Thanks for your comments. In the S. Carolina document that I mentioned, the tariff is actually referred to more than just once. For example, in the Address of South Carolina to the Slaveholding States printed in Dec. 1860, it states: "The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports (tariffs) 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 document goes on to accuse the North of trying to dominate the South: "To build up their sectional predominance in the Union, ......the consolidation of the North to rule the South, by the tariff and slavery issues, was in the obvious course of things."
In the Georgia Declaration of Causes of Secession, it states that the low tariff policy in place was now being threatened. The very next paragraph states: “All these classes saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies” which refers to the coalition that had been struck between the high tariff protectionist advocates and the anti-slavery free soilers under the new Republican Party banner.
Finally, during the Virginia Secession Convention, the delegates also referred to tariffs by other names such as "duties" or "imposts". Those items were mentioned dozens of times during the actual convention.
Thanks, it's interesting, looking at the terms, there is a lot of talk about duties and imposts, not all negative and a LOT of it on how to impose them if they were to secede, what they liked and didn't like about the existing ones.
And great point on Virginia there. Looking at where the duties and imposts talks came from, that was also coming heavily from the northern and western county delegates of the state that seceded from Virginia to stay with the US. Thank you for that information. It clearly shows that while tariffs were talked about positively, neutrally, and negatively, it wasn't a dividing issue, like another topic which was most heavily supported by the part of the state which seceded. You can basically draw a map of the border of West Virginia by where the ownership of one material wasn't popular. Thank you for that. It shows while tariffs were mentioned by secessionists and unionists alike, the topic of the ownership of one certain piece of property which drove the split between secessionists vs. the unionists.
Seems the more we dig, the more we find that other topic which was BY FAR the brunt of their issue was the divisive one worth secession/rebellion.
I mean this interest in tariffs was nowhere near the talks of it 30 years before, or 60 years before or 65 years before or 70 years before. Like I said, it makes no sense they would argue tariffs are worth secession, then promote the man who wrote the tariff they hate so much they are willing to rebel over to be their Secretary of state.
Breaking down the importance of reasons to leave by their primary documents, secession convention minutes, speeches by the leading secessionists, secession commissioners sent to other states to build their cause, their proposed amendments, their resolutions, their declarations for secession, their secessionists newspapers... I think we could put the reasons clearly in order as:
Protecting their interests in one set of property.
Expanding the interests of one set of property.
Having a certain group of fugitives from justice returned.
Having a President not opposed to one set of property.
Violent abolitionists not liking ownership of a certain set of property.
Being able to freely trade one set of property
Being able to freely travel with one set of property.
The voting rights of blacks
Other rights for blacks
Then comes things like tariffs, mail, border security, interracial marriages, etc.
Yet still not one mention of duties, tariffs, taxes, or imposts come up in a single resolution of theirs. Can you believe that? Not one comes up in a single amendment to change anything. Not one compromise details ANYTHING about tariffs. While tariffs were discussed, I can't find it once meeting the level of concern of being worth mentioned in a resolution, compromise, or proposed amendment. And when reading the speakers on those tariffs, NOT ONE can I find where that was even their primary concern.
It's interesting how revisionists like to dig and rewrite this as a major cause when they made clear it wasn't. When time and time again it gets mentioned and moved on from as soon as it is brought up.
Again and again you can keep naming founding fathers of the Confederacy who felt the ownership of a certain piece of property was their primary reason. I can't find one person saying it was tariffs or duties first. It's always some random line, a passing quote. Well I guess in their delegates to Europe they tried passing that off as the reason, but that was quickly debunked.
It's like how one of the biggest speakers on the tariff issue in Virginia's Convention was a secession commissioner from Mississippi. And he talks for paragraph after paragraph about the protection and expansion of one set of property... then mentions all sorts of other things of which one is tariffs. Anderson is responded to by people like Mr Benning, but the response is immediately about the escaping of a certain type of property... not anything about his tariff talk. Clearly not what was important.
Or in another speech from a Georgia delegate, the issue of tariffs come up with the promise that they would only pay 10%. And the response on that is how would that fund the government by some, and a question that with a 10% on imports from the US that might be higher than the existing tariff (it would have been).
Or you have delegate Goode mention tariffs for a sentence. But he also says "Sir, the great question which is now uprooting this Government to its foundation---the great question which underlies all our deliberations here, is the question of (a certain property)".
We see Delegate Baldwin mention duties... but he said "I say, then, that viewed from that standpoint, there is but one single subject of complaint which Virginia has to make against the government under which we live; a complaint made by the whole South, and that is on the subject of (a certain property)".
I think it's quite disingenuous to try and rewrite history by saying those people were pro-secession because of tariffs when if you read the entirety of their statements they make it clear, ONE SINGLE SUBJECT, ONE GREAT QUESTION is the one which they truly feel is their complaint.
Taxes are divisive. They are one of the big reasons the US rebelled against Great Britain. They have been a reason for many wars, and a big part of the Nullification crisis even. The Shays rebellion, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Fries Rebellion, the Greenwood insurrection. All clearly about taxes. It's a powder keg. I'm sure if you went back through history you could find a thousand times, states were upset in writing about federal taxes. But here's a rebellion, where they don't get hardly any interest. They aren't part of any proposed solution. Wow.
I just find it interesting that they mention it in passing but not one felt it was worthy of a compromise, amendment, or resolution. Yet today we have revisionists who want to pretend it was a major point and write it in as such. I guess for myself, a fan of source history I'll stick with what they thought was worthy of a revolution.