Confederate flag: Washington and Lee University removing display (Lee's Chapel)

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

And tariffs were steadily reduced every single time it came to a vote after the nullification crisis. The 1857 Tariff was around 17 percent.

 

It should also be noted that the Panic of 1857 (which may or may not have had anything to do with the tariff) knocked the North on its ass while the Southern economy handled it adequately.

[War Paint]

1) Tariffs are not spending. (Remember? The question was "what was the government doing with the money?")

2) Said tariffs encouraged the development of Northern industries? Or domestic industries?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_of_Abominations

Faced with a reduced market for goods and pressured by British abolitionists, the British reduced their imports of cotton from the United States, which weakened the southern economy even more.The tariff forced the South to buy manufactured goods from U.S. manufacturers, mainly in the North, at a higher price, while southern states also faced a reduced income from sales of raw materials

 

[Larry]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_of_Abominations

 

Your point is that most industry was in the North. 

 

(Guess what?  Most agriculture was in the South.) 

 

You still have yet to support your claims that tariffs were spending, or that they were spending to benefit the north.  Try again. 

[War Paint]

And tariffs were steadily reduced every single time it came to a vote after the nullification crisis. The 1857 Tariff was around 17 percent.

 

It should also be noted that the Panic of 1857 (which may or may not have had anything to do with the tariff) knocked the North on its ass while the Southern economy handled it adequately.

Why did you stop before the Morrill Tariff?

Your point is that most industry was in the North. 

 

(Guess what?  Most agriculture was in the South.) 

 

You still have yet to support your claims that tariffs were spending, or that they were spending to benefit the north.  Try again. 

Try again?  No, why should I try to educate someone willfully ignorant?  It's no coincidence that South Carolina made the biggest fuss about the tariff and becoming the 1st state to secede from the Union years later.

[Larry]

Try again?  No, why should I try to educate someone willfully ignorant?

How about dropping the holier than thou attitude and the fictional reality, and educating yourself, and then us?

 

You know.  Try things like

 

1)  Actually make a claim. 

 

2)  And support it. 

 

It's no coincidence that South Carolina made the biggest fuss about the tariff and becoming the 1st state to succeed from the Union years later.

 

 

Now, here's something that actually looks like a kind of attempt to make a point, supposedly based on facts. 

 

The notion that South Carolina voted to secede from the United States, because of a tariff. 

 

Fortunately, history provides us with a convenient fact which appears relevant to this topic:

Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. (pdf)

 

In which, the state of South Carolina stated what their reason for secession was. 

 

Near as I can tell, it mentions exactly one reason for them doing so.

 

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows:

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a

stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution.

The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia.

Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

 

 

In short, "Them States that don't approve of slavery are refusing to enforce our slavery laws" 

 

Now, perhaps you could relieve my "willful ignorance" by finding the part of this document in which the state of South Carolina mentions that they were seceding from the United States because of this tariff? 

 

Or are the exact words of the South Carolina legislature, in which they, themselves, stated the reasons they seceded "carpetbagger history"? 

[PeterMP]

Why did you stop before the Morrill Tariff?

Try again?  No, why should I try to educate someone willfully ignorant?  It's no coincidence that South Carolina made the biggest fuss about the tariff and becoming the 1st state to succeed from the Union years later.

 

Tarrifs were low at the time though.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrill_Tariff#Impact

 

"In 1860 American tariff rates were among the lowest in the world and also at historical lows by 19th century standards, the average rate for 1857 through 1860 being around 17% overall (ad valorem], or 21% on dutiable items only."

 

This was an era before the concepts of the economic benefits of free trade were largely accepted.

 

(Can you admit that the answer to this question:

 

"Well, if that's the case, what was the Federal Government doing with all that tariff money?"

 

Was not to build northern industry?

 

That the US federal government was not using money from tariffs to conduct research (of any kind really) or to build ANY industry.

 

The money was predominantly going to the US military and then to support other things like the Post Office.

