Talk:American Civil War/Archive 4

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Contents

Strawpoll

I see here three choices as logically possible:

  • A Revisionism We can leave this revisionist tract as it is in [this edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_Civil_War&diff=65107974&oldid=65060970].
  • B Barebones. We can accept only those assertions which are consensus among the revisionists, the neo-nationalists like Nevins, the Lost Cause people, the "bloody shirt" Unionists, McPherson, everybody. This will mean a shorter section, although not vanishing; but limited to observables, without anybody's theories as to "what it all means"
  • C Expansion. We include everybody's views, all the four or five schools lists above, and we label them accordingly. This will mean a very long section, probably disproporately long, but it will be neutral.

Survey

Please mark all you approve of; silence implies disapproval. Short comments only please. Please add other options if necessary

Revisionist

Rjensen's version (more or less)

Barebones

Only consensus statements
  1. First choice Septentrionalis 20:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  2. First Choice - put details in Abolitionism article (where inevitably edit wars will erupt & material will end up back in this article) --JimWae 20:53, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Keep mention of Uncle Tom's Cabin & John Brown in article however --JimWae 22:51, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  3. I also agree on concensus. Let me know if anyone has an opinion on my splitting the John Brown, Uncle Tom's Cabin and arguments for and against slavery from the main article. I don't think these are challenged, but let me know if anyone disagrees. Jimmuldrow 22:19, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
    • I think splitting off John Brown/Uncle Tom Cabin = good idea. Rjensen
    • Thanks, RJ. I really don't like arguing all the time.Jimmuldrow 22:44, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Expansion

All views and theories
  • Only if Barebones is not consensus. Septentrionalis 20:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Only if Barebones is not consensus. --JimWae 20:53, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Only if Barebones is not consensus.Jimmuldrow 22:20, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

The splitting off was a good idea. It makes for a much cleaner discussion of Stowe.

Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Brown are not AFAIK divisive between historians; everybody agrees there were such people, and they were significant. It's their description, their causes, and their effects that there are disputes over, and we should still include as much of that as there is consensus about. Septentrionalis 23:04, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Interpretations of Abolitionism

{{NPOV-sect}} {{balance}}

I moved the following from the main page to here for now:Jimmuldrow 20:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Before the 1830s many prominent people, North and South, considered slavery an undesirable institution, and a social evil. It seemed "uncongenial if not contradictory to republican principles," as one historian puts it. Many slaveowners shared the viewpoint, including such leaders as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Henry Laurens and Henry Clay. On the whole they did not have a religious base for their position and did not morally blame individual slaveowners;[not in citation given]; one book argues that since the first antislavery men knew slaveowners, they were "little inclined to see slaveholders as demons.". [1]

The white South was angered that abolitionists called slavery primarily a moral and religious issue. [citation needed]

Other historians tell a very different story. The first antislavery men, before the Revolution, were religious men; the Quakers John Woolman and Benjamin Lay, the Presbyterian Samuel Hopkins, who had regarding slaveholding as a sin; Quakers were expelled from Meeting for "keeping Negros". The Garrisonians spoke of themselves themselves as atoning for their own sins against the Negro by courting persection and martyrdom. Nor were slaveholders unknown to the Garrisonians; two of the most fervent came from South Carolina. [2]

Historian James McPherson explains the abolitionists' deep beliefs: "All people were equal in God's sight; the souls of black folks were as valuable as those of whites; for one of God's children to enslave another was a violation of the Higher Law, even if it was sanctioned by the Constitution." [3]

By 1860 many abolitionists welcomed the formation of the Confederacy because it would remove most slaveowners from their powerful positions in the United States and Northerners would no longer be legally bound to return fugitive slaves.

As historian Kenneth Stampp explains:

Though some [abolitionists] spoke against the slaveholders more harshly than others, all stressed their betrayal of the secular principles of the Declaration of Independence; the hypocrisy of a nation claiming to be a model republic while tolerating slavery; the sinfulness of Christian masters holding as slaves black men and women who were their equals in the sight of God; the corrupting and degrading impact of slavery on the lives of both masters and slaves; and the cruelties inherent in the slave trade, the disruption of slave families, and the physical punishments necessary to maintain slave discipline. All shared a conviction that a sinister Slave Power plotted to transform the republic into a slave empire.... [One minister] warned his audience: "Day and night they are plotting for new fields, reckless of the means, and devising new entrenchments. . . . Can we endure this, and sit tamely down, and do nothing to stay the advance of the all-grasping despotism?" [4]

Slave owners responded that slavery was a positive good for masters and slaves alike, and that it was explicitly sanctioned by the Bible[5].

Historians continue to debate whether slave owners actually felt either guilt or shame. If they don't know, why is this here?[6] But there is no doubt the southerner slave owners felt mounting anger over the abolitionist and republican attacks on their "peculiar institution" of slavery. Starting in the 1830s there was a vehement and growing ideological defense of slavery as a positive good for everyone, including the slaves. [7] The secessionists rejected the denials of Republicans that they were abolitionists, and pointed to John Brown's attempt in 1859 to start a slave uprising as proof that multiple northern conspiracies were afoot to ignite bloody slave rebellions. Although some abolitionists did call for slave revolts, no evidence of any actual Brown-like conspiracy has been discovered by historians.[8] The North felt threatened as well, for as Eric Foner concludes, "Northerners came to view slavery as the very antithesis of the good society, as well as a threat to their own fundamental values and interests"[9].

