, is partly due to the circuitous trade. For example: houses in England purchase up articles in Belgium, France, Germany, and even Italy, and make a handsome profit; they then send them to New York, and handsome profits are made there by the wholesale dealers and, finally, they get down south, and in this way they are very high; but the tariff has also operated very largely. That Senator knows, as well as I do, and everybody knows, that if there be direct trade with Europe by these States; if goods are not to go around through New York, and not to pay duties ? and you may be sure they will not go there under his tariff, for nobody will pay a duty of fifty or seventy-five per cent. on what he imports, when he can send the goods to another port for fifteen or nineteen per cent. ? the result will be, that these States certainly will pay this Government no duties at all.

But it does not stop there. Merchants from my own State go down to Charleston, and lay in their goods. This Government, as things now stand, is not going to get any revenue from them. If goods are imported at Charleston at ten, or fifteen, or nineteen per cent. duty, whatever is paid will go into the coffers of the confederate States, and merchants will go down from my State and buy their goods there; and thus you lose a great portion of the North Carolina trade. It will be the same with Tennessee; it will be the same with the Mississippi valley. Now, what revenue are we going to get to support our Government under th epresent condition of things? The honorable Senator is very adroit in parrying questions. I asked him, when he spoke of the free list, if the manufacturers were willing that their chemicals, their dye stuffs, and coarse wool, that has been admitted free, should be taxed; and he replied, ?They are willing to have tea and coffee taxed.?

SIMMONS: The Senator will pardon me. I said, if we wanted money I would tax them, whether they were willing or not.

CLINGMAN: Exactly; but when pressed on that point, he turns it off on the tea and coffee. But, sir, we are legislating here for the United States ? all of us who are here, except by friend from Texas, who is kind enough to stay with us and help us legislate, until he gets official notice of the ordinance of his State. I thank him for his kindness. I think he is doing us a favor to stay here and help the wheels along. It needs the help of Hercules and the wagoner both to get us out of the mud. I want to know of honorable Senators on the other side of the Chamber how this Government is going to support its revenue next year. I think, if you have no custom-house between Louisiana and the Upper Mississippi, merchants up there will come down and buy their goods at New Orleans. If they learn that at New York they can buy goods under a tariff of fifty or seventy-five per cent., and that they can biy them at New Orleans under a tariff of only one third that, they will go down to New Orleans; and the result will be that we shall get very little revenue under the existing system. We may bandy witticisms; we may show our adroitness in debate; but this is a question which we have to look at practically. One of two things must be done: either you must prevent imports into those States, which I do not think you can do ? and I do not suppose there is a Senator on this floor who believes that, under the existing laws, the President has authority to do it ? or you must call Congress together, and invest him with some authority. If you do not do that, you must establish a line of custom houses on the border.

Is it not better for us to meet this question frankly on its merits? My apprehension, as I have already expressed it, is that the Administration intend, (I hope I may be deceived) as soon as they can collect the force to have a war, to begin; and then call Congress suddenly together, and say, ?The honor of the country is concerned; the flag is insulted. You must come up and vote men and money.? That is, I suppose, to be its policy; not to call Congress together just now. There are two reasons, perhaps, for that. In the first place, it would be like a note of alarm down south; and, in the next place, if you call Congress together, and deliberately submit it to them whether they will go to war with the confederate States or not, I do not believe they would agree to do it. Of course, I do not know what is the temper of gentlemen on the other side; but, though they will have a large majority in the next Congress, I take it for granted from what little I have heard, that it will be difficult to get a bill through Congress for the war before the war begins; but it is a different thing after fighting begins at the forts.

The Senator himself says they are going to enforce the laws and carry them out everywhere. I cannot tell what he means. In one part of his speech, I understood him to say that he was willing to let the seceded States alone; but towards the close of it, he spoke of enforcing the laws, and collecting the revenue everywhere. There is a very wide difference between these lines of policy. If you intend to let the confederate States stand where they now do, and collect their own revenues, and possess the forts, we shall get nothing, or very little, under the existing system. If on the other hand, you intend to resort to coercive measures, and to oblige them to pay duties under our tariff, which they do not admit that they are liable to pay, and to take back the forts, we shall be precipitated into war; and then, I suppose, we shall have a proclamation calling Congress together, and demanding that the honor of the United States shall be maintained, and that men and money shall be voted. I would rather the country should ace into this matter.

