Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
It is a myth that the Northern people all were abolitionist minded. Slavery benefitted certain Northerners. Only a handful of the Northern population were anti-slavery while the majority had little thought one way or the other about it.
Why was there a huge uproar in the north over the Kansas-Nebraska act if the people didn't care?
Why did the Whig party and Methodist church split in half if the people didn't care?
If the majority of northerners didn't care one iota about slavery then why in 1860 did they elect a man from the party founded to control the spread of slavery? Why didn't they vote for Douglas instead?
The Republican Platform clearly states they are against slavery's expansion into the territories. The Douglas platform on the other hand defends the rights of slaveholders.
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Of course, this is prior to the war and Lincoln's crusade to make slavery the issue.
The south made slavery an issue long before Lincoln was even born.
Lincoln was out of politics for years until the Kansas-Nebraska act was passed which permitted the further spread of slavery. He reappeared on the political scene to fight the act.
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Last edited by Admiral_Porter; 12-29-2005 at 01:11 AM.
Originally Posted by Wild_Rose The Southern states claimed these revenues, aside from being used for general government business, were used primarily to benefit the Northern states and industries.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
"Southern states" didn't claim any such thing. Some various politicians and newspapers made such claims, and either you believe them or you don't. Federal expenditures were passed by Congress, so why would the South think they were not represented in Congress? If you think that federal expenditures primarily benefitted northern states and industries, I'd be grateful if you'd provide the evidence for it.
Well, I suppose if you want to be that literal, no; soil can't speak. But, I refer to the states as the people that comprise those states and they could speak. It may have been the politicians, who were the state's leaders, who were making those claims. I doubt the politicians were the only ones making those claims. The planters, no doubt, had those same reservations regarding the tariff.
It doesn't matter much what I, personally, think. What matters is what the people that lived in those times thought and they (Southerners) clearly thought they were being fleeced by the government and the Northern people.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
Actually Rose, your rebuttal that foreign imports 'often' entered through northern ports and then were sold South directly replied to a series of statements noting that [less than] 10% of tariffs were collected in the South which purpose was to suggest that the South was doing well to even consume dutiable articles in proportion to their population.
It is well known that the South was an agricultural and largely rural section. Importers, merchants, speculators, and bankers, while not non-existant, were few. Southerners mainly purchased goods from the North, whether it was produced in the North or imported by the North. The North had had a monopoly on shipping since the beginning of the country and with the South's blessing, because she wasn't particularly interested in that industry. New York had the largest port with the largest volume of imports, by far. That doesn't mean that New York consumed the largest amount of imports. You cannot judge by the port volume how much the local consumers used.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
And no, you didn't say that southerners were dependent on either northern goods or imported goods.....you only wrote that they were "heavily dependent on imports" in a post discussing tariffs on imports.
The South was heavily dependent on imports. I've mentioned it a couple of times: Post # 992: The South was heavily dependent on imports since they had little manufacturing in the South.
Post # 999: The South did little manufacturing and very little shipping and was, therefore, forced to buy Northern made or Northern imported goods as a general rule.
I think what I intended to say is clear. The South was heavily dependent on imports. I didn't mean to imply that they depended ONLY on imports and that's not what I said.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
Taxes hurt everyone's economy. The issue is whether the southern states were disproportionately burdened. The slave states were not the only states with agrarian economies, yet only slave states moved to secede.
As I've already explained, the South believed the tariff hurt their export based economy and I explained why. This would be in addition to the same effects of high taxes that all societies faced.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
DeBow claimed that people preferred revenues through tariffs as compared to a regular visit from the taxman. He claimed that they could easily avoid paying taxes merely by not buying dutiable imports.
It sounds like DeBow was saying, "Let them eat cake." I think he was being very narrow sighted when he made that statement.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
The US Constitution required that tariffs be the same in every port. The tariff acts were set by committee, debated and amended in the House, debated and amended in the Senate, sent back to the House for concurrence, and sent to the President for signing. The South enjoyed a more than active role in this process for many years and enjoyed a representation greater than her population deserved. If they didn't like the 1861 act, they well knew the constitutional process for protesting against it.