Many historians have argued that the intense moralism of the abolitionists, coupled with the intransigent reaction of the slaveowners, made disunion more likely and compromise much more difficult to attain. [10] Lincoln noted that North and South "Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other."[11]

Mediation

I see by Rjensen's edit summaries that he suggests mediation. Which form, and where? Septentrionalis 00:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

by the usual Wiki procedures at Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/American Civil War if they decide to take it. Editors who want to be heard should sign their names there Rjensen 00:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
That process does not appear to be working very well; I have seen such requests ignored for months - although this one has been immediately rejected for non-notification. There are at least two alternatives, the Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal and Wikipedia:Guerrilla Mediation Network; but I have no problem with trying RfM first. Septentrionalis 14:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with JimWae's idea of moving this huge thing to the Abolitionism article where such issues could be dealt with in detail, and including a link to it?Jimmuldrow 14:35, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The issue is causation of the Civil War. The huge thing was a huge war. We can trim this down but it can't be removed. Rjensen 14:38, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

We weren't going to remove it, but mention only consensus opinions. Religion as a cause of the war goes far beyond Abolitionists, and beyond the North. It included the Bible belt too. The three largest religeous denominations, the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian churches, split between sections, mainly over the slavery issue. Southerners morally condemned Northerners. And Abolitionists and Southerners used political as well as moral arguments for their opinions. Is there a short, concise consensus oriented way to include all that?

This is nothing personal. I have nothing at all against Rjenson as a person, and hope nothing I say is interpreted otherwise.Jimmuldrow 15:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The Southern religious position is covered briefly right now--does it need more detail??? So leaders spent so much time attacking Uncle Tom's Cabin and John Brown, that they spent little time on theology. Rjensen 15:10, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

John Brown as key figure of 1850s helping cause the war

John Brown was the most famous abolitionist--as Reynolds (2005) explains: "the Transcendentalists, salvaged his reputation by placing him on the level of Christ ... The Transcendentalist image of Brown spread throughout the North and was fanned by books, melodramas, poems, and music-culminating in "John Brown's Body," the inspiring song chanted by tens of thousands of Union troops as they marched south. At the same time that this misreading swept the North, an opposite one was pervading the South. The South's initial grudging admiration for Brown's courage was quickly overwhelmed by a paranoid fear that he was a malicious aggressor who represented the entire North -- a tremendous and tragic misreading, since virtually everyone in the Northern-led Republican Party, from Lincoln to Seward, actually disapproved of his violent tactics. The South's misreading was fanned by Democratic Party propaganda that unjustifiably smeared the Republicans with responsibility for Harpers Ferry. In this view, "Black Republicanism" meant not only "nigger-worship" but also deep alliance with John Brown, whom the Democrats characterized as a villain of the blackest dye." [end quote] Rjensen 12:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll go along with that. It just looks like we're saying that Stowe (or at least her book) and Brown are both the most famous.Jimmuldrow 14:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I note that none of this suggests offense at Brown's religious or moral claims; the South was afraid that Brown would actually start a slave revolt, as he had hoped to do, and as they had been afraid the abolitionists would since at least 1834. Septentrionalis 15:46, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Barebones again

I have commented out those portions which seem to represent the views of a single school of historian. While doing this, I deprecate the conversion of:

Other historians tell a very different story. The first antislavery men, before the Revolution, were religious men; the Quakers John Woolman and Benjamin Lay, the Presbyterian Samuel Hopkins, who had regarding slaveholding as a sin; Quakers were expelled from Meeting for "keeping Negros". The Garrisonians spoke of themselves themselves as atoning for their own sins against the Negro by courting persection and martyrdom. Nor were slaveholders unknown to the Garrisonians; two of the most fervent came from South Carolina.

into

A few religious figures before 1800 had introduced the concept of slavery as a sin, but they had litle impact beyond the small Quaker community.

while retaining the references

Clifford S. Griffin, Their Brothers' Keepers, p.19; Bartlett, p.56, Newman, The transformation of American abolitionism p.17 ANB, s. Sarah Anne and Angelina Grimké.