 

The net effect was US protectionism, which certainly benefited the north, but realistically benefited any US industries and wasn't directly related to the money the US government was directly collecting.)

[War Paint]

How about dropping the holier than thou attitude and the fictional reality, and educating yourself, and then us?

 

You know.  Try things like

 

1)  Actually make a claim. 

 

2)  And support it. 

I did.  Just suck it up and admit you're wrong. 

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Why did you stop before the Morrill Tariff?

 

 

Because that came into being once war was inevitable.

[Predicto]

Why are you continuing to pretend that tariffs caused the war?   Yes, there were disputes about tariffs, as there had been since the country came into being.   Sometimes it was the Southern politicians who screwed over the north with tariff policy, rather than the other way round.   Tariffs were extremely low in the late 1850s.  They were three times higher in 1828, when the nullification crisis happened.

 

The Confederate secession documents explain why the Confederacy did what it did.  Tariffs are not mentioned a single time.   Slavery, on the other hand, is all over them.  

 

This is nothing but simple deflection.  Alexander Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederacy, said that the conflict was all about slavery.  Read the Cornerstone speech.  "Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition."   Then, after the Confederacy lost, Stephens wrote a book saying it was about "states rights."  

 

Now we want to talk about tariffs.   Whatever.  It's deflection.

 

For the record, I am no carpetbagger.  I went to school in Virginia in the 60s and 70s.   I heard all this nonsense from my own teachers.  I used to believe it too.   I had a confederate battle flag in the back of my car.  

 

Eventually, I had to come to grips with the truth, and get over it.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

I've always dreamed of being in a discussion where people just posted links to wikipedia articles on tariffs back and forth. This is the height of discourse in America in this, the year of Lord 2014.

[War Paint]

Because that came into being once war was inevitable.

It was becoming an issue before the first shot was fired in the war.  It just didn't happen overnight.

[JMS]

There is no reason to believe that everybody in the US would have given up slaves by some magic 'on their own' (even in spite of economic costs).

Abolition of Slavery certainly would have occurred without the civil war. Ever since the Kansas Nebraska compromise failed the writing was on the wall. The pro slavery states had effectively lost their equilibrium in the legislature to protect slavery. New states as they came into the union would be free to decide for themselves and those new states would be made up of immigrants from countries who had long ago done away with slavery, and by northerners who had also done away with slavery...

The majority of those setting and opening up the west would be day laborers who again, believed slave labor competed unfairly with their own labor. Slavery was going to be outlawed in this country regardless of the civil war. This was likely Lincoln's motivation for allowing slavery to continue in the union if he could avoid the war. Why suffer 600,000 deaths, 1.5 million casualties and huge economic and infrastructure set backs to accelerate the end of slavery.

[Larry]

I did.  Just suck it up and admit you're wrong. 

 

You've done no such thing, and have spewed insults to cover it up. 

 

(And I added a whole lot to my post, after you made this quote.  You might want to go read it.  Or I can cut and paste it in a later post, if you'd rather.) 

[Predicto]

Abolition of Slavery certainly would have occurred without the civil war. Ever since the Kansas Nebraska compromise failed the writing was on the wall. The pro slavery states had effectively lost their equilibrium in the legislature to protect slavery. New states as they came into the union would be free to decide for themselves and those new states would be made up of immigrants from countries who had long ago done away with slavery, and by northerners who had also done away with slavery...

 

 

Which is exactly why the South wanted to secede.    So that they wouldn't be a part of a majority non-slaveowning country, and potentially have to give up their slaves someday through the political process.   

 

ergo - they seceded over slavery.  They shot at Fort Sumter over slavery.  Slavery was the root cause of the conflict.  It was all about slavery.   Anything else is deflection and nonsense.

[Larry]

It was becoming an issue before the first shot was fired in the war.  It just didn't happen overnight.

 

Lots of things were an issue before the war. 

 

So? 

[War Paint]

Lots of things were an issue before the war. 

 

So? 

