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.
Battalion,
While I may have missed something when I quickly scanned your reply above, it seems to me your figures are supporting the idea that the North consumed more than the South and therefore spent more for the items it consumed. I have no argument with you there.
Region........Population.................Value of Mfg.Goods
North........22,341,747 (71%).....$ 1,730,330,395 (92%) (the North manufactures beyond it's needs)
South.........9,103,333 (29%)..........155,531,281 (8%)
It is hard to believe that someone could look at these numbers and not come to the conclusion that the South needed to import a considerable amount.
Quote:
Originally Posted by unionblue
You may have also missunderstood when I put the '0' in the Southern consumption catagory. This was not to say the South did not produce any of the item in that catagory. It was to say it did NOT IMPORT any of that item so there was NO TARIFF paid by the South for that item.
This is not to say that the South did not cosume any of the said item, but mainly that it bought such items within the country, i.e., from the North, West, or other sections of the South.
Is this the reasoning you are using?...
......That point of collection (New York City, Boston, etc) only counts?
Even if a Northern merchant (a middleman) is the original purchaser...is he not passing along the cost of the tariff to the buyer of his merchandise?
Quote:
Originally Posted by unionblue
The bottom line of my argument is, that the South simply did not pay the amounts you and others here at the board and elsewhere throughout the inter net have implied, i.e. 80% or 70% or 60%, not even 50% or 40%.
At least 2/3rds of United States exports were produced exclusively in the South (fy1860)- Cotton (57%), Tobacco (6%), Rice, Sugar, etc.
How did they not get a corresponding amount of imports?
We have here the conclusive fact that the three-fourths of the whole foreign trade of the country is Southern. The exports are produced there, and the goods they get payment for come to them through New York, to the great profit of its merchants...."
While cotton is certainly a southern crop, it is incorrect to think of it as only a southern export. You wouldn't think that ALL of the money you pay for your steak at the grocery store goes back to the rancher, would you? There were complaints that 40% of the money from the raw cotton industry was lost [earned] by businessmen from outside the South. If the complaints are accurate, from enormous financing, commissions, warehousing, drayage, insuring, and shipping, about 4/10th of every bale did not belong to the South, and should not be thought of as money in a planter's pocket, but in someone else's.
Quote:
"Our commerce with the South and with the North is now for the first time divided in the official tables. It appears that all our direct exports are to the North. The figures are:
Exports to Northern States.........£3,922,133
Exports to Southern States.............174,563
Showing a startling contrast in the amount we actually sell to the two belligerents. The contrast is nearly as remarkable in what we buy, only it is reversed!
Imports into Great Britain from Northern ports........£4,697,868
Imports into Great Britain from Southern ports.........6,136,186..."
It is important to notice the months being reported for - Jan., Feb., and March. Certainly not the height of the export shipping season for the North, but it is the second half of the winter shipping season for the South - the only shipping season they had. If we looked at figures for the summer and early fall we would see something much, much different.
"There is nothing in the history of the commerce of the world that will bear any comparision to the increase of the commerce of the lakes for the past years. As the Western States become settled, and their resources developed, additional facilities are required for transporting to market their surplus productions; and enormous as is the increase in the new tonnage added from year to year, it is still barley adequate to meet the wants of the Western trade. Excepting a few weeks during the summer, when farmers are busy in securing their crops, and but little produce is brought into Western markets, the large fleet of vessels, numbering between twelve and thirteen hundred find all they can do in transporting to market the produce of the great West, and carrying back merchandise, manufactures, &c."
While 1200 to 1300 vessels on just the Great Lakes were doing all they could to haul in and out the goods of and for the Midwest between ice out and ice up, the wharves of the deep South sat almost idle.
What manufactured items does the North need to import?
The amount produced appears to be very sufficient.
