Posted on 02/26/2003 1:10:37 PM PST by GOPcapitalist
Where there is a will, there is a way. From the link I provided in Post #150:
On May 21, 1861, the Confederate Congress prohibited the sale of cotton to the North. Yet an illicit trade across military lines flourished between Southern cotton farmers and Northern traders.
WhiskeyPapa: Are we going to do this again? Seward misled the rebels, Lincoln never did.
Seward was not part of the Lincoln Administration?
Nonsense. The word "perpetual" does not appear in the Constitution, nor does permanent or any other derivation of the word/meaning. The founders DROPPED the word "perpetual" from the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union [which appeared FIVE times] in their move to make a more perfect union, which required less consent than did the UNANIMOUS consent required by the Articles. Additionally, there is no prohibition against secession, and the Tenth Amendment still exists, and federal laws are subservient to the Constitution (see the tagline). Their does exist a requirement in the Full Faith & Credit Clause that the State Acts be recognized, but the union reneged on that one as well.
And the south couldn't bring military power because slave labor couldn't produce the power needed to compete with a free labor economy.
Nonsense. Remove the union military blockade, and have the union forces conduct civilized warfare - not against civilians and civilian property, and the South easily would have survived. The South was starved into submission, not defeated honourably on the battlefield.
ROTFL. The Spanish first observed the Gulf Stream, and its effect on sea traffic and that of the accompanying winds were known among mariners before it was made public knowledge by Benjamin Franklin.
Since the Yankees killed their sea trade with the Morrill tariff, what difference did knowledge of the effect of currents and winds on trans-Atlantic transit times make?
Very good point! Cost, just like sewage, runs down hill.
Good grief GOPCap, the fact that he doesn't understand macro-economics, tariffs and international economic theory, and the Constitution shouldn't hold him back. </sarcasm>
And how did that kill their sea trade? It continued on throughout the war and afterwards.
he wouldn't know what a tax was/is unless he can figure out how to cut and paste something off-topic he found on the worldwidewierd with 5 or less keystrokes. that's his speed.
he VOTED for wee willie klintoon AND al gore too.
free dixie,sw
Simply calling it names doesn't make it so, Walt. One would think you'd have learned that concept by now.
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.
So in other words, your measure of their economy is its war production abilities in that very same war that The Lincoln thrust upon it by invading them?
Your false god said otherwise:
"I was an old Henry Clay tariff whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject, than on any other. I have not since changed my views." - Lincoln, October 11, 1859
"In 1844 I was on the Clay electoral ticket in this State (i.e., Illinois) and, to the best of my ability, sustained, together, the tariff of 1842 and the tariff plank of the Clay platform . This could be proven by hundreds---perhaps thousands---of living witnesses; still it is not in print, except by inference. The Whig papers of those years all show that I was upon the electoral ticket; even though I made speeches, among other things about the tariff, but they do not show what I said about it. The papers show that I was one of a committee which reported, among others, a resolution in these words: ``That we are in favor of an adequate revenue on duties from imports so levied as to afford ample protection to American industry.'' But, after all, was it really any more than the tariff plank of our present platform? And does not my acceptance pledge me to that?" - Lincoln, October 2, 1860
"[I]f the consideration of the Tariff bill should be postponed until the next session of the National Legislature, no subject should engage your representatives more closely than that of a tariff . And if I have any recommendation to make, it will be that every man who is called upon to serve the people in a representative capacity, should study this whole subject thoroughly, as I intend to do myself, looking to all the varied interests of our common country, so that when the time for action arrives adequate protection can be extended to the coal and iron of Pennsylvania, the corn of Illinois, and the ``reapers of Chicago.'" - Lincoln, February 15, 1861
Better start repenting before he gets mad, Walt!
Since when is it arrogant to point out that you are consistently acting in an ignorant manner on a subject where your ignorance has been made known to you previously, though evidently to no avail?
If the southern planter sells his cotton to a broker then where do tariffs come into play?
At the price.
The broker pays no tariff on the exports and the planter has his money to spend locally.
Not so. If trade stops and the foreign buyers are lost, the prices in agricultural market die too. The broker is only an intermediary, just like the commodities markets of today are intermediaries for farmers. Therefore much of the burden is transfered through to the seller himself.
And if I sell my cotton to a New York buyer then what do I care how he gets rid of it?
So long as he is paying market value, you shouldn't. But the number of New Yorkers who are willing to pay market price for cotton is not unlimited, nor is Europe's unlimited. If Europe is cut out of trade by a tariff and ceases buying American cotton, there is no guarantee that the cotton that used to go to Europe will all be absorbed by New York buyers at the same price. Rather, the market will be flooded with all that surplus cotton that isn't traded any more, causing the price to bottom out.
You seem to be insisting that the southern planter was deeply involved with purchasing the goods in Europe for import.
Only insofar as the southern planters provided 75% of the nation's exports. Trade is a circular pattern, Non-Seq. If America exports something, it expects to get something in return, which means either imports or monetary credit. So in that sense, by being the nation's exporters, yes - southerners were deeply involved in European imports because their exports made those imports happen.
It would stand to reason that the planter would want to limit his risk as much as he could.