I shall not detain the Senate with a discussion about the tariff. I take it that we understand it, and I presume that the intelligent minds of the country understand its situation, and how much we shall get under it. The Senator form Rhode Island alluded to a remark which the Senator from New Hampshire made, that Rome lasted seven hundred years, and that, therefore, this Government must last seven hundred years; and he gave us some witty remarks about the sun not going down before breakfast. Mr. President, it is unfortunate that these analogies do not always run out; they will not hold good. I have read that Methuselah lived until he was more than nine hundred years of age. If a man who was something above ninety were told by his physicians that he was in very great danger of dying, that his constitution was worn out, and disease was preying on him, if he were to refer to the case of Methuselah, and say, ?I have not lived one tenth as long as he did; and, according to his life, I am now just before the breakfast of life,? it might be a very satisfactory argument, perhaps, to the man who used it, but I doubt whether anybody else would be consoled by it; I doubt very much whether his physicians would leave him under the idea that he had certainly eight hundred years to live. I am very much afraid that my friend from Rhode Island, when he rests on this declaration of the Senator from New Hampshire is resting on an unsubstantial basis, when he assumed that this Government must, of necessity, live as long as the Roman republic, and that the comparison of the sun does not hold good. However, I see the Senator from New Hampshire near me, and as he understands these things so much better than I do, I yield the floor.

Clingman's 1860 speech is worth looking at. Clingman says that secession may come if Republicans win the election. And he says that the essence of the Republican party was its opposition to slavery

An interesting argument, but also one with a very severe and glaring flaw. That speech was in January 1860. In between then and December when secession started, the Republican Party formally adopted protectionism as a central platform plank and nominated a well known protectionist as their presidential candidate. Therefore, while it is true that in January 1860 the Republican Party did not subscribe to protectionism, that changed in the summer when they enthusiastically endorsed it as a central plank.

When Charleston was laid seige ........azhenfud

And are you saying that Major Anderson and his 65 men laid seige to the 7,000 rebel troops in Charleston?....Walt

A coastal artillery fort has only one military purpose and that is to deny passage to ships passing within the range of it's guns.

A traditional siege entails an attempt to cut off all routes into the besieged city or fortress with the ultimate purpose of forcing a surrender. Fort Sumter had no power to "besiege" Charleston or anything else.

Whoever controlled Fort Sumter, however, had the power to either "defend" Charleston from a seaborne attack by enemy warships or to establish a maritime "blockade" of Charleston by denying passage to merchant shipping.

Major Anderson and his 85 men (not 65) had no power to "besiege" Charleston but they did have the power to establish a maritime "blockade" of Charleston if they so desired.

As Anderson had made no attempt to establish such a blockade, the prudent Confederate course of action would have been to swallow a little bit (or a lot - depending on your point of view) of territorial pride and do nothing until such a blockade was actually attempted.

I had come across some of those figures before, for example the statistics on food imports from the midwest and west. The confederacy wasn't self sufficient in food. But I would question the claim of $150 million in manufactured goods and would ask what those goods comprised and who bought them. It seems like such a high percentage of the regional income. And what percentage of those goods were destined for the original 7 states and what percentage went to states like North Carolina and Virginia? Those two alone comprised the overwhelming majority of what little industry the south had, as well as making up a large percentage of the confederate population, and if most of those manufactured goods were destined for them then that would weaken the tariff claim even more since neither state claimed the tariff as their reason for joining the rebellion. As for the original 7, I can't imagine what the southern planter needed in the way of manufactured goods.

Stopping in NYC allowed imports to be sorted there and placed (based on orders from jobbers/retailers) on more efficient intracontinental ships headed to various Southern ports. Meanwhile, the intercontinental ships could resupply at NYC or Boston and take an export load back to Europe.

