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.
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Why not? Was he not as capable of using slaves to perform his labor as a man from Georgia, were he to set up operations (whatever they might be) in a territory open to slavery? Why do we suppose when considering the many loose claims of how people's constitutional rights were being trampled, that only a southern man's rights were violated if the federal government didn't protect his right to use slaves for his benefit? Again, the "didn't have access to the territories" argument cannot be separated from the slavery issue.
Point made and taken.
Ole
I realize it's difficult to seperate nineteenth century views on slavery from our views today, but we need to remember that slavery was legal under the United States Constitution. If Southerners were allowed to take their slaves to the West, how would it be trampling the rights of his neighbor who didn't have (or wish to have) slaves? I've never heard of any instance where a slave owner pushed any individual to purchase a slave.
More protest was made about the competition of white men vs. slave labor in the territories than there were arguments regarding the moral issue of slavery. The moral issue of slavery is what we are all hung up on, but the fact is that we can't force our personal version of morals on other human beings who may be of a different opinion. If we attempt to do that we find ourselves in danger of being judged immoral by others whose version of "moral" may be quite different from our own. Then everyone's personal liberty is at stake. It's a two-way street.
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
The West had their own interests that they did not share with the Southern planter. Transportation. They even voted for higher tariffs off and on in order to gain the revenue for better transportation.
The person who provided this link made a similar argument as your own, that on the eve of the Civil war the West supported high tariffs in hopes of internal improvements of their own. Ironically, the paper weakened the debater's argument by stating that the West's support of high tariffs ended in the 1830s, and that the decreasing tariff rate from that point until the 1860s was precisely because western states generally sided with the southern states on tariff issues.
The author, Douglas Irwin, does argue that pro-tariff legislators gained western support by dangling money for internal improvements before their representatives in the 1820s. This support did go against the interests of most Southern politicians. However, with Andrew Jackson's veto of the Maysville Road Bill in May 1830 and other internal improvement bills, Irwin argues, the "dynamics in Congress that in the 1820s had led to higher tariffs and higher spending on improvements" changed. Jackson's veto unlinked the two, by removing strong federal support from internal improvements.
Irwin explains in depth the political battle over tariffs during the next two decades, and shows that tariffs consistently fell. The reason: western states opposed high tariffs (emphasis added) --
"The West's interests in trade intensified with the passage of time. First, with the reduction in transportation costs, due largely to the rapid expansion of railroad networds in the 1850s, Western farmers gained much greater access to distant markets (Fishlow 1965). The volume of grain shipments arriving in Buffalo from the West provides one indicator: as figure 4 shows, grain shipments were at a very low level prior to the mid-1840s, but grew in great strides during the 1850s. The West's hopes of selling more in foreign markets were fulfilled as wheat and wheat flour exports increased from 6 percent of exports during 1836-40 to 11 percent from 1856-60 (Taylor 1951, p. 451). The irony is that internal improvements made these shipments possible, not so much the canals of the 1820s but the railroads of the 1840s and 1850s. Thus, the West's latent economic interest in foreign markets became operational toward the end of the antebellum period.
"Second, as its economic interests were becoming more closely tied to exports, the political strength of the West was also increasing. As Table 1 shows, from 1820 to 1850, the West gained seats in the House and the Senate almost entirely at the expense of the North, not the South. The new states that entered the union between the tariff votes in 1828 and 1846 (Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, and Texas) added eight new votes in the Senate, seven of which were in favor of the Walker tariff. In the House, Illinois and Indiana split their votes (4 yea, 4 nay) on the 1828 tariff, but voted 10 in favor and 2 against the tariff of 1846. The West had more votes, and those votes increasingly supported low tariffs.
"As a result, the ability of Northern members of Congress to enact protectionist legislation was seriously compromised by the opposition of the South and West. Together the South and West controlled three quarters of the House and two-thirds of the Senate by 1850. The old economic interests of the South in low tariffs to promote exports were joined by a new one in the West. Their combined political strength meant that the North had little hope of overturning this coalition." (pp. 26-27)
By the way, the Walker Tariff referred above was strongly supported by the South and the West over objections of many in the North, for it reduced or eliminated many protectionist tariff interests.
Irwin's conclusion on the antebellum tariff issue is:
"Lower transportation costs as a result of railroads gave the West a growing stake in export markets and hence an economic interest in low tariffs. The economic interests of both the South and the West favored low tariffs, and together they controlled a clear majority of the seats in Congress. As a result, average tariffs exhibited a secular decline from 1833 until 1860. In the absence of the Civil War, these low tariffs might have persisted for some time." (p. 28)
The person who provided this link made a similar argument as your own, that on the eve of the Civil war the West supported high tariffs in hopes of internal improvements of their own. Ironically, the paper weakened the debater's argument by stating that the West's support of high tariffs ended in the 1830s, and that the decreasing tariff rate from that point until the 1860s was precisely because western states generally sided with the southern states on tariff issues.
