Many regrets but i cannot get posts to stick in threads, and haeving typed in a bucket load im loath just to lose it......if a moderator is reading, this can be placed in the For Union Blue thread as it belongs there but will not post there, that thread exists because i cant get a popst to stick in two other threads, but for the sack on contuniation just putting this thread onto the UnionBlue thread would be kinda nice.
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Originally Posted by Cederstripper McPherson does not refer to any plan to stop and detain ships at Sumter in an attempt to collect tariffs there, but instead refers to the ambiguity of the inaugural phrases referring to "hold, occupy and possess" and " to collect duties and imposts." McPherson does see fit to note here that Sumter had become a "symbol of national sovereignty in the very cradle of secession, a symbol that the Confederate government could not tolerate if it wished its own sovereignty to be recognized by the world." And so, while he does not insinuate that tariff collection is an issue that Sumter teters on, he does insinuate the perceived legitimacy of the confederacy is at stake. |
Yes your right he does not cite the specifics of the plan, only asks/answers the plan itself was designed to do, the reason the plan was in emryonic planning because of his innugrial addresse in which he pledges to collect the taxes, the only issue he said the government would use force to do so on, to do this either ment doing it point of entry at sea, or have 000s of miles of US and
CSA teritory where it could be smuggled in almost at will regulated instead. No you are not right to ignore the nexty two lines of thes ame paragraph you just qouted, and the two which start the paragraph, taken together, they are what i refered to, as McPherson asking the question How would the duties be collected, by naval vesselsstationed ofshore, and is that coercion. BCF is a short hand what you need to know, what you need to know about the of shore Tariff paln is summed up on page 263.
Much like his refecence to the constition in respect of secession, he covers the whole subject with one line, the Constion is silent on the subject, now we all know there is more to it than that, and so there is on anything you take a look at for that matter.
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Originally Posted by Cederstripper What is an average tariff rate, and how is it arrived at? The schedule with the most commonly imported articles was Schedule C, which was 15% in the CSA (May 21, 1861) and 28% in the Union (up from 24% under the Tariff act of 1857). Of course some articles entered at both higher and lower rates, and the USA 1861 act had many articles assessed with a specific rate as well. However, since we are speaking of the March 4th to April 12th timeframe, I’d be interested in how you arrive at a 37% "average" tariff. The ratio of duties collected to dutiable imports for FY 1861 (6/30/1860 – 6/30/1861), which was the only time period in which the pre-war Morrill tariff was collected during, was only 18.84%. After many revenue measures to finance the war were added by subsequent acts of Congress, the FY 1862 ratio climbed to 36.19%, still short of your 37% claim. But if we are considering Lincoln’s motives for holding Sumter in April, 1861, (or Davis’ motives for reducing it) then the 1862 "war tariff" rates are not relevant. |
Well as im sure you know it all depends on the detail, Walker was 20%ish from 46 to adoption of Morril when you look at the big picture, and Morrill jumps to 37% for the North and about a third for the
CSA when it adopts its own, so big picture you get a low 20% for decades, which was indictaive of a steady decline in overall Tarrif value over 3 pres terms, then almost a doublelling, which is a huge bone of centention to SC. The source of 37% is Frank Taussig`s Tariff History of the United States, which iirc is online.
Sorry but Morril adoption is pre Sumpter crisses, SC descion to secceded is pre Sumpter and is directly died to the adoption of the high Traiff, they said so when it was being formulated, they said so again prior to the election, if you elect lincoln we will secede, because a pres can veto it figures largely in this and a hostile Tariff negatted by a friendly pres in ok, but a hostile Tariff and hostile Pres is another matter so no my friend, the road to secesion starts with the Tariff for SC.
The problem with using modern data crunching to look at the traiff question tends to distort the question, we are better informed than they by a long shot!, and a relience on our better data ignores that the perception of the men of the time was that they were indeed the victim of sharp pratcice and usage, and had thought so under the walker Tarrif, let alone what they thought would happen under a high Tariff that was a central part of Republicinism..