But the logic falls apart in light of the claims that the south paid anywhere between 80 and 90 percent of the tariffs. If that percentage of the imports was destined for southern consumers then why stop in New York to sort things out when just about all your cargo is going to the south to begin with? Would it not make more sense to go to Charleston to sort things out and then tranship the small amount destined for the North from there? And why would intercontinental ships want to resupply in New York if the were going to pick up their cotton in New Orleans or Mobile?

It is also worth remembering that the Dollar was not the World's reserve currency in 1860, Pound Sterling was.

A silver dollar contained exactly 3/4 troy oz. of silver, minted at .900 fine. This down from pre-1838 standard, which IIRC would have been .925 fine (sterling), and equal to the Austrian thaler/Polish talara/Spanish dollar of .77~ troy oz.

A British sovereign (one pound in gold coin) was worth US$6.00 even. Therefore the dollar was worth 40d. in British coin, or 3s. 4d. A U.S. nickel was worth tuppence. But you're right, British or French or Austrian money -- not "currency" -- would have been the reserve standard. British currency circulated freely for several years after the Revolution, and Spanish currency ("bits") for some time after that.

In other words, ship the Northern goods to the South, then turn around and ship them up the east coast part way back to Europe the way they came? It is a wonder you Yankees won the war.

Well, yes, since so much was destined for the south anyway and comparatively little was destined for the North. Or so the sothron economic giants like GOPConservative assure us. And one possible reason why the Yankees won the war was that they were familiar with the prevailing wind patterns of the Atlantic. Prevailing winds run clockwise around the North Atlantic so that the prevailing westerly winds are in the south and the prevailing easterly winds are in the north. So ships bound for the United States would tend to swing a bit south anyway rather than go on a direct line from England to New York. I guess that's why the southern planters stayed away from the shipping business, the fools would be trying to go west in the teeth of the eastern prevailing winds. Not very successful.

But the logic falls apart in light of the claims that the south paid anywhere between 80 and 90 percent of the tariffs.

The statement might hold up if the bulk of the imports consisted of high value-added equipment used only in the south. For instance, the Texas Archeological Society is aware of a number of locations where heavyweight English steam engines and boilers used in the production of molasses and cane sugar are still present on the premises of former cane plantations such as those that dotted the "peach bottoms" of the Texas coastal rivers.

That means ship them by rail to North Carolina and so forth. Or ship them up the mississippi from New Orleans and so forth. It's a lot harder to collect tariffs on goods travelling over land than by sea at the port of entry.

Sure, ship them up the interstate. The Feds can't cover all of them, can they? </sarcasm>

Looking at a map of the railway system in the U.S. around 1860 would indicate that there weren't that many lines connecting the North and the south. Make them two countries and it wouldn't be hard for the government to limit the available crossing points and slap a tariff on the goods as the came across.

If buyers up north knew they could get goods without a tariff by going to Charleston, economic law dictates they would go to Charleston. If they knew they could get the same at New Orleans, they'd go to New Orleans.

But if the buyers up North knew that the goods would be hit with a tariff as soon as they brought it up North then why would they want to pay the confederate tariff, the U.S. tariff, and all the associated transportation costs?

Unless Lincoln established inland customs houses all up the Mississippi and at every road and railway across the border from Virginia and Arkansas, goods could enter the south, paying only the low southern tariff, then be transfered up north by inland means without any further taxation.

Every road? How much travelled by road in those days? You're talking railroad and river only, and it wouldn't be hard to limit those crossing points and add the tariff to goods coming across.

Your economic ignorance is showing again.

And your arrogance is showing again. If the southern planter sells his cotton to a broker then where do tariffs come into play? The broker pays no tariff on the exports and the planter has his money to spend locally.

If I give my cotton to a buyer in Britain, I do so only because he is giving me something in return for that cotton. It may be a payment in money that he gives me.

And if I sell my cotton to a New York buyer then what do I care how he gets rid of it? You seem to be insisting that the southern planter was deeply involved with purchasing the goods in Europe for import. I believe that it was PeaRidge who offered the charming picture of thousands of southern planters riding their cotton bales across the pond to go on their shopping spree in Europe only to be gouged on their return by that evil tariff. A more likely scenario is that the southern planter played no part in the cycle other than selling his produce to someone who would then export it. It would stand to reason that the planter would want to limit his risk as much as he could. Selling it right out of the gin meant that he didn't have to run the risk of losing the goods in a shipwreck or be at the mercy of international trade variables. He had his cash in hand to spend as he wanted, on what he wanted.

