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.
...and with Secession they were certain to never recover it.
The point of your quote is that they did not have it to lose in the first place, so secession has no effect at all according to your source on this product. The tax on imported RR iron over the last 2 decades had been between 77% and zero at various times.
That assumes, of course, that Mr. Cameron's presentation is accurate. Mr. Cameron is not a man with a particularly great reputation in history, was a PA politician intimately involved with the PA politicians who wanted the Morrill Tariff. Everyone already understands that the PA iron-and-steel industry was looking for a protectionist tariff. It wouldn't be surprising if his picture here was just a bit slanted and inaccurate.
However, think about this: the Confederate states appear to have imported about $11 million worth of this type of iron in 1860: $8 million from "the North" and $3 million from the rest of the world. If the British really have an advantage of $17.20/ton delivered price in New Orleans ($39.31 instead of $56.51), why is it *you* think Southerners were dumb enough to pay an extra 43.75% for a readily available commodity project?
That is the story you are trying to sell when you try to sell this story of Cameron's. Personally, I think Southerners were brighter than that, but maybe you don't. I am dying to see your view on this.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
But we’re not saying that tariffs isn’t an issue between North and South.
It was an item of tension between the sections, but it was not a cause of secession.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cw1865
As a matter of fact if you look at Georgia’s Resolution of Secession, it does mention the import tariff, albeit it is the only one to do so.
They mention it by saying it had been solved. They never mention it as a cause for secession, merely as a problem in the past that had been resolved.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cw1865
[font=Times New Roman][size=3]
The problem with the ‘its all about the tariffs argument’ is that it ignores that tariffs had been an ongoing sectional issue and that during the Nullification Crisis it clearly wasn’t enough to provoke a general secession; it ignores the fact that tariffs were dropping going into 1859/1860 (North’s subsequent increase was enacted post-secession), and it ignores the fact that tariffs are per se constitutional.
So, I think its very clear that both Northern industrial concerns and the Federal government itself have an interest in the maintenance of the protective tariff. So frankly if you want to argue that the Federal government fails to recognize secession because the South, as a region, has value to the Union, as a whole, frankly I don’t have a problem with that.
Nevertheless, it still leaves you the problem of weighing, or balancing, the relative importance of slavery and tariffs and I think its clear that slavery was far more important to Southern economic interests than the tariff ever would be to Northern economic interests.
Tim (trice)-if you have the figures please quote US GDP numbers for 1859 and make a post with Federal expenditures as a percentage of GDP (I think the number is 2.5%)
The tariff issue during the Nullification Crisis was largely manufactured as a stalking horse for protection of slavery.
And more of the tariff was paid in the North than in the south.
Was this price difference the result of British dumping to drive American steel out of business?
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
19th century Britain has an edge because it has industrialized first. From what I have read there really wasn't much in the way of export subsidies, within their mercantilist mindsight they tended to err towards free trade, you really don't see dumping issues until post WWII with such entities as MITI in Japan.
The justification for using import tarrifs was based in large part on the concept of protecting infant industries that hadn't developed economies of scale. By 1900 the US would be a dominant economic power.
Must disagree. There was antebellum dumping. I'm just not remembering the time-line.
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
19th century Britain has an edge because it has industrialized first. From what I have read there really wasn't much in the way of export subsidies, within their mercantilist mindsight they tended to err towards free trade, you really don't see dumping issues until post WWII with such entities as MITI in Japan.
The justification for using import tarrifs was based in large part on the concept of protecting infant industries that hadn't developed economies of scale. By 1900 the US would be a dominant economic power.
In the case of the iron-and-steel industry, "dumping" was probably more the result of chaotic technological and competitive conditions than any plot to drive Americans out of business. Same result, just no particular evidence it was part of a plan.
If you look at a 20+ year period before the war, you can find the same US group arguing in favor and against import tariffs on iron-and-steel, often reversing themselves in a very short time. The same people who in 1847 say the tariff enacted on this in 1846 is fair are saying they need a higher one by 1849. During the period from 1841-1860, the tariff on the type of iron that would include RR rails varied between an effective rate of 77% and zero.
The technological side of this is the new production based on hard coal furnaces and the Bessemer process. This outdated all the charcoal furnaces. In the boom years, the charcoal-based furnaces were still profitable. New entrants to the field faced a difficult decision, because the new technology was a very expensive startup while the charcoal furnace was much cheaper (this is on the order of a 10-to-1 difference). So you had old producers who stayed with charcoal, and new companies that built charcoal-furnaces because they didn't know better or didn't have the funds or were just trying to doi it "on the cheap".
Complicating this were geographic issues. The original iron area of the US was in Virginia, where The Wilderness is, beginning in 1720. That was charcoal-based. Another was in NJ, where Robert Fulton was involved in an operation to produce goods from bog-iron, also charcoal-based (down around Allaire State Park) when he was designing the steamboat. The new technology required easy access to hard coal mines and iron mines. That's a description of Pennsylvania. It does not describe central VA or the state of NJ.