Not much of the total was exported...
so did each Northerner consume $77 of goods ($1,730,330,395/22,341,747)
to each Southerner consuming $17 of goods? ($155,531,281/9,103,333)
Battalion,
The above is rather ridiculous. It entirely ignores domestic commerce between the North and South. It further assumes that because leather shoes and cotton dungarees are manufactres in the North, that is what northerners are buying, while southerners are wearing the imported clothing and footwear. Is this really the logic you wish to partly rest your argument on?
Quote:
The South either imports...or buys Northern goods at protectionist rates.
The debate seems too far along to stumble now on such inaccuracies. If you want to refer to domestic prices as "protectionist rates" then fine, but realize that Americans everywhere paid whatever the effects of the tariff were (and I contend that often there were none). If you want to think that "the North" was one big factory family who benefitted from protectionism, then fine, but you choose to ignore that more people in the North made their living from the land than in the South. If you want to think of everything above Mason/Dixon as the "industrial North, then fine, but I think you do yourself and the subject a great disservice.
I invite you to look at some statistics from the 1860 Census. http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/colle...php?year=V1860 In the "Agriculture" box. click and drag to highlite everything from "Total Number of Farms" to "Value of Animals Slaughtered" and then click on Sumbit Query at the bottom of the page. You should get a table with ten columns of stats for all states. To compare things at a glance, click on "Map It" at the top of each column, and you'll find that states in the North, predominately New York, outdid the states in the South in the categories of Total Number of Farms, Total Improved Acreage, Cash Value in Farms, Value of Farming Implements and Machinery, Value of Livestock, Value of Orchard Products, Value of Market Garden Products, and Value of Animals Slaughtered.
Only in two categories in Agriculture did the states of the South outdo the North: Total Unimproved Acreage and Value of Homemade Manufactures. I'd hope this would help put to rest the idea that citizens in the North all took home a paycheck from the textile factory or iron mill. The hills and valleys of my New York state were covered with farms of all types, and still are. My ancestor's purchase of everything from woolens to farm machinery were every bit as affected by tariffs - no more and no less - than any cotton grower's were.
The last category from the Census - Value of Homemade Manufactures - is interesting though. The map shows the states of the North, while heavy in population, were anemic when it comes to homemade manufactures, whereas the South was hearty with them. So, to a question of where did the South get her goods, one answer is "Home on the Farm", or maybe "Home on the Plantation" where the carpenter and blacksmith had full time jobs.
Quote:
One way or the other...
...the South got the shaft.
This seems to be a retreat from the claim that the South Eleven paid a majority of revenues from tariffs.
Cedarstripper
Last edited by cedarstripper; 01-30-2006 at 02:27 PM.
I belived that the "Huge Assumption" is on your part.
You seem to imply that Everyone in the South only purchased Imported goods, which is very far from the truth. The South purchased equipment, and food (yes, large amount of food) from the North, furniture, even mundane items like wooden buckets, as there was no factories for them in the south. Many of the larger, and middling, slave owners spent their vacations in the North at various spa's, Trips to the larger Northern cities. All this cost money. Much might have been paid for with 'cotton money' but nevertheless, it was still purchased from Northern factories and farms.
Just a few thoughts
Chuck, This reminded me of an article in DeBow's Review, which I'll paste a bit of here. Maybe you'll get a chuckle out of it too. [the writer doesn't like Yankee buckets]
"Some twelve years ago, when manufacturing was the rage in South Carolina, we purchased from a neighbor a home-made well-bucket. The maker had a high reputation in that line of business, and supplied the country for many miles around, and it was the general opinion that his buckets would last from twelve to fifteen years, and some even affirmed they had been used for twenty years without replacing. The bucket made for us in 1847, was in use about eleven years, when it suddenly gave way. As our neighbor did not keep them ready made, a member of our family went to town and purchased a Yankee made bucket, which did not last a year. We went in person to endeavor to procure a home-made one, but looked in vain over Augusta, and through the stores of a village close by. We inquired of a prominent merchant, why he did not keep a supply of our neighbor's well-made buckets, instead of the Northern trash he offered us. His reply was that he could make nothing on them; and, besides, they would never wear out. Not being able to do without water, we abandoned the rule of action we are recommending, and purchased a Northern-made bucket, highly praised by the merchant, but not guaranteed. He advised that it should be filled with water and left to soak for a day and night, lest it might fall to pieces; and he right, with great propriety, have extended the caution to keep water in it all the time, and not expose it to the sun. Feeling quite confident that the last purchase was no better than the one which had just fallen to pieces, another of domestic make was immediately ordered, to be held in reserve.