Not necessarily. Profit maximization tends to be the primary goal of most producers, especially in free perfectly competitive markets. Therefore he sells it at the market price, be the recipient a European or a yankee.
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.
Your theory is irrational and yet again demonstrates your economic ignorance. It makes about as much sense as Wal-Mart imposing a rule that it will only permit customers who live in a 10 mile radius of the store, because people beyond that have to drive further and therefore run a greater risk of getting in a car wreck on the way home.
He had his cash in hand to spend as he wanted, on what he wanted.
...and since the question of the tariff determines how much cash that will be that he has on hand, and how much purchasing power that cash has when he goes to spend it, surely you can now see why the south had such an interest in tariff policy.
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.
Aside from failing to respond to the fact that goods may enter anywhere on the North American continent, your fallacy is again noted. By that same reason, Tennessee must not recieve any goods or pay any tariffs because none are collected there. If there was that much of a demand down south then the goods would have gone there directly, not through New York.
You are missing the concept entirely. It is a matter of demand for North America itself. If a barrier blocks the entry of goods into one port but not another, goods from abroad will enter where the barrier does not exist then distribute accordingly within the continent.
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.
Nonsense. To get the goods, the New York merchant need only transfer them internally from Charleston, or up the Mississippi from New Orleans and so forth. Barring the logistically impossible establishment of custom houses at every road, railway, waterway, and river across the north-south border between Virginia and Arkansas, he could do so without paying a single tariff.
Nonsense. The word "perpetual" does not appear in the Constitution, nor does permanent or any other derivation of the word/meaning.
It's been perpetual so far.
You're telling a big 'un any way, as the Preamble surely states that the Union is to be made more perfect. And what could be more permanent than a petpetual Union made more perfect?
That's what the Chief Justice of the United States thought, any way. And what about:
"The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forebearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for 'perpetual union' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession."
Robert E. Lee, January 23, 1861
Walt
Barring a customs house at every road, railway, and river across the border stretching from Virginia to Arkansas, then no. They couldn't cover them all.
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.
But there was one great big line of another sorts. It was called the Mississippi River.
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.
Not really. That would have required controlling every crossing of the border all the way from Virginia to Arkansas. Discount that fact as you may, but it simply wasn't possible. For example we can't even control a border today with all our modern technology - not even with the help of a large river running along it and the fact that 90% of it is out in the middle of a desert to nowhere. What makes you think Abe Lincoln could have done the same across the north-south border from Virginia to Arkansas in 1861?
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?
Because it was logistically possible to transport those same goods up north while avoiding the tariff.
Every road? How much travelled by road in those days?
All it takes to get it across the border is a couple of miles, so you tell me.
Lincoln didn't say he wouldn't reclaim federal property in his inaugural address, but he wisely dropped a threat to do so from his first presidential speech to give his new administration time to get organized before tipping his hand to the rebels.
The South, who truly believed they had the constitutional right to secede, could probably argue that actions by Lincoln to reclaim forts located within their states and enforce US duties at their ports were acts of war.
The Confederates could take any ridiculous position they wanted and often did, but the rebels were the ones who initiated the Civil War by seceding and attacking federal forts, not Lincoln.
It looks like your understanding of maritime currents is about as sound as your understanding of economics...that is to say, both are severely lacking.
The fastest transatlantic crossing achieved at the time was about 12 days from Britain to New York. They achieved it in the 1840's. The achieved it by steam and sail together. By 1860, steam was a norm in maritime vessles. Ships tended to have screws by then or, if not that, were at least side wheelers.
Your logic does not follow. Nothing about the phrase "more perfect" even remotely hints at the term "perpetual." The leap between the two is an arbitrary one of your own construction.
Back to your books, GOP. Intercoastal commerce used steam as did many passenger packets, but transatlantic cargo still moved primarily by sail. Sail ships would continue to move a lot of cargo almost until the 20th century
So how much moved by road those days?
Your false god said otherwise:
"I was an old Henry Clay tariff whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject, than on any other. I have not since changed my views." - Lincoln, October 11, 1859
Old times there -are- forgotten.
"From 1854 to his nomination for the presidency in 1860, as James McPherson noted in his DRAWN WITH THE SWORD, "the dominant, unifying theme of Lincoln's career was opposition to the expansion of slavery as a vital first step toward placing it in the course of ultimate extinction." In those years he gave approximately 175 political speeches. McPherson notes that the "central message of these speeches showed Lincoln to be a "one-issue" man - the issue being slavery." Thus, Lincoln's nomination to the presidency was based on a principled opposition to slavery on moral grounds, and that position was clear to voters both in the South and the North.
In his early speeches and actions as president-elect and president, he was clear in his opinion that he had no legal authority to interfere with slavery in the slave states. However, he was persistent and consistent in his efforts to encourage and aid voluntary emancipation in the loyal Border States, territories and the District of Columbia. These efforts predated his publication of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation."
- from the AOL ACW forum
Lincoln worked on the EP, not an adjustment of tariffs, to help end the fighting.
The slave power needs a lot of apologizing, and you are willing to provide it. But that doesn't change the facts.
Walt
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