In praise of (three) modern Doughface Northerners

vanity | 3/17/2012 | BroJoeK

[PeaRidge]

And by the way, that was not my position. I flatly stated that it was up to the states, but that the US Constitution did not specifically grant voting rights to people that you accused Southern states of eliminating from eligibility.

[PeaRidge]

Again, your use of the word “minimal” has no economic basis in fact, and is irrelevant except to attempt to underpin your bias.

Second, comparing a GDP figure to tariff income is like comparing a basketball score to a ticket price. But, if in your mind, it seems reasonable, then have at it. But do not try to convince me that you really know what you think you know.

Next, as was pointed out in some of the earlier posts regarding Calhoun, Clay, and others, some of the authors LS quoted have essentially labeled the “American System” as an oligarchy feeding from the Treasury.

[donmeaker]

I suspect that the big objection to the Morrill tariff was that specific rates for goods were set, and the practice of having suppliers provide phony invoices would not be effective.

The federal government spending antebellum was a small percentage of GNP. Tariff provided most of the government funds, supplemented from sale of land. That is why it makes of sense to compare tax revenues to GDP.

Compared to the 1 to 2% tax burden that the tariff represented, my current income tax is about 25%, which is to my mind, a long way from minimal. That is in addition to payroll taxes, state income tax, state and city sales taxes. My personal is similar to the national, with the current federal budget being about 25% of the GDP. Not included in my personal income tax is the SSN/Medicare/Medicaid taxes, and not included in the budget is the promises of SSN/Medicare/Medicare to provide great sums to people in the future.

Given an option to trade a 25% tax for a 2% tax, yes, the 2% tax burden looks pretty minimal, and I don’t think those promises are worth much anyways.

[donmeaker]

Certainly North Carolina eliminated freedmen and their decendents from voting from 1835 to 1865. That was a shameful state choice, for which I condemn them.

[x]

You waste time with empty verbiage. The only thing that's important to you is to work some kind of put down into every post, as you appear to be incapable of argument. And incapable of reading as well:

You use the term “true liberty” which implies that your thinking process produces some abstract other than liberty.

First of all that's not exactly written in English and it's not exactly logical.

If you have a false conception of liberty, other people may have a true one. My "thinking process" doesn't need to "produce" some other abstract.

But secondly, I used the expression, "true friend of liberty" -- check it out -- so your jab is pointless.

You also are failing to recognize the difference between liberty and egalitarianism, which you continue to use interchangeably in order to advance your arguments.

I made no reference to egalitarianism. What I said was:

Or do you really think that denying some whole class of people basic civil and human rights somehow furthers the cause of freedom? Because that's what's at stake here.

The ball is still in your court. Is denying a whole class of adults basic civil and human rights based on something other than their own wrongdoing something that advances the cause of liberty?

Yes or no?

Yes or no?

If you don't give an answer to that question, I certainly won't bother with your juvenile blather.

[donmeaker]

I find the term “slavocracy” amusing. Just as Aristocracy means rule by the best, democracy means rule by the people, slaveocracy would mean rule by slaves.

I don’t think that was what Jeff Davis had in mind. He even perverted the statue on the Capitol to replace the Phrygian cap with a military helmet. He was not about to dedicate the Capitol to a freed slave, the meaning of a Phrygian cap.

[donmeaker]

Rather it was a truth, another truth, and an accurate description.

“You lie!” he said lying.

[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge: "The tariff revenue by year is in column 1, and is, as you can see, less than the total revenue.
Unfortunately that makes all of your assertions and conclusions invalid."

Your are correct that the tariff income in "column 1" is less than the total of Federal receipts in "column 3".
My mistake.

But if you'll do the math, you'll see that tariff income generally amounted to 95% of total receipts, and that every statement made about those total receipts is also true of tariff income.

So your conclusion, "that makes all of your assertions and conclusions invalid," is false.

My point was that over the decades before 1860, tariff rates went up and down, responding to political pressures, that when they went up tariff income fell or grew more slowly than when rates went down -- a lesson with some application to our current political debates.

In 1860 tariff rates of 15% were as low as they had been in 1792, when George Washington was President.

[BroJoeK]

BJK: "But if you'll do the math, you'll see that tariff income generally amounted to 95% of total receipts..."

Correction:
Actually, the math is posted right there, in "column 2", and does sometimes reach 95% of total revenues, but in a few years falls to around 50%.

So comparing tariff rates to just tariff revenues does not give us the consistent result of "lower rates produce higher revenues."
But those were the results in 1795 and again throughout the 1850s.

In other years when tariff rates went down significantly (1815, 1835), tariff income fell only slightly.
The big exception is 1840, when both rates and income fell significantly.
No doubt the reasons involve political and economic complexities of that particular age.

Of course, I like "lower rates produce higher revenues" better, and that was one of my points, but obviously a strong and growing economy is also necessary.

One should never read this data to suggest that it's a good idea to raise taxes in the teeth of an economic downturn.

[PeaRidge]

“I suspect that the big.....”.

Suspicion does not make fact.

Why does comparing tariff revenues to GDP make sense in this conversation?