Now, here is an example which strikingly sets forth our apathy in regard to patronizing our own people and encouraging home industry. See this honest, hard-working South Carolina cooper, who, by diligent application, has earned an enviable fame in his line by the production of faithfully made and cheap articles. He is poor, and for want of patronage, not half his time employed at his trade, from the fact that it is to the interest of the trader that he should remain idle; and it is a convenience and a seeming economy to the unthrifty man to pay a dollar every year for a new cheap Yankee bucket, rather than to employ this industrious mechanic to supply a good home-made article at a dollar and a half, which will last half a life-time. This certainly manifests an improvident, careless and wasteful spirit, that patriotism (if not our own interests) ought to prompt every individual to try and overcome. We remember the time when it was a common thing to see our merchants trading with country coopers for their cart loads of home-made ware-tubs, pails, churns, &c., manufactured of the best material-well-seasoned juniper or cedar. But now such a sight is rarely seen, the home-made article being obliged to stand out of the way and make room for the better finished, finer looking woodenware of the North.
Laudable efforts have made at the South in various places, particularly in Charleston, Columbia, and Augusta, to manufacture such articles by machinery; but the hot opposition from Yankeedom, and the never-ceasing desire of that people to cheapen goods and make fortunes by the profits, before the cheat is detected, together with our own indifference about being well-served, has driven those Southern manufactures out of the market, making, in most instances, a sacrifice of the entire capital so invested. And now we are over-run with Yankee buckets, tubs, etc., painted inside and out, to hide the sappy, inferior material they are made of. Northern work of this kind, polished and paiiged up, may be seen in every village or country shop, and composes part of the household furniture of every mansion and cottage throughout the South. If you engage a mason to build a chimney, the first preliminary is to buy half a dozen Yankee blue-painted buckets, to carry water and mortar in, and if they hold together till the job is done, they will scarcely be worth preserving to be used on another job.
If we break a carriage tongue, instead of going to the woods and hewing out a tough piece of wood and working it into shape, to save trouble, we send to town and get one ready shaped, worked so by a laborer in the State of Maine.
If we break a buggy-shaft, we find it more convenient to apply to the same source for a pair already reduced to shape, if not finished, painted and trimmed ready for use. If you chide a man with a lack of patriotism in purchasing such articles of foreign make, he will tell you at once that if he takes his vehicle to the nearest village carriage-maker, the result will be the same, for he imports his carriage-tongues, buggy-shafts, and, indeed, every part is made at the North, except putting together, painting and trimming.
It is not an unusual thing for our wagon-makers to import their hubs already morticed; and, in some instances, the fellies and spokes. Even our timber log-carts, in many cases, are partially made at the North. Nothing is more common now, than to see at our store-doors, hubs for log-cart wheels, which are often carried fifty miles into the country, after having traveled perhaps a thousand miles from the maker's hands, while it would be easier for the cart-builder to get the wood and turn them, than to go ten miles for them.
This all results from the want of home patronage, of which wagon and cart makers get so little, that they cannot afford to keep the materials on hand; and when a job does come, to be done in haste, the only way for him to get seasoned hubs, fellies, and spokes (if not axles and tongues), is to post off to the nearest town, and purchase those of Yankee make., The question now arises, how are we to cure this growing evil? It can be accomplished in no other way, than by liberal encouragement and patronage of all varieties of domestic industry. All can see, in a crisis like the present, that our entire dependence on others for the commonest necessaries in use, is a national evil."
Cedarstripper
Yep, enjoyed that post.
Name is not at hand, but there was an attempt at getting Southerners to start building factories to supply their local needs without ordering from the North.