Oh really?  Wow, from reading this thread I thought there was only one issue leading up to the war.  I'm glad you finally conceded to that point.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Abolition of Slavery certainly would have occurred without the civil war. Ever since the Kansas Nebraska compromise failed the writing was on the wall. The pro slavery states had effectively lost their equilibrium in the legislature to protect slavery. New states as they came into the union would be free to decide for themselves and those new states would be made up of immigrants from countries who had long ago done away with slavery, and by northerners who had also done away with slavery...

The majority of those setting and opening up the west would be day laborers who again, believed slave labor competed unfairly with their own labor. Slavery was going to be outlawed in this country regardless of the civil war. This was likely Lincoln's motivation for allowing slavery to continue in the union if he could avoid the war. Why suffer 600,000 deaths, 1.5 million casualties and huge economic and infrastructure set backs to accelerate the end of slavery.

 

How was it going to be outlawed? By what process?

[War Paint]

You've done no such thing, and have spewed insults to cover it up. 

 

(And I added a whole lot to my post, after you made this quote.  You might want to go read it.  Or I can cut and paste it in a later post, if you'd rather.) 

Yes, I did.  You just can't admit you were wrong.  According to you, I conjured these tariffs and the impacts of these tariffs out of thin air.  I did no such thing.

[JMS]

My memory was off, but you don't seem to be doing much better.

 

Lee was offered the army that was being called up to protect DC (which later would become the union's main army).  Then he goes and visits Scott.

 

He offers to sit out the war in Arlington (not somewhere else).  Scott tells him he can't sit it out (as a member of the military), and he should resign ASAP (if that's his plan).

 

http://www.americanheritage.com/content/robert-e-lee’s-“severest-struggle”?page=3

 

"When Lee raised the idea of sitting out the conflict at Arlington, Scott said he had no room in his army for equivocal officers. If he wanted to resign, Scott brusquely informed him, he better do it right away, before he received official orders."

 

My reading of the situation is that Lee wants to be in the US military, but not fight.  Scott says you can't do that.

 

Not that he can't simply sit in Arlington.

I'll stand on my original post #273 which you've now supported.

Lee who could trace his lineage back to three signers of the Constitution was against the war. He tried to stay out of it. He told the General in charge of the Union army General Windfield Scott he would stay out of it and Scott told him there was no staying out of it. He would either fight for the Union against his state of he would be pursued as a treasonous. Given no choice he choose to support his state, which he had to know had very little chance of being successful.

Lee was offered Windfield Scott's command which was that of the commander of the entire Union Army...

There really was no significant union army prior to the civil war. The army which would clash in the American civil war were created for that purpose....

And the actual VA secession didn't happen until May 23rd.  The convention in Richmond votes in favor it on April 17th, but then actually puts it to a public vote, which happened on May 23rd.

Virginia was one of three southern states to put it up for a popular referendum... but the succession is hinged upon the vote taken in the state convention. Lincoln thought so "describing the 1861 convention in which Virginians finally voted for secession, declared to the U.S. Congress, "The course taken in Virginia was the most remarkable-perhaps the most important"... The interesting thing for this discussion though isn't the following referendum which turned out to be mere formality. The more interesting observation was that Virginia had not seceded until the North took military action against the South. It was only after the war broke out that Virginia broke with the Union.

Based on what I know, I suspect that Lee could have resigned from his commission in the US military and sat at home in Arlington, not just as a member of the US military.

 

At the end of the day, Lee appears to have believed the defense of VA was more important than his oath to defend the US and that's something he felt well before VA seceded.

Which refutes your own source on the issue... Then Colonel Lee offered to sit out the war at his home in Arlington and Windfield Scott said no.

Underlying the Lee Scott conversation were three facts...

(1) Windfield Scott was also a Virginian.. Any compunction Lee had not to fight against his state were likely also felt by Scott only Scott had come to different decisions on the matter.

(2) Windfield Scott was Lee's mentor. He had recognized him as a promising officer in the Mexican American War and had groomed him to become the Union's top General. Both men were great friends and it was Scott's recommendation that got Lee the offer to command Union Forces which ultimately Lee turned down.