Yes, they well knew how hard it had been over the past decades to get the tariff to a reasonable rate. They saw a future in which Lincoln and a republican majority would undo all the hard won victories over tariff issues.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
Declaration of Causes, Georgia: After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed. It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people.
And then Georgia goes on to explain that this is why the industrialists needed a new weapon if they were to ever regain the high protection they wanted. They chose slavery as that weapon.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
The 1857 tariff act lowered the ad valorem rates of the 1846 act 20%, i.e. Schedule C went from 30% down to 24%. The 1861 act's ad valorem rates went about half way back up, with Schedule C rising to 28%. Many rates were changed to specific rates, which makes them more difficult to compare, but I invite you to indicate which articles suffered dramatic raises in rates.
The ratio of duties collected to dutiable articles for FY ending June 30, 1861 actually fell from the previous year. There are a couple of tariff threads on this forum that might give you some information.
If this were true, I could only conclude that the Southern people were lunatics and had no clue as to what was good for their own economy. They seceded because tariffs went down among their other reasons.
I've looked through the thread on tariffs and concluded that no one here has enough information or knowledge to present a very good or unbiased case. That kind of debate is better left to the economists who have all the facts. What I'm interested in is not to prove the Southerners right or wrong in regard to the tariff issue, but to show what they believed. They believed the tariff to be detrimental to their economy and I can't, with 100% certainty, say that they were right or wrong. They acted on their beliefs and they made their choices based on what evidence they had.
Rose
__________________ "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names".--J.F.K.
The War Between the States established... This principle that the Federal Government is, through its courts, this final judge of its own powers.
-- Woodrow Wilson
If this were true, I could only conclude that the Southern people were lunatics and had no clue as to what was good for their own economy. They seceded because tariffs went down among their other reasons.
I've looked through the thread on tariffs and concluded that no one here has enough information or knowledge to present a very good or unbiased case. That kind of debate is better left to the economists who have all the facts. What I'm interested in is not to prove the Southerners right or wrong in regard to the tariff issue, but to show what they believed. They believed the tariff to be detrimental to their economy and I can't, with 100% certainty, say that they were right or wrong. They acted on their beliefs and they made their choices based on what evidence they had.
Rose
Rose,
The secessionists themselves said that they seceded because of slavery. Why did they spend so much time talking about slavery, and so little time taking about tariffs? How often were tariffs mentioned in the Crittendon Compromise?
best,
marc
__________________ "It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues." - Abraham Lincoln
Originally Posted by cedarstripper "Southern states" didn't claim any such thing. Some various politicians and newspapers made such claims, and either you believe them or you don't.....
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Originally Posted by wild rose
"Well, I suppose if you want to be that literal, no; soil can't speak."
Apparently neither can people who are not politicians, planters, or newspaper editors, the latter two comprising the group that usually make up the first. I don’t mean that the soil of the southern states wasn’t represented in the assorted claims expressed by assorted prominent Southerners, but that the voice of the average citizen may not have been either, and I offer the absence of any political movements to abandon the tariff as the means to raise revenue as support for that opinion.
"It doesn't matter much what I, personally, think. What matters is what the people that lived in those times thought and they (Southerners) clearly thought they were being fleeced by the government and the Northern people."
If so, then aside from some hollow political rhetoric, they were comparably very quiet about it. There were no political campaigns addressing it. There were no parties dedicated to it. There were no threats of disunion because of it. Republicans were not denigrated with terms such as "Tariff Republicans" as they were "Black Republicans.
"It is well known that the South was an agricultural and largely rural section."
The majority of the US was agricultural. Please explain why you think Southerners thought they were more affected than anyone else, and whether you also believe so.
"New York had the largest port with the largest volume of imports, by far. That doesn't mean that New York consumed the largest amount of imports. You cannot judge by the port volume how much the local consumers used."