As Clingman pointed out, goods can come in anywhere by sea on the North American continent.

And as Simmons pointed out the small amount of tariff money collected in the south indicates that there was little southern demand for the goods. Why should I accept Clingman's statistics over Simmons? Clingman offers nothing to back up his $150 million figure.

If New York has a tariff blocking goods from entering and Charleston does not have such a tariff, the foreign shippers will go to Charleston to avoid paying that tariff and the good is delivered.

If there was that much of a demand down south then the goods would have gone there directly, not through New York. They did not, so obviously demand was much greater up North than down south. The imports would have continued to go to the customer regardless of tariff because they would have done the New York merchant no good sitting on the dock in Charleston.

No wonder the Southern Commissioners charged the Lincoln Administration with gross perfidy over Fort Sumter on April 11, 1861, the day before firing on the fort began.

Are we going to do this again? Seward misled the rebels, Lincoln never did. The Lincoln administration followed the same policies as the Buchanan administration as from when Buchanan purged Floyd and the other traitors along about New Years, 1861.

Walt

What destroyed the South's economy was basing it almost entirely on slavery.

To the contrary and you are practicing marxian labor reductionism when you suggest as much.

Well, that's nonsense blue smoke and mirrors.

The rebels had machinery stolen from the federal government that could produce 300 rifles a day. But they only had skilled labor to produce 100 rifles a day. At this same time the federal government was producing 5,000 rifles a day in 44 different factories. The rebels had no ability to either repair or build railroad engines, spikes, rails or cars anywhere in the insurgent area. As Bruce Catton said:

"As the nation's need for an adequate transportation increased, the system would grow weaker and weaker, and there was no earthly help for it....these problems , indeed, were so grave and pointed so surely towards final defeat that one is faced to wonder how the founding fathers of the Confederacy could possibly have overlooked them. The answer perhaps is that the problems were not so much unseen as uncomprehended. At bottom they were Yankee problems; concerns of the broker, the money changer, the trader, the mechanic, the grasping man of business; they were matters that such people would think of, not matters that would command the attention of aristocrats who who were familiar with valor, the classics and heroric atttitudes. Secession itself had involved a flight from reality rather than an approach to it."

The south failed in its bid for revolution because it couldn't operate as a modern economy. They downplayed and denigrated free labor. That meant they couldn't guarantee their borders. Nothing else matters.

Walt

Check the date on that speech again, Walt. January 1860. It wasn't even in the secession era.

"[The chief obstacle to reconciliation] is the absoulute impossibility of revolutionizing Northern opinion in relation to slavery. Without a change of heart, radical and thorough, all guarantees which might be offered are not worth the paper on which they are inscribed. As long as slavery is looked upon by the North with abhorrance; as long as the south is regarded as a mere slave-breding and slave-driving community; as long as false and pernicious theories are cherish respecting the inherant equality and rights of every human being, ther can be no satisfactory political union between the two sections."

--New Orleans Bee, December 14, 1860 Quoted in "The Causes of the Civil War" Keneth M. Stampp, ed.

Looks like December, 1860 to me.

All of your rant on every subject is based on your saying that -you- know better than the people of the day. They spoke more truthfully than you do.

Walt

The south failed in its bid for revolution because it couldn't operate as a modern economy.

A lie. The South failed in it's bid because a military foe denied it the right to self-government.

And sent them to bed without supper -- AND changed the parental code on the Playstation 2.

The south was denied the right to self-government because they agreed to be bound permanently into a perpetual federal Union. And they were denied the right to self government because they couldn't bring the military power to maintain their territorial integrity. That is how the Goths sacked Rome, Rome conquered Carthage, Titus sacked Jerusalem, Napoleon was exiled to Elba, Saddam Hussein was kicked out of Kuwait, and....get the picture? And the south couldn't bring military power because slave labor couldn't produce the power needed to compete with a free labor economy.

Walt

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