The author, Douglas Irwin, does argue that pro-tariff legislators gained western support by dangling money for internal improvements before their representatives in the 1820s. This support did go against the interests of most Southern politicians. However, with Andrew Jackson's veto of the Maysville Road Bill in May 1830 and other internal improvement bills, Irwin argues, the "dynamics in Congress that in the 1820s had led to higher tariffs and higher spending on improvements" changed. Jackson's veto unlinked the two, by removing strong federal support from internal improvements.
Irwin explains in depth the political battle over tariffs during the next two decades, and shows that tariffs consistently fell. The reason: western states opposed high tariffs (emphasis added) --........
That certainly wasn't reflected in the way they voted.
They sided strongly with the Northeast (NY, NJ, PA) and New England States on the Morrill Tariff in both House and Senate.
That certainly wasn't reflected in the way they voted.
They sided strongly with the Northeast (NY, NJ, PA) and New England States on the Morrill Tariff in both House and Senate.
Irwin's article shows that most western representatives consistently voted against high tariff interests until around 1860. You point out the Morrill Tariff seems to have been different. Do you mean to suggest that the western opposition to protectionist tariffs from 1833 to 1861 did not exist or is irrelevant? Why do you think the Morrill vote was different?
That certainly wasn't reflected in the way they voted.
They sided strongly with the Northeast (NY, NJ, PA) and New England States on the Morrill Tariff in both House and Senate.
NY and the New England states, particularly the manufacturers, were not strong supporters of the 1860 Morrill Tariff, a fact noted by many Southern representatives in speeches at the secession conventions and other places in 1860-61, including the Fire-Eaters. The Republicans did not push it hard in their campaigns in those states.
NJ was a strong protectionist state and had been for a long time to favor the industry from Paterson to Newark. On most other matters, New Jersey was considered aligned with the South politically. (NJ was the only Northern state to send more emigrants South than North of the Mason-Dixon line, for example, and Southern planters tended to send their sons to Princeton instead of Harvard or Yale.)
PA was in favor of the Morrill Tariff because of iron and steel manufacturers. Western Virginia, which had more intercourse with Pittsburgh than Richmond and shared many interests with PA, was also protectionist.
Small farmers and ranchers tended to favor the Morrill Tariff because it taxed the import of wool greatly. This really benefitted only a few large producers, but the idea had been sold as a tariff to protect the small farmer/rancher. Everyone who had a few sheep thought he would make money when the Tariff was implemented.
NY and New England manufacturers did not particularly care for an import tax on wool because it raised the cost of their raw material.
However, they *did* care about the tax being applied also to manufactured wool products being imported. If raw wool was taxed and manufactured wool products were not, then the American manufacturers would be at a disadvantage against foreigners. As a result, the tariff was raised by an equivalent amount on the manufactured goods. Everyone, North and South, East and West, would pay it if they purchased wool or woolen products, American or foreign. (Personally, I would guess that meant Northerners would probably pay more of the wool tariff, but I haven't tried to figure it out.)
The whole issue of tariffs as discussed, BTW, leaves out the issue of quality. American cotton was the finest quality in the world, and so commanded higher prices. Foreign wool was often of finer quality than American raw wool, and so commanded higher prices with or without the tariffs. Russian bar iron was in great demand because it was cheap, but it was also of lesser quality.
Irwin's article shows that most western representatives consistently voted against high tariff interests until around 1860. You point out the Morrill Tariff seems to have been different. Do you mean to suggest that the western opposition to protectionist tariffs from 1833 to 1861 did not exist or is irrelevant? Why do you think the Morrill vote was different?
The 1857-1860 Buchanan administration had resulted in a Federal financial crisis, with debt mushrooming as revenue was cut by the Tariff of 1857 and the Panic of 1857 while Congress did its' usual fine job of spending with both hands. IIRR, the national debt quadrupled in four years and the country swung from a surplus to a huge defecit in the budget.
As a result, the country badly needed to raise income to pay debts. The banks were getting leary about government debt by 1860. This had led to the big push for the Morill Tariff in the late 1850s and in 1860.
There were only two sources of income for the Federals: the Tariff and land sales. Land in the North sold for about 3 times what it sold for in the South, so Northern land sales paid a decidedly larger portion of that source than Southern ones.
So with all the blame for the Panic of 1857 laid at the door of the Tariff of 1857, it was pretty easy to whip up support among farmers/ranchers for an increase. The iron/steel industry (i.e., PA and the eastern Ohio Valley) also was looking for protection from foreign sources.
The 1857-1860 Buchanan administration had resulted in a Federal financial crisis, with debt mushrooming as revenue was cut by the Tariff of 1857 and the Panic of 1857 while Congress did its' usual fine job of spending with both hands.
Geez trice, you went and did all of Battallion's work for him.
The Panic of 1857 did weigh heavily upon many western minds--although many in the West were hesitant to advocate a pro-tariff position. Historian Thomas Pitkin argues that even with the enthusiasm of eastern Republicans to increase the tariff and a growing support among westerners, "Western members of the committee on resolutions [at the Republican National Convention] were averse to mentioning the tariff at all in the party platform." (Pitkin, "Western Republicans and the Tariff in 1860," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Dec., 1940), pp. 406) This was not an example of westerners running with open arms to eastern protectionist tariffs, but a cautious move in response to certain economic concerns, including the Panic of 1857.
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