Posted on 01/13/2004 9:01:35 AM PST by Aurelius
Dust jackets for most books about the American Civil War depict generals, politicians, battle scenes, cavalry charges, cannons[sic] firing, photographs or fields of dead soldiers, or perhaps a battle between ironclads. In contrast our book {[url=http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2XGHOEK4JT&isbn=0842029613&itm=7]Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War Mark Thornton, Steven E. Woodworth (Editor), Robert B. Ekelund[/url]features a painting by Edgar Degas entitled the "Cotton Exchange" which depicts several calm businessmen and clerks, some of them Degas’s relatives, going about the business of buying and selling cotton at the New Orleans Cotton Exchange. The focus of this book is thus on the economic rationality of seemingly senseless events of the Civil War – a critical period in American history.
What caused the war? Why did the Union defeat the Confederacy? What were the consequences of the War? The premise of the book is that historians have a comparative advantage in describing such events, but economists have the tools to help explain these events.
We use traditional economic analysis, some of it of the Austrian and Public Choice variety, to address these principal questions and our conclusions generally run counter to the interpretations of historians. In contrast to historians who emphasize the land war and military strategy, we show that the most important battle took place at sea. One side, the blockade runners, did not wear uniforms or fire weapons at their opponents. The other side, the blockading fleet, was composed of sailors who had weapons and guns but they rarely fired their cannons in hopes of damaging their opponents. Their pay was based on the valued of captured ships. Historians often have argued that the Confederacy lost because it was overly reluctant to use government power and economic controls, but we show the exact opposite. Big Confederate government brought the Confederacy to its knees.
Some now teach that slavery was the sole cause of the Civil War – an explanation that historians have developed in the twentieth century. However, this analysis does not explain why the war started in 1861 (rather than 1851 or 1841) and it fails to explain why slavery was abolished elsewhere without such horrendous carnage.
We emphasize economics and politics as major factors leading to war. The Republicans who came to power in 1860 supported a mercantilist economic agenda of protectionism, inflation, public works, and big government. High tariffs would have been a boon to manufacturing and mining in the north, but would have been paid largely by those in the export-oriented agriculture economy.
Southern economic interests understood the effects of these policies and decided to leave the union. The war was clearly related to slavery, but mainly in the sense that Republican tariffs would have squeezed the profitability out of the slave-based cotton plantation economy to the benefit of Northern industry (especially Yankee textiles and iron manufacturing). Southerners would also have lost out in terms of public works projects, government land giveaways, and inflation.
The real truth about wars is that they are not started over principle, but over power. Wars however, are not won by power on the battlefield, but by the workings and incentives of men who go to work in fields and factories, to those who transport, store and sell consumer goods, and most especially to the entrepreneurs and middlemen who make markets work and adapt to change. This emphasis and this economic account of tariffs, blockade and inflation, like the focus of Degas’s "Cotton Exchange" reveals the most important and least understood aspect of war.
Give it up, tu quoque boy. There is no rule saying that in order to legitimately criticize Lincoln one must first make an equal number of criticisms of unrelated subject matter about Jeff Davis.
Uh, I'm sorry...where exactly were the "president's war powers" enumerated in the US Constitution?
Article II, Section 2
"Clause 1: The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;..."
President Lincoln wrote:
"You dislike the emancipation proclamation; and perhaps, would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional--I think differently. I think the Constitution invests the commander in chief with the law of war, in time of war. The most that can be said, if so much, is, that slaves are property. Is there--has there ever been--any question that by the law of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? And is it not needed whenever taking it helps us, or hurts the enemy?"
Whatever you think of it, it is a commonly held interpretation.
Note also that the Militia Act of 1795 leaves when to call out the militia to the judgement of the president.
Walt
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llcg&fileName=056/llcg056.db&recNum=474
I don't see anything there either to suggest that a large number of people thought in 1861 that the war would be a long one.
It's generally accepted that people on both sides thought that the other would yield without much fighting.
President Lincoln says in his second inaugural that no one anticiaptated the war's duration.
Walt
tick, tick, tick...
I thought of that too.
If texconfed wanted to he could find the one speech where Lincoln said "as long as they live together" one race must be superior to the other. But that is a social arrangement.
This famous statement is from the 1858 debates.
Lincoln also varied his text slightly as the debates went on (and moved further south in Illnois).
"I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position...."
"...will probably..."
"... inasmuch as it becomes a necessity..."
Now, what would cause a superior/inferior position of whites and blacks to become a --necessity--?
Nothing.
It's Lincoln wriggling out of a tough question like any politician.
That was in 1858. Later, President Lincoln did work for full rights for blacks.
Walt
The REAL REASON I can't/won't admit that is because that would be wrong. Defense of the institution of slavery was by far the single, most important reason for the southern rebellion was defense of the institution of slavery. All evidence supports that.
You could not stop hating Lincoln or Northerners if your life depended on it.
He was offered one chance to accept the legitimacy of the southern rebellion. That was the primary purpose of the so-called commissioners. Everything else was secondary. An end to the rebellion was not on the table, so far as the Davis regime was concerned, so there was nothing to talk about. Had the discussions been open to all possibilities, and had Lincoln spurned that chance, then you would have an argument. But expecting Lincoln to surrender, and then criticize him when he did not, is nonsense.
Oh, so we're back to musical definitions. Well, massa GOP, I can't hardly keep track of every time you change your mind about what tu quoque means.
Well, if you really want to get down to root causes, if Richard, Duke of York, had not been named Governor of Ireland in 1449 then you would not have had the amnity between the Celts and the Saxons which manifested itself in 1860. </sarcasm>
My belief is that he got bitten by a Yankee when he was a baby. But that's only a guess.
Non-seq wasn't violating some neo-secessionist rule of argument (lol). He was refuting a poster's claim of non-bias, by pointing out no criticism of the Davis regime accompanied that of Lincoln's. A fairly uncomplicated chain of logic that even you would have difficulty disagreeing with.
IOW, it would seem you have squawked in latin prematurely.
Actually, he just wanted a chance to call me 'boy' again. He believes in those old sothron traditions.
As usual, you have your history wrong. From: (Richard of York).
In 1449 Richard, Duke of York, was appointed governor of Ireland and made a great impression on the Irish and Anglo-Irish. When Richard of York challenged for the throne Ireland supported him.
Richard's perhaps illegitimate son, Edward IV, King of England, had trouble with the Irish. And of course, Richard was a Plantagenet, not a Saxon (though I haven't traced his family line).
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