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.
I repeat, what other government? If it was legally doubtful, and made no attempt to establish its legitimacy, we can not recognize it as a government.
As to your concern about "your government" allow me to turn it around on you. Would they not have been derelict in their legal, moral and sworn constitutional duty to allow a legally doubtful regiem to assume control over 40% of the nation's territory without offering resistance?
I know damn well I'd be calling for impeachment if that were to happen today.
What would you do?
They reserved that right only if a Bill of Rights were not amended to the Constitution. The BOR was passed by the 1st Congress, and radified by the states, including those three.
I believe the Confederacy as it existed prior to Lincoln's provoking the secession of the Upper South by resisting the secession of the Lower South occupied nothing close to 40% of the territory of the U.S. As a matter of fact, I suspect the Lower South, by itself, could not have made a go of it, and would eventually have sued for readmittance to the Union. Without a war. When the Upper South refused to secede, Lincoln won a great victory, which he then proceeded to throw away. All of this is not just my opinion. Seward thought the same at the time.
I don't think that's what North Carolina and Rhode Island thought.
Whatever. If it was only 2%, would that be ok to just forget about?
As a matter of fact, I suspect the Lower South, by itself, could not have made a go of it, and would eventually have sued for re admittance to the Union. Without a war. When the Upper South refused to secede, Lincoln won a great victory, which he then proceeded to throw away.
He threw it away when Davis fired on Sumter? As you said, the lower south itself was a very economically and politically shaky confederation. Davis is the guy who needed a war to move the upper south to his side. Should Lincoln's response have been to back down from the illegitimate regime in the lower south, by abandoning its soldiers, surrendering property and turning its cheek when the flag was fired upon?
Is that what you would do as President today?
What was and is the government's moral, legal and Constitutional duty when faced with open insurrection?
No. New York said, 'That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness ... Under these impressions, and declaring that the rights aforesaid cannot be abridged or violated".
"[I]n confidence that the amendments which shall have been proposed to the said Constitution will receive an early and mature consideration." They trusted that the proposed amendments (following their ratification) would be addressed, they did not state that "the rights aforesaid could be abridged or violated" upon ratification of a Bill of Rights or were superseded.
Virginia declared and made "known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression", that "whatsoever imperfections may exist in the Constitution, ought rather to be examined in the mode prescribed therein, than to bring the Union into danger by a delay, with a hope of obtaining amendments previous to the ratification". Again, nothing contingent upon ratification of a Bill of Rights
Rhose Island wrote, "That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness", "Under these impressions, and declaring that the rights aforesaid cannot be abridged or violated, and that the explanations aforesaid are consistent with the said Constitution, and in confidence that the amendments hereafter mentioned will receive an early and mature consideration, and, conformably to the fifth article of said Constitution, speedily become a part thereof." Ditto.
Please post, for our reference, the documents signed by each of the states, formally dissolving the Articles and rendering it null and void. It required unanimous consent to do so.
Read Taney's decision.
'This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.'
Federal laws pursuant to the Constitution have legal status - please cite one prohibiting secession. Cite one requiring states to petition for permission to leave.
The 10th Amendment - a part of the Constitution,states, '[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'
There is no delegtion from the states to the federal government to bar secession, nor are the states prohibited from leaving. It looks like it is written into the Supreme law of the land.
Doesn't sound ex parte to me.
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