It has never to my knowledge been claimed here that a 93% volume of dutiable imports entering through northern ports indicated a 93% consumption of those imports by Northerners. I have only written that there is nothing to indicate that the Southerners consumed more than their proportionate amount, and probably less. It is reasonable to conclude though, that given the increased efficiency and profitability of direct shipping of foreign goods directly to southern cotton ports, the entering of 93% of those goods through the North indicates that the bulk of those foreign goods were not destined for the southern marketplace.
Part of the reason that the volume was so large in the Port of NY was the commerce with the Midwest via the Erie Canal. But it cannot be ignored that the densities of populations in the midAtlantic states and New England, as well as the transportaion networks that connected them all made the Northeast a merchant’s dream, compared to the lack of densities and transportation network in the South. I think nothing else can explain the evolution and growth of shipping and railroads than the volume of commerce they were built to handle.
"I think what I intended to say is clear. The South was heavily dependent on imports. I didn't mean to imply that they depended ONLY on imports and that's not what I said."
I only wished to point out that when discussing the needs of the South, the term "imports" by volume chiefly refers to domestic imports from other states, which of course were not taxed….. not until the creation of the CSA, anyway, after which southerners were taxed on purchases from their neighbors.
"It sounds like DeBow was saying, "Let them eat cake." I think he was being very narrow sighted when he made that statement."
Does that mean that you think Southerners preferred directly paying internal taxes during visits from the tax collector as an alternative to external taxes such as import tariffs?
"Yes, they well knew how hard it had been over the past decades to get the tariff to a reasonable rate. They saw a future in which Lincoln and a republican majority would undo all the hard won victories over tariff issues."
Hard won victories? I believe the 1846 tariff act and the 1857 tariff act were not "hard won victories" for the South. They were passed with fairly widespread approval.
Originally Posted by cedarstripper: Declaration of Causes, Georgia: After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed. It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people.
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Originally Posted by wild_rose
"And then Georgia goes on to explain that this is why the industrialists needed a new weapon if they were to ever regain the high protection they wanted. They chose slavery as that weapon."
You’ll notice that the issue I replied to was that a claim that the 1846 tariff act was considered a low-duty, free trade tariff, which you had denied. You’ll also notice that it was referred to, not as "the verdict of the South", but as the "verdict of the American people."
"If this were true, I could only conclude that the Southern people were lunatics and had no clue as to what was good for their own economy. They seceded because tariffs went down among their other reasons.
I would conclude that on the issue of tariffs, they were on occasion propagandized with some assorted rhetoric by windbag politicians and politically motivated newspaper editors. They seceded primarily to preserve slavery. And I did not claim that the 1861 act sought to lower the then present rates, but that its ad valorem rates were lower than the popular 1846 act. In 1860, tariffs were collected under the 1857 act.
And so it goes, .....on and on and on. The question of slavery and secession, will provide fodder for those on either side till the generations dwindle away. The South will forever believe they were (are)right, and the North will forever believe they were (are) right. As a Southerner, I have stated my beliefs throughout this board many times, and shall never change my mind, nor will I give up my ideals pertaining to those events that touched so many in 1860. I also suspect, that most, northerners, probably feel the same way about their beliefs, as well. So......with all the arguments that pass between those who 'debate' these issues, will this ever be settled? Will minds ever be changed? Probably not. The arguments are well over 140 years old, and there is as much animosity toward each other now, as there was then.
Is there any sense in arguing these points? I suppose there could be a case made for each side, but then, most already have their minds made up, therefore, in that sense, there really isn't. I can see that the same old 'custom' of downing someone for their beliefs, still is at the forefront in the discussion about slavery, meaning that if you are Southern, then you must have, and still do, believe that if you fought for, or believed in, the South, then you support the institution. My ancestors didn't! They fought for the South, and didn't believe in the practice, didn't own any, and didn't care about it. So, with that said, to prove a point...........those who belive otherwise,..................change my mind!