On the proposed Morril Trariff, George McDuffie of South Carolina stated in the House of Representatives, "If the union of these states shall ever be severed, and their liberties subverted, historians who record these disasters will have to ascribe them to measures of this description. I do sincerely believe that neither this government, nor any free government, can exist for a quarter of a century under such a system of legislation." Thus, McDuffie noted that "because the import tariff effectively hindered Southern commerce, the relation which the Cotton States bore to the protected manufacturing States of the North was now the same as that which the colonies had once borne to Great Britain; under the current system, they had merely changed masters". (the six cotton States — South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas — had less than one-eighth of the representation in Congress, they furnished two-thirds of the exports of the country, Van Deusen, Economic Bases of Disunion), No taxation without representation.
"The whole amount of duties collected from the year 1791, to June 30, 1845, after deducting the drawbacks on foreign merchandise exported, was $927,050,097. Of this sum the slaveholding States paid $711,200,000, and the free States only $215,850,097. Had the same amount been paid by the two sections in the constitutional ratio of their federal population, the South would have paid only $394,707,917, and the North $532,342,180. Therefore, the slaveholding States paid $316,492,083 more than their just share, and the free States as much less." Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett, The Union, Past and Future: How It Works and How to Save It. 1850, so the problem goes back in time, the perception of the imbalance was probably much greater than modern statistical methods would indicate its effect.
And this meerly echoes SC posistion "The great object of free governments is liberty. The great test of liberty in modern times, is to be free in the imposition of taxes, and the expenditure of taxes.... For a people to be free in the imposition and payment of taxes, they must lay them through their representatives."Robert Barnwell Rhett, speech delivered at Charleston, South Carolina on 20 July 1850; quoted by Van Deusen, Economic Bases of Disunion.
John Cunningham, and others at the secesion ordinaces.
The legislation of this Union has impoverished them [the Southern States] by taxation and by a diversion of the proceeds of our labor and trade to enriching Northern Cities and States. These results are not only sufficient reasons why we would prosper better out of the union but are of themselves sufficient causes of our secession. Upon the mere score of commercial prosperity, we should insist upon disunion. Let Charleston be relieved from her present constrained vassalage in trade to the North, and be made a free port and my life on it, she will at once expand into a great and controlling city.
"The real causes of dissatisfaction in the South with the North, are in the unjust taxation and expenditure of the taxes by the Government of the United States, and in the revolution the North has effected in this government, from a confederated republic, to a national sectional despotism."
According to Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, "[T]he exports of the South have been the basis of the Federal revenue.... Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia, may be said to defray three-fourths of the annual expense of supporting the Federal Government." He stated that, as a result of unfair legislation, wealth flowed from the South to the North in "one uniform, uninterrupted, and perennial stream." This economic tug-of-war had been going on between the North and South for decades and finally the sectional party which had openly avowed hostility to the South had gained control of both Congress and the White House. It should be remembered that throughout his political career, Lincoln had always identified himself as a disciple of Henry Clay in fiscal matters, and the whole country knew that upon his nomination, he had committed himself to a high tariff policy if elected President. This state of affairs sheds valuable light on why the Gulf States reacted to Lincoln's victory as they did. The complaints of the South were sometimes couched in terms of slavery and other times in terms of finances, but it is clear that self-preservation alone drove the Southern States out of the Union. In a statement issued on 25 December 1860, the South Carolina Convention summarized the South's complaint against the North as follows:
Discontent and contention have moved in the bosom of the Confederacy for the last thirty-five years. During this time, South Carolina has twice called her people together in solemn convention, to take into consideration the aggressions and unconstitutional wrongs perpetrated by the people of the North on the people of the South. These wrongs were submitted to by the people of the South, under the hope and expectation that they would be final. But these hopes and expectations have proved to be void.
The one great evil, from which all the other evils have flowed, is the overthrow of the Constitution. The Government is no longer the government of a Confederate Republic, but of a consolidated democracy. It is no longer a free government, but a despotism. The Revolution of 1776 turned upon one great principle — self-government and self-taxation — the criterion of self-government.
The Southern States now stand in the same relation towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation, that our ancestors stood toward the people of Great Britain. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors, in the British Parliament, for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States, have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue — to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures. The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the people of the Northern States, but, after the taxes are collected, three-fourths of them are expended in the North.
And from Northern viewpoint, there are two works Northern/Southern Editorials on Secession;- "That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the ports must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe. There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of public officers; the present order of things must come to a dead stop."
And ill close with Lincoln.
when it was suggested that the provisional Government at Montgomery be allowed to continue unmolested until the seceded States could be brought back peaceably, Lincoln replied, "And open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry, with their ten per cent tariff? What then, would become of my tariff?".
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