(3) WindField Scott the hero of the Mexican American war and the top military officer for the Union was in his 70's and in poor health ( too heavy to mount a horse)... He could not conduct the war himself and he knew it. He did however define the strategy which would win the war for the Union.. That of Blockade, Sherman's march to the Sea, and the full court press of the army in Virginia.

[Predicto]

Yes, I did.  You just can't admit you were wrong.  According to you, I conjured these tariffs and the impacts of these tariffs out of thin air.  I did no such thing.

 

What you did was conjure out of thin air the idea that tariffs were a root cause of the Civil War.   

[Larry]

Haven't seen a response. (And the thread ran away from me, while I was inserting it into a previous post.) So, I'm posting it, again.

It's no coincidence that South Carolina made the biggest fuss about the tariff and becoming the 1st state to succeed from the Union years later.

Now, here's something that actually looks like a kind of attempt to make a point, supposedly based on facts.

The notion that South Carolina voted to secede from the United States, because of a tariff.

Fortunately, history provides us with a convenient fact which appears relevant to this topic:

Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. (pdf)

In which, the state of South Carolina stated what their reason for secession was.

Near as I can tell, it mentions exactly one reason for them doing so.

In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows:

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a

stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution.

The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia.

Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

In short, "Them States that don't approve of slavery are refusing to enforce our slavery laws"

Now, perhaps you could relieve my "willful ignorance" by finding the part of this document in which the state of South Carolina mentions that they were seceding from the United States because of this tariff?

Or are the exact words of the South Carolina legislature, in which they, themselves, stated the reasons they seceded "carpetbagger history"?

[PeterMP]

Which refutes your own source on the issue... Then Colonel Lee offered to sit out the war at his home in Arlington and Windfield Scott said no.

 

"He would either fight for the Union against his state of he would be pursued as a treasonous."

 

Can you present something that says that Scott told Lee that if he simply resigned his commission and went home to Arlington that the would be "pursued" for treason?

[JMS]

How was it going to be outlawed? By what process?

The thing which had protected slavery since the founding fathers was the equilibrium of the Southern slave states in the Senate. They were in a position to block any abolitionist legislation with their block of votes. The writing was on the wall after the Kansas Nebraska act failed. The South would loose it's ability to block legislation against slavery. That was the game changer.

New States coming into the union would be overwhelmingly anti slavery, because it was anti slavery populations who would settle them. The Southern effort to mandate 1 slave state for every free state had failed..

It was thus only a matter of time before the legislature passed a law declaring slavery illegal nationally. It may have taken a decade or two, but it would occur. The issue was out of southern hands to avoid for the first time in the nation's great debate.

[JMS]

What you did was conjure out of thin air the idea that tariffs were a root cause of the Civil War.

Not exactly it was one cause the southerners pointed too.. The north exported goods, the south over overwhelmingly imported goods.. So tariffs designed to protect northern industry hit the south especially hard. This was one of the constant points of contention between the northern and southern leaders...

I think Slavery was another such point of contention, only one which was older and more important economically. But their is no question both became wedge issues.

[Larry]

The thing which had protected slavery since the founding fathers was the equilibrium of the Southern slave states in the Senate. They were in a position to block any abolitionist legislation with their block of votes. The writing was on the wall after the Kansas Nebraska act failed. The South would loose it's ability to block legislation against slavery. That was the game changer.

Oh, there, I agree. Many of the state's declarations of reasons for secession, I'd say that the major point they listed was that slave states were losing their control of Congress.

other reasons were that Northers states weren't respecting their slavery laws.

I think it was mentioned several times that they were upset that a slave owner couldn't take his slave into a state where slavery was illegal, and be immune from the laws of the state he was in. (So much for the "state's rights" argument.)

And that uppity Northerners were actually having the nerve to express the opinion that slavery was wrong. In some cases, even in front of the slaves.