Without name calling, without degradation of any sort, try and change my mind. Try and make me see your point of view. Cash can't do it, despite his nasty attitude and obnoxious remarks, which only made me believe in my ideals more than ever.........so if you can, then you're a much better man than he is. If you can't, then we still are exactly where we were when we began. And as long as you can debate sensibly without statements made with the intention of degrading, I can and will, at least listen. It takes a lot of self control, not to let your temper get the better of you, but it can be done.
I've stated this many times before, I was born and raised in the South, and I still believe in most of the ideals that the South fought for....and let me repeat, most, not all! I respected my ancestors reasons for going to war, and to them, it wasn't the perpetuation of slavery, no mattter what others may try to tell me. And, even if that were the case, it is not up to you to degrade them, no more than it's my right to degrade your ancestors for fighting what they believed in. I decided quite a while ago not to participate with these 'debates', any more, because all some individuals did was put down my Southern ideals, and tried to make me, or my ancestors, appear to be all wrong. But as I dropped in to glance about, and to see what has transpired since I left, I found that not much has changed, there is still more than a 'debate' going on. Lot's of condemnation and inuendo's still prevail. So, there you have it. So far as I'm concerned, my ideals are every bit as good as yours, and in some cases, much better. The South lives on, and derisive comments about it, and their reasons for secession, will do nothing but keep the gulf between North and South, as wide as ever. I am not asking unionists to believe all I have to say, no more than you asking me to believe all you have to say. All I ask, is at least keep it..............friendly?
I read your post carefully. On one level its depressing. No one can ever learn anything, we are fated to always believe whatever we learned first? I don't think so. My thinking and beliefs on a lot of issues have changed over the course of my life.
What are the Southern ideals: the underlying beliefs beyond the specifics of the war?
For example, a Northern ideal would be that citizenship shouldn't be limited by race. Its an ideal that people, both in the CW and now, don't always live up to, but it is an ideal, a good one, that we should all live up to.
What's the Southern equivalent, an ideal we maybe don't always live, but one we should strive for today?
...[...]... Its an ideal that people, both in the CW and now, don't always live up to, but it is an ideal, a good one, that we should all live up to.
To this end, I cannot comprehend how something that clear, evidently, seems to get lost.
Jefferson wrote, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal....". He either meant what he said or he didn't.
Notwitstanding whatever tiresome semantics and 'product-of-his-time' drivel that this phrasing has been subjected to, I cannot fathom Jefferson being so dull and clueless as to not fully understand exactly what he was writing. Despite Jefferson's status as a slaveholder, I still think he envisioned a United States whereby (one day) this phrase "all men are created equal" will, in fact, be true not only in concept, but in reality.
I cannot entertain the notion that Jefferson was just kidding, or that his little phrase was somehow miniaturized by 18th-century thinking, or that there was any other intention than to make this statement true and fully operational at some point in time (i.e., striving to move in that direction). Moreover, any movement away from this position suggests, as well, that the Founding Fathers really didn't believe in their own founding principal: ordinary people can govern themselves. It's a departure from the status quo that is profound and fundamental to understanding the heart of this country's governing principals. If ordinary people can't govern themselves, then there's no real reason for them to be equal, is there? And the fact that we're not there yet, nor haven't been there historically, is no excuse for not pursuing the goal and continuing in the path the Founding Fathers laid out for us. Why is this complicated? Why do people feel sectionally put-upon and insulted somehow about our collective transgressions as a people?
If Jefferson didn't mean what he said, then perhaps we should write our Congressmen and initiate a grassroots campaign to push through an amendment to change the **** text...just so we're clear on this: it either means what it says, or it doesn't. If he did mean it, then it behooves all of us to buck up and, as you suggested Matthew, strive to live up to it. I'm of the opinion that Jefferson would have wanted us to at least try.
I'd like to address the part of your post concerning beliefs and the unlikelyhood that anyone will ever give their's up, as you have pledged that you never will. On it's face, that already appears false as I have changed my beliefs on certain items, as have several others on this forum have admitted to having done. In my case, the change was the result of the replacement of popular myths with some actual facts.