For the most part he was hooted down as Southerners were too much learned men, students of the Arts, to stoop down to being laborers and getting their hands dirty.
I think there were others articles in De Bow's lamenting the lack of southern industrial production and making them dependent on Northern production.
There was also an article in "The Cause of the South-Selections from De Bow's Review, 1846-1867"(edited by Paul Fl Paskoff and Daniel J. Wilson) that commented on some southern production that was being sent North as no one south would buy the inferior product, but opted instead for a cheaper and better northern product.
Chuck in IL.
I do not accept the exclusion of the slave population as some have suggested here. Slaves needed food, clothes, medicine, and tools to work with just as the Northern laborer.
Since the purpose of your digesting of domestic goods North and South is to establish a disparity of consumption which you then assume is to be made up with dutiable imports, then I would suggest that the slave population is most certainly not to be included. Their coarse clothing was not imported, nor were their tools, nor was their food. When figure for the free population and add in for home made manufactures, the per capita amount for the South Eleven becomes $49/head of manufactures consumed.
I think it is a mistake in the first part to assume that per capita consumption was level North and South. Individual articles such as woolens were most likely consumed in greater quantities to the North, and Cash included an excerpt which contended that urban populations were greater consumers than sparse rural populations, which I think must be undoubtedly true.
But dutiable imports were not just goods consumed directly. Cost of dutiable raw material such as fine/printed textiles and lace, wool, rope, and pig iron were obviously much higher in the North. The 1860 Census gives $940.3 million of raw material purchase to the Union and only $86.5 million to the South Eleven. Capital invested in manufacturing in the North also was ten times what was invested in the South, which gives us an idea of the ratio of machinery and tooling purchases.
In all, I think it is flawed to assume that a calculated disparity in domestic consumption equals an inverse disparity in dutiable imports.
I'm wondering, can you think of any import, save guano, that was consumed more in the South?
Cedarstripper
Last edited by cedarstripper; 01-31-2006 at 09:54 AM.
While cotton is certainly a southern crop, it is incorrect to think of it as only a southern export. You wouldn't think that ALL of the money you pay for your steak at the grocery store goes back to the rancher, would you? There were complaints that 40% of the money from the raw cotton industry was lost [earned] by businessmen from outside the South. If the complaints are accurate, from enormous financing, commissions, warehousing, drayage, insuring, and shipping, about 4/10th of every bale did not belong to the South, and should not be thought of as money in a planter's pocket, but in someone else's....
Cedarstripper
...Even if this 40% were exacted across the board...on all Southern exports...
...-which would be the most extreme scenario- First, we are assuming that the 40% is accurate and no exaggeration...and, secondly, that there is not a single Southern concern involved in warehousing, shipping, &c-
...the South would still have over 50% interest in the entire export of the United States-
You have lost me with your above math. In post #91, you listed $238,419,670 as the total value of exports from the South, and $77,367,070 as total value of exports from the North. (I assume this doesn't include specie, which in itself tends to throw this all further into the North's favor)
If 40% of southern exports belongs to the North ( a southern claim, not mine) then:
$238,419,670........total southern export - 95,367,868.........(-40% of southern export earned by North) $143,051,802..............southern wealth from exports
$77,367,070..........total northern export +95,367,868..........(+40% of southern export earned by North) $172,734,938..............northern wealth from exports
It also needs to be noted that the export figures you use for the eleven states that would become the confederacy are not what is being listed in the table by Duff Green and the New York newspaper. The FY1861 export figures he uses for "the South" include all states that produced "southern products", not just the ones who seceded. Indeed it certainly was the hope of many secessionists that all slave states and everything from Indiana to the Pacific would join the confederacy, but we need to draw a line, and that line seems to have been drawn with the states that actually did secede.
Cedarstripper
Last edited by cedarstripper; 01-31-2006 at 11:52 AM.
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, that the South simply did not pay the amounts you and others here at the board and elsewhere throughout the inter net have implied, i.e. 80% or 70% or 60%, not even 50% or 40%.
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