[PeaRidge]

“North Carolina eliminated freedmen and their decendents (sic) from voting”.

It was a common practice, even in the North. See below.

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/topic.php?nm=african_americans&rec=1

[PeaRidge]

You continue to misrepresent the issue with Calhoun and his speech in 1848.

He was discussing the political upheaval if his fellow representatives voted on issues while ignoring the guarantees of the constitution.

Your argument rests on the premise of stating that liberty was not universal in the states or territories, and therefore Calhoun's warnings were without merit.

He was aware, as most of the time, that inconsistencies existed and should be addressed. But he was stating that arguments on territorial limitations should not be made at the expense of liberty.

He was attempting to save the union with his speech. Unfortunately his peers would not listen.

[PeaRidge]

Here were the revolts..the reason for the patrols, and the successful control by armed citizens.

1712 New York Slave Revolt
(New York City, Suppressed)
1739 Stono Rebellion
(South Carolina, Suppressed)
1741 New York Conspiracy
(New York City, Suppressed)
1800 Gabriel Prosser
(Virginia, Suppressed)
1805 Chatham Manor
(Virginia, Suppressed)
1811 German Coast Uprising
(Territory of Orleans, Suppressed)
1815 George Boxley
(Virginia, Suppressed)
1822 Denmark Vesey
(South Carolina, Suppressed)
1831 Nat Turner's rebellion
(Virginia, Suppressed)
1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation
(Southern U.S., Suppressed)
1859 John Brown's Raid
(Virginia, Suppressed)

[PeaRidge]

It was your original statement about Southern governments not believing in liberty that produced the following....

“At the time of the American Civil War, most white men were allowed to vote, whether or not they owned property, but literacy tests, poll taxes, and even religious tests were used in various places, and most white women, people of color, and Native Americans still could not vote”. (Wiki)

That was true in every state and territory.

[x]

He was attempting to save the union with his speech. Unfortunately his peers would not listen.

In essence -- "Give me my way on everything and it will save the union."

Gosh, I wonder why they didn't listen.

But why are you changing the subject?

You claimed Calhoun was a champion of liberty.

I asked you:

Is denying a whole class of adults basic civil and human rights based on something other than their own wrongdoing something that advances the cause of liberty?

And you still haven't answered my question.

Are you going to blather on, forever changing the subject or are you going to answer the question?

If you deny one group of people all rights and freedoms, are you a champion of liberty?

[PeaRidge]

You still do not understand.

You said: “Your (sic) are correct that the tariff income in column 1 is less than the total of Federal receipts in column 3. My mistake.”

Well, your mistake was in quoting tariff revenue from the wrong source. You then spent time making several mathematical assumptions and calculations on false data that then led you to say:

“So the take-away here is that a lot of political philosophising (sic) over the “injustice” of high tariffs did not correspond to the actual tariffs then in effect.”

So, as you see, based on false data, your assertions and conclusions are invalid, like this that you said:

“My point was that over the decades before 1860, tariff rates went up and down, responding to political pressures, that when they went up tariff income fell or grew more slowly than when rates went down.”

You do not know that to be fact, and I can assure you that if you use the data you quoted, you are in fact wrong.

[PeaRidge]

To Pelham, LS, and donmeaker, please pardon this boring post, but it has to be addressed.

BroJoeK..........One last time.

You cannot draw the conclusions you have been making based on your data from Wiki.

Whoever posted this table on Wiki took this data from an extensive data source without factoring changes in inventory practices, tariff law, and shipping accounting. There are many variables that are included but not foot marked in this chart. For example, up until 1846, overseas reexports were included in the value of the goods taxed, but were later factored out. That makes conclusions from any comparisons of data sets on each side of that year simply false.

In any given year, he tariff rates may have remained the same on average, but the type of articles that were to be taxed were changed. For example, tariff rates may have averaged 20%, but in one year that may be 20% on 50 articles, and next year it may be 20% on 200 items. That would affect the scope of the tariff and therefore the amount. That is not given by Wiki.

You do not know the value of goods stored over periods of one to three years and later sold, according to the new warehousing laws, first in 1848, and again revised in 1854. That affected the volume of tariff collected in a given year, but not the rate of taxation.

So, maybe now you can see that none of your conclusions are correct because you do not have the corrected data.

If you want to engage in this type of commentary, I would suggest that you go on line to the Historical Statistics of the United States, section 317.3, and begin with page 106. But to save you the trouble, someone has already done an analysis for you: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1093/ei/40.3.428/abstract

[PeaRidge]

I stated no such thing.

Clay authored the bill.

(from Wiki...again): "In an elaborate scheme to prevent passage of still higher tariffs, while at the same time appealing to Andrew Jackson’s supporters in the North, John C. Calhoun and other southerners joined them in crafting a tariff bill that would also weigh heavily on materials imported by the New England states.

"It was believed that President John Quincy Adams’s supporters in New England, the National Republicans, or as they would later be called, Whigs, would uniformly oppose the bill for this reason and that the southern legislators could then withdraw their support, killing the legislation while blaming Adams.