I too think that there are beliefs that will never be settled. But there is a difference between a "belief" and a "fact", and there are facts about secession and the war that are as undebatable as math....deniable just the same, but undebatable. There are fabrications and deceptions that are waiting to be exposed, jumbled events to be put in order, and slanders begging to be overturned. Since I took up an interest in this subject, I have seen many tales debunked. I'm sure there will be many more. You may be exactly where you were when you started, but I certainly am not.
I am curious as to what you consider are your southern "ideals" that you claim have been put down.
I don’t mean that the soil of the southern states wasn’t represented in the assorted claims expressed by assorted prominent Southerners, but that the voice of the average citizen may not have been either, and I offer the absence of any political movements to abandon the tariff as the means to raise revenue as support for that opinion.
I have addressed this already. I don't believe the South was opposed to a tariff entirely. The fact that they worked hard to bring it down to a reasonable rate tells us they weren't opposed to raising revenue in this manner.
The Nullification Crisis, for an example, didn't happen because there was a tariff. It happened because the tariff was too great.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
If so, then aside from some hollow political rhetoric, they were comparably very quiet about it. There were no political campaigns addressing it. There were no parties dedicated to it. There were no threats of disunion because of it. Republicans were not denigrated with terms such as "Tariff Republicans" as they were "Black Republicans.
You don't specify what time period you are referring to, but assuming you mean during the secession crisis, there was no need of any of those things prior to Lincoln, the protectionist president, being elected. The tariff was at a low during that time even though it didn't stand much chance of remaining low for long.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
The majority of the US was agricultural. Please explain why you think Southerners thought they were more affected than anyone else, and whether you also believe so.
You want to hear this again? The South believed the high tariff hurt their export based economy. Remember the "Forty Bales Theory". They weren't the only ones that felt this way, but they are who we are discussing and they are the ones that had an economy based largely on exports. Cotton growers/exporters and industrialists were the two major sections playing "tug-of-war" with the tariff rates.
I have already answered whether I believe it or not. My statement: "They believed the tariff to be detrimental to their economy and I can't, with 100% certainty, say that they were right or wrong."
I will say that evidence points to the Southerners being right about the tariff issue. So...yeah, I'm definitely leaning toward the Southern theory.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
Rose: "New York had the largest port with the largest volume of imports, by far. That doesn't mean that New York consumed the largest amount of imports. You cannot judge by the port volume how much the local consumers used."
It is reasonable to conclude though, that given the increased efficiency and profitability of direct shipping of foreign goods directly to southern cotton ports, the entering of 93% of those goods through the North indicates that the bulk of those foreign goods were not destined for the southern marketplace.
I've already explained this, also. My statement: "Importers, merchants, speculators, and bankers, while not non-existant, were few. Southerners mainly purchased goods from the North, whether it was produced in the North or imported by the North. The North had had a monopoly on shipping since the beginning of the country and with the South's blessing, because she wasn't particularly interested in that industry."
The South was not a poor economy and they did consume goods in proportion with their population.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
Part of the reason that the volume was so large in the Port of NY was the commerce with the Midwest via the Erie Canal. But it cannot be ignored that the densities of populations in the midAtlantic states and New England, as well as the transportaion networks that connected them all made the Northeast a merchant’s dream, compared to the lack of densities and transportation network in the South. I think nothing else can explain the evolution and growth of shipping and railroads than the volume of commerce they were built to handle.
I don't disagree with that. I've stated more than once that the South was a rural section of the country. There were few large cities and people were scattered out across the rural countryside.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
I only wished to point out that when discussing the needs of the South, the term "imports" by volume chiefly refers to domestic imports from other states, which of course were not taxed….. not until the creation of the CSA, anyway, after which southerners were taxed on purchases from their neighbors.
When a Southern consumer purchased an item from the North that had been imported from a foreign country, the duty paid on that item by the importer was most surely passed on to the purchaser. Southern consumers did probably purchase Northern made goods more often than foreign imports because the protective tariff put those goods out of reach for many. This would also be true for Northern consumers. However, there are no facts to tell us how much (in foreign imports) was actually purchased by any one section.
