Posted on 03/26/2002 10:38:41 PM PST by kattracks
Source: South Carolina Secession Convention, December, 1860.
Only if they declared bankruptcy or otherwise renounced their debts -- say through secession.
The congress of the so-called CSA passed in May, 1861 a bill requiring PRIVATE debt owed to northern creditors be paid directly to the treasury of the so-called CSA. It was expected that this would bring in $160,000,000. In the event, $12,000,000 was collected. The secessionists, as this shows, were dishonorable in the extreme, not honorable.
Southerners were deep in debt to the north. That is probably one reason secession seemed like such a good idea right there.
Walt
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.Speech of Alexander H. Stephens, before the Georgia Legislature Nov. 14, 1860, Debate on calling a secession convention.
Stephens, who would go on to become Vice President of the Confederate States of America, gave this speech in reply to Robert Toombs (future CSA Sec. of State) speech the previous evening. Toombs speech laid out the arguments for secession which included a week reference to tariffs but focused nearly entirely on 3 aspects of the slavery question. They were; ‘Northern Agitation” (i.e. abolitionists helping slaves escape), the laws passed by several Northern states concerning enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, and the election of a free-soil ‘Black’ Republican (Lincoln) who opposed the expansion of slavery to the west.
Stephens, arguing against secession, masterfully destroyed all of Toombs arguments except for the issue of slavery expansion. Stephens made a solid argument that even if Lincoln intended to interfere with slavery in the 15 existing slave states, (which he did not intend to do) he would not be successful because he did not have enough votes in congress to overcome Southern opposition. It would have taken a Constitutional Amendment which had no chance of passing either the Congress (2/3 majority) or the States (3/4 majority). Stephens even pointed out that Lincoln could not even appoint his own cabinet without Southern approval because of the solid voting block they had in the Senate.
But Stephens could not make the same case on blocking slavery expansion, and did not even try to make a case of it. Lincoln had not only promised to stop expansion (it was his only promise), but he had the power to do so.
You should take the time to read both of these wonderful speeches --- both men were master orators --- and you will see that slavery, and more specifically the expansion of slavery, was what drove the south to secede.
If you are an economics major with an interest in history, it should not take too much research for you to discover why expansion was of the utmost importance to the southern slaveocracy. Their economic future depended on it entirely. Simply maintaining slavery where it then existed would have lead to the economic ruin of the southern aristrocracy within a generation.
Read those speeches and ask DiLorenzo about them.
ROTFLMAOPIMP! You come up with some wild ones sometimes!
$160M owed by 5M southerners is a WHOPPING $32 per white southerner. Hardly enough of a debt to even think about declaring bankruptcy.
I'm not sure where we are dancing around about the meaning of certain words, but to me - Madison's last sentence says it all."In order to ascertain the real character of the government, it may be considered in relation to the foundation on which it is to be established; to the sources from which its ordinary powers are to be drawn; to the operation of those powers; to the extent of them; and to the authority by which future changes in the government are to be introduced. Were the people regarded in this transaction as forming one nation, the will of the majority of the whole people of the United States would bind the minority, in the same manner as the majority in each State must bind the minority; and the will of the majority must be determined either by a comparison of the individual votes, or by considering the will of the majority of the States as evidence of the will of a majority of the people of the United States. Neither of these rules have been adopted. Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act ."
James Madison, Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 39, "The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles", 16 Jan 1788.
FReegards,
4CJ
Do you like to pay taxes that subsidize someone else?
"In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is. Our coastwise trade would pass into other hands. One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, with all of its immense profits. Our manufactories would be in utter ruins. Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue, and these results would likely follow."There's your reason that Lincoln invaded.
Chicago Daily Times, 10 Dec 1860.
ROTFLMAOPIMP! You come up with some wild ones sometimes!
$160M owed by 5M southerners is a WHOPPING $32 per white southerner. Hardly enough of a debt to even think about declaring bankruptcy. Anyone can see that your purpose is to deceive.
$32 in 1860 was still a couple of months wages for the average free worker.
But even that is not germane because the debt fell mostly on the oligarchs who dealt with northern bankers, factors and so forth. They were the ones that mattered, and they were the ones that drove the politics of the south.
Since I don't have the data and you don't seem to either, let's say that $160,000,000 fell ONLY on the 7,000 major slave holders in the south. That comes to @ $23,000 each, and that was quite a sum back then.
What it does illustrate, if it was only .05 each, is that the southerners tried to duck out not only on public debt, but also on private debt.
Their actions were dishonorable in the extreme and the "stainless banner" is nothing but myth cut from whole, stained cloth.
Walt
As for Lincoln and invasion, well, had the south not fired on Sumter and had the south not declared war then there wouldn't have been much popular or political support for armed intervention. Lincoln didn't kill the south's dream of independence, Jefferson Davis did.
$160M owed by 5M southerners is a WHOPPING $32 per white southerner. Hardly enough of a debt to even think about declaring bankruptcy.
Something occured to me.
The whole federal budget in 1860 was $56,000,000. So that $160,000,000 was enough to run the whole federal government for almost three years. Looked at that way, it's quite a sum.
So unless your powers of analysis are pretty lame, you were trying to downplay something pretty serious in an attempt to support the myth of southern honor, or for some other purpose.
Walt
James Madison, Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 39, "The Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles", 16 Jan 1788.
I'm not sure where we are dancing around about the meaning of certain words, but to me - Madison's last sentence says it all.
It absolutely does.
And there is no way to preclude from Madison's statement the interpretation that the states -voluntarily- entered into an indissoluble Union.
If they didn't do that, you can't show it by this particular quote. And given Madison's voluminous later statements regarding the superiority of the federal government over the states, that interpretation is probably the most sound.
Walt
Chicago Daily Times, 10 Dec 1860.
There's your reason that Lincoln invaded.
Lincoln didn't invade anything. He put down a giant rebellion against the lawful government.
Ruined commerce was certainly a reason to meet force with force. But it wasn't the main reason that Lincoln prosecuted the war against the rebellion.
"And this issue embraces more than the fact of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man, the question, whether a constitutional republic, or a democracy--a government of the people, by the same people--can or cannot, maintain its territorial integtrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question, whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration, accroding to organic law, in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily, without any pretense, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: "Is there in all republics, this inherent, and fatal weakness?" "Must a government, of neccessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existance?"
A. Lincoln, 7/4/61
Lincoln fought for the Union to preserve the true ideals of the Declaration of Independence.
Now, whatever credence YOU want to give to that interpretation, there is no doubt that this was the motivation that drove the great mass of Union volunteers.
Walt
You brought it up. YOU find the exact figures. And for those major slaveholders (several of whom were BLACK) the cost of 23 slaves would still be but a pitance in the grand scheme of things.
No - I don't base my positions on newspaper editorials - I tend to post from them to show that the modern revisionist diatribes were not the popular opinion of the time. Be that as it may, wars tend to improve the economy of industrial societies (increased manufacturing, production etc). The northern blockade limited the ability of the south to sell its commodities. Without an industrial base to produce weapons the south never had a chance. What is amazing is that the South survived against 3-1 odds for 4 years.
Thanks to Lincoln, 620,000 Americans died, all for one dead horse.
Of the $927M collected between 1791 and 1845, the South had paid $711,200,000, and the North $216,000,000 - that 76% of all income. Yet the expenditures in the North accounted for 70% of the budget. Understand why Lincoln couldn't let them leave?
Alexander Stephens also said, "All that we ask of you is - keep your hands out of our pockets."
Walt, what else does independent and voluntary mean?
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