To the contrary, Walt, and as I have previously proven, Nevins' argument is a load of historically fraudulent bullsh*t. Let us examine it yet again:
The theory was sharply rejected at the time by so astute an observer as Alexander H. Stephens.
Stephens was a unionist and fought to the bitter end for that point of view when others, such as Toombs who was actually in the senate and saw the morrill tariff progressing, said the exact opposite. Here is Robert Toombs' take on the thing:
"ven the fishermen of Massachusetts and New England demand and receive from the public treasury about half a million of dollars per annum as a pure bounty on their business of catching codfish. The North, at the very first Congress, demanded and received bounties under the name of protection, for every trade, craft, and calling which they pursue, and there is not an artisan in brass, or iron, or wood, or weaver, or spinner in wool or cotton, or a calicomaker, or iron-master, or a coal-owner, in all of the Northern or Middle States, who has not received what he calls the protection of his government on his industry to the extent of from fifteen to two hundred per cent from the year 1791 to this day. They will not strike a blow, or stretch a muscle, without bounties from the government. No wonder they cry aloud for the glorious Union; they have the same reason for praising it, that craftsmen of Ephesus had for shouting, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," whom all Asia and the world worshipped. By it they got their wealth; by it they levy tribute on honest labor. It is true that this policy has been largely sustained by the South; it is true that the present tariff was sustained by an almost unanimous vote of the South; but it was a reduction - a reduction necessary from the plethora of the revenue; but the policy of the North soon made it inadequate to meet the public expenditure, by an enormous and profligate increase of the public expenditure; and at the last session of Congress they brought in and passed through the House the most atrocious tariff bill that ever was enacted, raising the present duties from twenty to two hundred and fifty per cent above the existing rates of duty. That bill now lies on the table of the Senate. It was a master stroke of abolition policy; it united cupidity to fanaticism, and thereby made a combination which has swept the country. There were thousands of protectionists in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New-York, and in New-England, who were not abolitionists. There were thousands of abolitionists who were free traders. The mongers brought them together upon a mutual surrender of their principles. The free-trade abolitionists became protectionists; the non-abolition protectionists became abolitionists. The result of this coalition was the infamous Morrill bill - the robber and the incendiary struck hands, and united in joint raid against the South." - Sen Robert Toombs, Nov. 13, 1860
South Carolina, he wrote his brother on New Year's Day, 1861 was seceding from a tariff 'which is just what her own Senators and members of Congress made it.'
Either the quote is out of context, or Stephens was reporting the facts in error. The Morrill bill passed the House in May 1860 with only ONE southern congressman supporting it, and he was not from south carolina. The rest all voted no. Therefore South Carolina could not have "made" the Morrill bill. Further, the fact that Stephens apparently wrote this argument, flawed as it may be, to discredit the tariff as a reason for secession, that he even addressed the issue indicates indisputably that it was relevent at the time.
As for the charges of consolidation and depsotism made by some Carolinians, he thought they arose from peevishness, rather than a calm analysis of facts. 'The truth is, the South, almost in mass, has voted, I think, for every measure of general legislation that has passed both houses and become law for the last ten years.'
Again, Stephens was either ignorant of the situation or in error about it. The Morrill tariff passed the House with virtually unanimous opposition from the south.
The South, far from groaning under tyranny, had controlled the government almost from its beginning, and Stephens believed that its only real grievance lay in the Northern refusal to return fugitive slaves and to stop the antislavery agitation.
Then why did he take the time to address, albeit erroniously, the tariff issue?
'All other complaints are founded on threatened dangers which may never come, and which I feel very sure would be averted if the South would pursue a judicious and wise course.' Stephens was right. It was true that the whole tendency of federal legislation 1842 to 1860 was toward free trade;
Nevins has constructed a blatant straw man here as it was NEVER ASSERTED that the pre-1860 tariff was a grievance to begin with. The south favored that tariff because it was pro-free trade. The one that had them angry was the Morrill Act that passed in 1860 and 1861, which first doubled the existing rate then added it on again over the course of the war.
true that the tariff in force when secession began was largely Southern -made
...but not the one it was about to be replaced with. The Morrill act was yankee made and sponsored exclusively by northerners.
true that it was the lowest tariff the country had known since 1816
Nevins is continuing his straw man by intentionally addressing the wrong tariff. The Morrill Act, which pushed rates to an eventual 47% on average, was one of the highest tariffs the country had ever seen.
true that it cost a nation of thirty million people but sixty million dollars in indirect revenue
Aside from continuing the straw man, that is an economically ignorant statement. The cost of tariffs - especially protective ones - is not measured in its revenue collection abilities. Rather that cost results, as a matter of economic law, from the redistribution of the consumer surplus to elsewhere in the economy and into deadweight losses as a result of a tariff induced hike in prices. ; true that without secession no new tariff law, obnoxious to the Democratic Party, could have been passed before 1863--if then.
