dvrmte
Major
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2009
- Location
- South Carolina
Almost every piece of important legislation from the 1840's up to the civil war had one intent, and that was to keep the political powers in the South happy.. Im hard pressed to think of anything that was passed to keep the Northern states happy..There was one item that I could think of that was a comprimise with the North, but the Southern states ended up changing that just a few years later...What did the politicians from the cotton states due in the years preceeding the war that shows they were willing to work for a peaceful relationship with the free states.. There was no give-and-take, with the free states. The relationship consisted of a series of legislative attempts to pacify the hot heads in the deep South..
Its hard not to put the majority of the blame on the politicians of the deep South..
1842 Tariff - Increased protection of northern industry, resisted in the South and West but supported by New England. Winners= Yankees
1846 Tariff - Moderately lowered protection of industry, the West and South teamed up to get this one in. The industry is still protected in the end. Winners= Yankees
1857 Tariff - The most across the board supported tariff, at least until the 1857 Panic, which wasn't caused by the Tariff. It hardly affected the South. Must have upset the Yankees, that southerners didn't have much to complain about,since cotton was selling.
It's not just the South that was complaining about the protection the manufacturers were getting. The Westerners shifted away from it when they had enough grain production for the export business.
The debate shouldn't be how much each section was paying in tariffs at ports or as a consumer. The better argument is taxation without benefit. Or taxing one business for the benefit of another.
So what legislation did these bully southerners pass that hurt the North so bad?