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To: ravinson
That was after secession of most of the Southern stated, so I don't understand your point.

Additional states seceded after the Morrill tax was enacted. As the editorials I posted pointed out, passing the Morrill tax played right into the hands of the secessionists and worked against the North in the border states.

As the New Orleans paper also said about the new tariff, "The South was to be fleeced that the North might be enriched." The tariff can't have helped the Union cause.

Going all the way from Europe to Southern ports is a much longer haul (than just from Europe to Boston or New York City) and involves going through hurricane prone seas.

I'm not sure how the goods ultimately got to the South. Perhaps the trans-Atlantic ships carried goods bound for both North and South, and it made more sense to pay the tariff at the intial port of call rather than going through the tariff hassle in both ports.

132 posted on 02/27/2003 11:48:01 AM PST by rustbucket
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To: rustbucket
Additional states seceded after the Morrill tax was enacted.

But they seceded because Lincoln took steps to reclaim federal forts and other property in the states that had previosuly seceded, not because of the Morrill tax (which had been proposed by James Buchanan and supported by many Democrats).

As the editorials I posted pointed out, passing the Morrill tax played right into the hands of the secessionists and worked against the North in the border states.

More nonsense. Lincoln was very cautious about upsetting the border states and by doing so he was able to keep them all in the Union. In drafting his first inaugural address, he replaced a threat to reclaim forts and other federal property with an intent to enforce import duties in the South, since he and his advisors knew that the latter would not be nearly as objectionable to the border states as the former.

157 posted on 02/27/2003 4:14:54 PM PST by ravinson
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