Posted on 01/17/2015 2:31:16 PM PST by BigReb555
During Robert E. Lee's 100th birthday in 1907, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., a former Union Commander and grandson of US President John Quincy Adams, spoke in tribute to Robert E. Lee at Washington and Lee College's Lee Chapel in Lexington, Virginia. His speech was printed in both Northern and Southern newspapers and is said to had lifted Lee to a renewed respect among the American people.
(Excerpt) Read more at huntingtonnews.net ...
"[Mr. Stephens} The next evil that my friend complained of, was the Tariff. Well, let us look at that for a moment. About the time I commenced noticing public matters, this question was agitating the country almost as fearfully as the Slave question now is. In 1832, when I was in college, South Carolina was ready to nullify or secede from the Union on this account. And what have we seen? The tariff no longer distracts the public councils. Reason has triumphed. The present tariff was voted for by Massachusetts and South Carolina. The lion and the lamb lay down together-- every man in the Senate and House from Massachusetts and South Carolina, I think, voted for it, as did my honorable friend himself. And if it be true, to use the figure of speech of my honorable friend, that every man in the North, that works in iron and brass and wood, has his muscle strengthened by the protection of the government, that stimulant was given by his vote, and I believe every other Southern man. So we ought not to complain of that.
[Mr. Toombs: That tariff lessened the duties.]
[Mr. Stephens:] Yes, and Massachusetts, with unanimity, voted with the South to lessen them, and they were made just as low as Southern men asked them to be, and those are the rates they are now at. If reason and argument, with experience, produced such changes in the sentiments of Massachusetts from 1832 to 1857, on the subject of the tariff, may not like changes be effected there by the same means, reason and argument, and appeals to patriotism on the present vexed question?"
Of course, so they chose the lawful constitutional remedy, secession.
Only to unlawfully become the target of Northern aggression and invasion by the Union Army.
It was a terrible time in our history, all deaths were unnecessary, but Lincoln was going to have his way, come hell or high water. What a horrible price was paid for his tyranny.
Secession wasn’t lawful - especially the way the south chose to attempt it. A bloody war and a supreme court challenge proved that.
Except secession in the manner which they chose to pursue it is not lawful or Constitutional.
Only to unlawfully become the target of Northern aggression and invasion by the Union Army.
Are you forgetting that little matter of bombarding Fort Sumter into submission? Without that there wouldn't have been a war and there would have been no reason for anybody to invade anyone.
It was a terrible time in our history, all deaths were unnecessary, but Lincoln was going to have his way, come hell or high water. What a horrible price was paid for his tyranny.
Shouldn't blame lie with those who started the war?
Says some anonymous guy on the Internet.
The question was settled at gunpoint, and a great number of the immediate descendants of the guys who actually wrote the Founding documents disagreed with the outcome.
Questions about the Natural Rights given to us by our Creator may also be settled at gunpoint, but that fact doesn't make the gunwielder any more correct about the Natural Rights in question.
Frank forgets the south fired the first shot.
Again, look up the history of tariffs in the US and you'll see that the south dominated the tariff issue in the Congress from the 1830s until the Civil War. They got everything they wanted in those years.
As has been posted before, Lincoln sent the US Navy to re-supply, though the Sumter garrison was getting foodstuffs from on shore.
Abe was flicking boogers at what he thought were push-overs.
300,000 plus dead guys under his direct command showed what a n00b fool he was...
John C. Calhoun begs to differ with you in a speech to Congress in 1850.
He was there, you were not.
It doesn't matter much at all as the Morrill tariff couldn't pass without secession.
Hey, Lincoln only got 350,000 of his own guys killed, and hundreds of thousands more of them maimed.
He got to spike the ball in the end zone - that's all that counts.
Natural rights refers to the right of rebellion. Thank you for that concession. The thing about rebellion is that you had best be G-D sure about the righteousness of your cause and surer of your might because both will be tested.
The agitating for the Morrill tariff actually got under way in around 1858 or so, IIRC. The south saw higher tariffs coming, and Lincoln while campaigning for president, supported Morrill’s scheme.
The history of tariffs were just another cause of southern dissastifaction, but not the only reason to secede. Had that been the only issue, it wouldn’t have been enough, southern reps. could have fought it out in Congress.
But individual state sovereignty trumped it all, and it was states rights that tipped the scale.
The tariff of 1857 was no more than 15%. It was that low because southern congressman ruled in those decades regarding the tariff issue.
Then why didn't they secede in 1858?
The history of tariffs were just another cause of southern dissastifaction, but not the only reason to secede. Had that been the only issue, it wouldn’t have been enough, southern reps. could have fought it out in Congress.
I submit that tariffs weren't anywhere near the top reason for secession. That reason was slavery. If you took away slavery and left every other gripe the South had then the South doesn't secede. Leave slavery and remove every other issue of contention and the South still secedes. It's just as simple as that.
But individual state sovereignty trumped it all, and it was states rights that tipped the scale.
A state's right to do what?
You've conceded that the Southerners were raped of their Natural Rights at gunpoint. Thank you.
I’ve done nothing of the sort. The slavers exercised their natural rights options - and chose poorly.
I wonder how much was being pocketed by northern industrialists and merchants at the expense of the Federal treasury, and thus the states. Was there such a thing as a southern industrialist or merchant who was a member of that club? What a scam!
Calhoun estimated 100’s of millions, I guess we’ll never know any more accurately than that.
Post #362 bookmark. Thanks for posting this.
Since the opposing parties didn't gainsay him, it appears to be so.
As for the outbreak of the Civil War - you must remember that the majority funding of the federal government was these tariffs, and the federal government did not foresee that other methods of funding Leviathan would arise as a result of that war.
Even today, we know how dangerous it is to get between the government and its money tit.
Tariffs, THE funding source for the federal government, were in danger. No wonder the government reacted like a rabid hyena.
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