After the Confederate States government was formed, goods from all sources would have been more affordable with the low duty and the domestic vs foreign competition vying for the Southern market. One complaint of the South was that the high protective tariff kept domestic prices up by keeping the foreign competition out. And that was, indeed, the purpose of protection.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
Does that mean that you think Southerners preferred directly paying internal taxes during visits from the tax collector as an alternative to external taxes such as import tariffs?
Good grief, no. I was saying that DeBow was being very narrow sighted to suggest such a thing when the tariff revenue could take care of the country's needs sufficiently without being an undue burden on any one group of people. His statement proved that he was as out of touch with the Southern plight as Marie Antoinette was with her starving people. The tariff system, IMO, if not aimed to fleece any one group or used to benefit any one group, could have been the fairest form of taxation for all people.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
Hard won victories? I believe the 1846 tariff act and the 1857 tariff act were not "hard won victories" for the South. They were passed with fairly widespread approval.
With the 1846 tariff act, as usual, the Southern Democrats supported it and the Northern Whigs generally opposed it. The protection based industry was outraged. But with the Democratic majority both the '46 and the '57 tariffs acts passed. I say hard won, because the tariff issues had been a source of contention between the parties for decades.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
Originally Posted by cedarstripper: Declaration of Causes, Georgia: After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed. It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people.
You’ll notice that the issue I replied to was that a claim that the 1846 tariff act was considered a low-duty, free trade tariff, which you had denied. You’ll also notice that it was referred to, not as "the verdict of the South", but as the "verdict of the American people."
What I said: "As to the South considering the tariff act of 1846 to be a fair and free trade act, I don't believe they did."
I don't believe the tariff act in '46 actually accomplished what the South wanted, but it did pave the way so I can see where the Georgia declaration is coming from in that respect. IMO, the 1857 act was the one that actually came very close. And, yes, it can be said that anything that passes Congress is the verdict of the American people.
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Originally Posted by cedarstripper
I would conclude that on the issue of tariffs, they were on occasion propagandized with some assorted rhetoric by windbag politicians and politically motivated newspaper editors. They seceded primarily to preserve slavery. And I did not claim that the 1861 act sought to lower the then present rates, but that its ad valorem rates were lower than the popular 1846 act. In 1860, tariffs were collected under the 1857 act.
I must admit that yours isn't a unique position. Many share your belief regarding the cause of secession, I just don't happen to be one of them.
In regard to the tariff rates, perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. You aren't saying the 1861 act sought to lower tax, but that it's ad valorem rates were lower. That is confusing and I believe it doesn't make any difference that some rates were lowered when the overall rates ended up being higher.
__________________ "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names".--J.F.K.
The War Between the States established... This principle that the Federal Government is, through its courts, this final judge of its own powers.
-- Woodrow Wilson
Rose,
So would southerners have been justified in insisting that they be allowed to settle in northern states and continue to practice the legal institution of slavery there? Are you really arguing that the whole nation could not make a democratic decision concerning slavery in territory owned by the whole nation? Did non-southerners even have a right to an opinion on the subject of slavery? If so, did they have a right to express that opinion? If so, did they have a right to take LEGAL political action to push for policies in line with their opinions?
best,
marc
I believe the sovereignty of each individual state should allow that state to have decided any and all (legal, not prohibited by the Constitution) domestic issues without interference. Regarding the territories, the same goes. Once they became a state they should have had the same rights under the constitution as any other state in the Union, no more, no less.
The Constitution shouldn't be one thing for one set of states and another for a different set of states and the Constitution supported slavery. That's too bad, but that's the way it was. It should have been left up to each state as to whether to allow legal slavery or not.
Rose
__________________ "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names".--J.F.K.
The War Between the States established... This principle that the Federal Government is, through its courts, this final judge of its own powers.
-- Woodrow Wilson
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