[BroJoeK]

PeaRidge: "You do not know the value of goods stored over periods of one to three years and later sold, according to the new warehousing laws, first in 1848, and again revised in 1854.
That affected the volume of tariff collected in a given year, but not the rate of taxation.
So, maybe now you can see that none of your conclusions are correct because you do not have the corrected data."

"...I can assure you that if you use the data you quoted, you are in fact wrong."

"someone has already done an analysis for you: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1093/ei/40.3.428/abstract"

First you referred to, but did not post, data which you claim contradicts:

• 1. Historical Statistics of the United States 1789-1945; Series M-42-55; Imports (1789-1945), [1] Accessed 5 Aug 2011
• 2.Bicentennial Edition Historical Statistics of the United States Series {Part 2 Zip file: CT1970p2-08;} Series U 1 25; Balance of International Payments Imports 1790 1970 [2] Accessed 5 Aug 2011
• 3.Imports 1960-2010 [3] Accessed 5 Aug 2011
• 4.Historical Statistics of the United States 1789-1945 Series P 89-98 Excise Tax {labeled: Internal Revenue/Other} Tot. Receipts; Customs, Income taxes [4] Accessed 5 Aug 2011

Then you posted (or thought to post) a link which provided no data whatsoever: Link to no data.

Sure, your apparently academically motivated desire to dive deep into the weeds -- the details -- of these statistics is doubtless commendable, but I am making very simple and broad points, which the long-term data abundantly supports:

1. Historically, lower tax rates generate higher tax revenues.

2. From 1792 through 1860, US tariff rates went up (high of 35% in 1830) and down (low of 7% in 1815), and at 15% were historically lower in 1860 than any time since 1840.

So I have to question, why you'd want to get "lost in the weeds" so that you "can't see the forest for the trees", so to speak?

Especially since the shape of this particular forest is pretty easy to make out, even given the limitations of available data:

1. From 1792 through 1860, on average Federal receipts nearly doubled every decade.

2. But in some decades Federal receipts declined (1800-1810 and 1830s) or grew more slowly (1820s and 1850s), while in two decades Federal revenues tripled: 1790s and again in the 1840s.
   Of course, if you wish to argue that these changes in growth rate were strictly the result in changes in accounting methods, then I'll be interested to see your data demonstrating it.

3. My conclusion is that the higher growth rates in the 1790s and again 1840s resulted from lower, more rational tariffs enacted under Presidents Washington and Jackson.

4. Further note that in 1857 the already low Walker Tariffs were reduced by the Tariff of 1857 to their lowest since 1840.

But if someone wants to post data demonstrating otherwise, I'll be interested to see it.

[PeaRidge]

Bro:

As usual, you run off and post some fallacious conclusion, and when confronted you think by doing a combination of dumping Internet sources, restating and misrepresenting what your original contentions, and setting up straw man arguments, you can cover your error. That does not work here.

You started all of this with your post #164 where your first error was a misreading and misquote of data on overall, annual Federal Treasury revenue as to be (what you thought was) tariff revenue---two totally different columns of numbers that were clearly marked.

Big error.

The Wiki source you used shows that the variation in dollars each year between your misquoted total vs. tariff income was as much as 46%.

Beginning with that massive error, you drew the following conclusions, not knowing that your math was way off. Here is what you said in #164 (with my corrections):

•"By 1815 tariffs were reduced from 10% to 6.5% and revenues rose from $9 million to $16 million = a growth rate of 68% over five years."

Correction---tariffs revenues from the years you quoted actually declined from 8.6 to 7.3.

•"After 1815 tariffs rose steadily to 35% in 1830 and the growth in Federal receipts was reduced by 80% — from 68% over five years to 14%."

Correction: If you were making a comparison between 1830 and 1835 (which was not clear), during that period the average tariff rate went from 35% to 14.2%. The total Federal receipts went from $24.8 to $35.8, while tariff revenue went from $21.9 to $19.4.

•"In 1835 tariffs were again reduced, to 14% and Federal receipts jumped again, by 44%."

Correction: Federal receipts in 1835 were 35.8 million...up from 24.8 in 1830. However, tariff revenue in 1830 was $21.9 million, dropping to $19.4 in 1835. Something "jumped" but it was not tariff revenue.

•"By 1835 tariffs were back up to 24% and revenues were still 15% below 1825 levels."

Correction: You said that the tariffs were 14% in 1935...then now you say they are 24%....Which is it?

In 1835, tariffs were still at 14.2%. Your figure of 24% may have come from the table data for 1845 which was by that time up to 24.3%.

Then you said: •"Tariffs then fell steadily, to 15% by 1860, while Federal receipts nearly tripled over 1840 levels.

Statement of fact: the percentages fell while revenue increased.

Statement of non fact: "So the take-away here is that a lot of political philosophising (sic) over the “injustice” of high tariffs did not correspond to the actual tariffs then in effect."

This gives you your data quote errors, the data comparison errors, and shows that there is no relationship to this data or your conclusions.

Apologies to Pelham; LS; donmeaker; x; Ditto; rockrr for wasting your time.