No. That is not true by any reasonable standard, meaning that Nevins is telling yet another fib. The Northern Democrats had no problem whatsoever with the Morrill Act and in fact they voted for it in near unanimity in the House back in 1860. It was also signed by a Northern Democrat president. As for the Senate, a simple calculation of votes indicates without dispute that under the very best case scenario with every single southern senator voting against it, the Morrill Act would have STILL passed the Senate. Here is that calculation as it was outlined on December 12, 1860 before any state had seceded by Sen. Louis Wigfall:
"Tell me not that we have got the legislative department of this Government, for I say we have not. As to this body, where do we stand? Why, sir, there are now eighteen non-slaveholding States. In a few weeks we shall have the nineteenth, for Kansas will be brought in. Then arithmetic which settles our position is simple and easy. Thirty-eight northern Senators you will have upon this floor. We shall have thirty to your thirty-eight. After the 4th of March, the Senator from California, the Senator from Indiana, the Senator from New Jersey, and the Senator from Minnesota will be here. That reduces the northern phalanx to thirty-four...There are four of the northern Senators upon whom we can rely, whom we know to be friends, whom we have trusted in our days of trial heretofore, and in whom, as Constitution-loving men, we will trust. Then we stand thirty-four to thirty-four, and your Black Republican Vice President to give the casting vote. Mr. Lincoln can make his own nominations with perfect security that they will be confirmed by this body, even if every slaveholding State should remain in the Union, which, thank God, they will not do."
"In the official explanations which one Southern State after another published for its secession, economic grievances are either omitted entirely or given minor posiitions.
Nevins is fibbing again. The Georgia declaration of causes devotes several paragraphs to the tariff issue.
There were few such supposed grievances which the agricultural states of Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota did not share with the South
Another fib by Nevins. The congressmen from every one of those states unanimously backed the Morrill Tariff in the House vote.
Charles A. Beard finds the tap-root of the war in the resistance of the planter interest to Northern demands enlarging the old Hamilton-Webster policy. The South was adamant in standing for 'no high protective tariffs, no ship subsidies, no national banking and currency system; in short, none of the measures which business enteprise deemed essential to its progress.' But the Republican platform in 1856 was silent on the tariff; in 1860, it carried a milk-and-water statement on the subject which Western Republicans took, mild as it was, with a wry face;
Nevins is fibbing yet again. The 1860 tariff plank had nothing mild about it and enjoyed a central and prominent place in the party's platform. Delegates at the convention cheered at length for its openly protectionist message when the plank was adopted. Throughout the campaign Republicans carried banners making it known that a vote for them was a vote for protection. Lincoln himself openly admitted his core protectionist beliefs and in February 1861 even pledged to make the tariff his top legislative priority. As for the supposed lack of audience that Nevins alleges the Morrill bill to have in the west, it need only be noted that all the congressmen from those same western states voted for it.
the incoming President was little interested in the tariff
Nevins is fibbing again. Lincoln was very interested in it, pledged his support for it, and on February 15, 1861 had this to say to a public audience:
"[I]f the consideration of the Tariff bill should be postponed until the next session of the National Legislature, no subject should engage your representatives more closely than that of a tariff."
and any harsh legislation was impossible.
Not so. See Wigfall's analysis of the votes above.
Ship subsidies were not an issue in the campaign of 1860. Neither were a national banking system and a national currency system.
Nevins in fibbing again. Toombs' speech indicates otherwise.
The Pacific Railroad was advocated both by the Douglas Democrats and the Republicans; and it is noteworthy that Seward and Douglas were for buiulding both a Northern and a Southern line.
That two northern political parties and two northerners advocated a publicly funded railroad says nothing of the southern position on that issue.
In other words, Walt, Mr. Nevins, much like you, is a chronic liar.