When times were good, as I said, these charcoal based furnaces could still make money. But when times were tough, they could not compete. In addition, the people running them tended to be inexperienced, or too set in their ways, or underfunded, or simply trying to make a quick buck. So when the hard times came a lot of them failed. The people making the big investments for the hard coal, Bessemer process tended to be iron industry veterans, well-funded, experienced and savvy. When the hard times came, some of them failed, but not many.
The British figure into this because they were coming through the same thing, but in the then-greatest country in the world. Industrial expansion there started earlier, the competition was at least as tough, and they had even better access to capital. When their heated expansion inevitably created periods that the local (Britain/European) market was over-supplied, they pushed aggressively to sell their excess production. America was a natural outlet. British prices were good, because of the difference in technology and economies of scale, and also because times were tough in Britain (such as in the late 1840s-early 1850s) and margins were low.
This feeds into that Tariff of 1846. In 1847, the iron-and-steel industry thinks it is fine. In 1849 they think it is way too low -- because there is suddenly a wave of British imports and US manufacturers are going under. The Tariff, however, is the same. Only the economic conditions have changed.
The charcoal-based furnaces pretty much went under -- but they were the ones screaming most for protectionism at that point. That includes the Virginians. "The Wilderness" becomes a tangle as all those furnaces close, the clear-cutting to make charcoal ends, and the people move away.
Then the British economy goes into a slump and that pressure dies down, after a lot of American iron-and-steel businesses go away. The Brits are in the doldrums until the Crimean War hits. That revs them up, and British iron-and-steel is in another boom by the late 1850s, once again starting to push hard against the US market by 1859 and 1860.
The US market, of course, slumped in the Panic of 1857. By 1859 and 1860 it was recovering. At just that time, the British import pressure is ratcheting up again.
Many people in the iron-and-steel industry looked at this and felt they were about to get slammed again. That is why the high iron-and-steel tariffs in the various Morrill Tariff Acts had so much support in PA and areas of western VA and eastern OH that were tied to that industry. Many also had a grudge feeling from the last time. And, of course, they wanted to make high profits.
In many ways, this is exactly the wrong type of protectionism. The US gained no long-term benefit from protecting those charcoal-based businesses over the years, and some would argue the later protectionism delayed introduction of some new technology in the US industry. In short, it wasn't being done to protect infant industries, but rather to protect older ones that were becoming uncompetitive.
There is also nothing particularly "Northern" in this protectionism. In 1859, after the John Brown raid, the head of the Tredegar works was pushing a protectionist scheme of his own. He wanted to enact a "buy Virginian" scheme on iron, while Virginian George Fitzhugh wanted a tariff on non-Virginian iron goods. Both these schemes were likely to be found un-Constitutional and neither was implemented; they merely show that concepts like "free trade" and opposition to tariffs changed according to the old Latin: "Quo bono", or "Who stands to gain"?
But to get back to the point, British pricing was probably not driven by any plot to drive Americans out of business. It was more likely driven by competitive pressures inside the British iron-and-steel industry. But if you are sitting in America being undersold on price, the difference is barely visible.
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
It was an item of tension between the sections, but it was not a cause of secession.
They mention it by saying it had been solved. They never mention it as a cause for secession, merely as a problem in the past that had been resolved.
False and misleading.
"...free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people. The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all. All these classes [commercial and manufacturing interests] saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success. An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon."
Georgia Declaration of Causes
...not resolved at all.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
Tax and revenue items, by their very nature cannot be resolved. They will be discussed ad nauseum, year after year.
I don't think it would be particularly fair to look at the various Resolutions of Secession as official expressions of the mental state of the secessionists and then ignore Georgia's when it mentions tariffs. It still permits assessment of the weight of those reasons and overall I think its clear that it is a secondary cause.
"...free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people. The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all. All these classes [commercial and manufacturing interests] saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success. An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon."
Georgia Declaration of Causes ...not resolved at all.
Oh, come now. Haven't you figured out yet how bad you look when you post snippets like this? Here's what you left out of these two paragraphs of the Georgia Declaration of Causes; the part you omitted is in blue italics:
===== But when these reasons ceased they were no less clamorous for Government protection, but their clamors were less heeded-- the country had put the principle of protection upon trial and condemned it. 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. The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all.
All these classes saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies. The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success. An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon. Time and issues upon slavery were necessary to its completion and final triumph. The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity. This question was before us. We had acquired a large territory by successful war with Mexico; Congress had to govern it; how, in relation to slavery, was the question then demanding solution. This state of facts gave form and shape to the anti-slavery sentiment throughout the North and the conflict began. Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end. This insulting and unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmness by the South. We had shed our blood and paid our money for its acquisition; we demanded a division of it on the line of the Missouri restriction or an equal participation in the whole of it. These propositions were refused, the agitation became general, and the public danger was great. The case of the South was impregnable. The price of the acquisition was the blood and treasure of both sections-- of all, and, therefore, it belonged to all upon the principles of equity and justice.
=====
The entire declaration is, of course, much longer. It continues on from here, and it extends back before this. The document itself makes it clear that the dispute over slavery is the reason for secession. I am sure you know this, so why try to make believe something else was at the root of it all in their eyes?
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Am I missing something? 
Linear Mode