None of the references support the revised text; two of them are irrelevant to it, two actually oppose it . So this automatically fails verification, while giving a spurious impression of scholarship. Septentrionalis 22:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Upon consideration, the discussion of whether Lincoln actually called Stowe "the little lady who started the big war" is another irrelevant controversy which does not belong in a barebones article. (And calling Patriotic Gore a history is stretching; it's a volume of literary essays.) Septentrionalis 01:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
  • This is an article on the Civil War. There are separate articles for abolitionists & origins of the war. Treatments of the motivations & evaluations of John Brown & other abolitionists are beyond the scope of this article & unnecessary. What needs to be said about the abolitionists is who they were, what they did, and how people reacted to them that led to the Civil War - how, even though they were much despised in the North, they managed to persuade many Northerners that slavery needed to at least be put on a course of eventual extinction, how the South came to think that just about every abolitionist & every Republican was part of a conspiracy to start slave rebellions, and how the views of moderates (like Lincoln) fell on deaf ears North & South. All the rest belongs elsewhere --JimWae 02:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
    McPherson is fairly clear on the last point: the newspapers for Breckenridge spent the fall of 1860 printing atrocity stories about some slave rebellion somewhere else. There may be a deeper explanation, but it would be controversial; even the assertion that few Southerners knew what the abolitionists, or Lincoln, actually said. Septentrionalis 14:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with JimWae. It might also help to distinguish between

  • The Garrisonians
  • The antislavery men
  • and the people opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act and supporting Free Soil in Nebraska.

The last were a majority in the North; the second a substantial minority; the first a handful. Septentrionalis 02:55, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

This article is about the Causes of the Civil War, as well as the war itself. The abolitionists were a central factor as the article explains. Note that the war changed (1862) into a war for abolition, and why that happened can only be understood by seeing it as the natural outcome of the antislavery movement. Rjensen 14:43, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
No, it can be understood as what Lincoln said it was, and as McPherson and Nevins understand it: a response to the military necessities of the war - which was also pleasing to Lincoln's sense of decency. Septentrionalis 15:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


Emancipation (1862) was closely tied to growing power of abolitionists as McPherson says:
By the beginning of 1862 the impetus of war had evolved three shifting and overlapping Republican factions on the slavery question. The most dynamic and clearcut faction were the radicals, who accepted the abolitionist argument that emancipation could be achieved by exercise of the belligerent power to confiscate enemy property. On the other wing of the party a smaller number of conservatives hoped for the ultimate demise of bondage but preferred to see this happen by the voluntary action of slave states coupled with colonization abroad of the freed slaves. In the middle were the moderates, led by Lincoln, who shared the radicals' moral aversion to slavery but feared the racial consequences of wholesale emancipation. Events during the first half of 1862 pushed moderates toward the radical position. One sign of this development was the growing influence of abolitionists. "Never has there been a time when Abolitionists were as much respected, as at present," rejoiced one of them in December 1861." [End quote from page 494 Rjensen 15:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Which made the emancipation and enlistment of black troops politically possible, even if not popular. Please stop selective quotation. Septentrionalis 15:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Commenting out

I commented out the text which seemed to me controversial, and thus not barebones. I had hoped that this would restrict any revert war to the comment tags. This does not seem to be happening; if there is no agreement on this point, I see no reason not to shorten the article. Septentrionalis 15:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Even the radicals made the argument of military necessity; Mcpherson quoites them at the bottom of page 495: The four million slaves "cannot be neutral. As laborers, if not as soldiers, they will decide the fate of the Union." Septentrionalis 16:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone else think the list of seven abolitionists is off-ropic for this article, especially with the bizarre suggestion that JQAdams was a Garrisonian? Septentrionalis 17:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Sorry to suggest that Adams was a Garrisonian. I followed Nevins in naming the key people--and he emphasized Adams. Rjensen 17:14, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
And he went out of his way to avoid calling Adams an abolitionist; "attacking slavery every way he could" is not quite the same thing. Septentrionalis 17:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

sin and cause of war

Griffith reports there were two clergymen before 1800 who declared slavery was a sin. ["John Woolman, prominent Pennsylvania Quaker, and the Reverend Samuel Hopkins of Rhode Island, both obsessed with the idea that every man should be benevolent to every other, had damned slaveholding as a sin." p 19] There was an impact on the Quakers, but not apparently on anyone else in Griffith's account. To my knowledge no one links Woolman or Hopkins to the causes of the Civil War, so Wiki should not do so.

Griffith first mentions the introduction of the slavery=sinful theme in analyzing Garrison in 1828-29. ["Between his acceptance and August, 1829...Garrison became convinced that slaveholding, like other sins, should stop at once. So powerful was his invective that slaveholders immediately hated him." p. 21] Likewise the Genovese book makes the point that (before 1830) the antislavery forces did not demonize slaveowners. They are the leading scholars on the subject and so Wiki should go with them. To my knowledge no scholar denies this point about sin. As far as a cause of the war is concerned, the abolitionists after 1830 introduced the Slaveowner=sinful theme that really bothered the South (most famously in form of Uncle Tom's Cabin). The growing fear that Republican party = abolitionism was a main cause of secession. So Wiki should report this, I suggest. Wiki is NOT saying that slavery was or was not a sin. It says that mindset was a major cause of the war. Rjensen 15:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

That assertion is extremely controversial; the text Rjensen wants is unsupported; and Griffin mentions Woolman and Hopkins because they were the leading abolitionists of their time. As for the claim that no-one considered slavery sinful between Woolman and Garrison, has Rjensen really never heard of "I tremble for my country, when I reflect that God is just"? Septentrionalis 15:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Emancipation (1862) was closely tied to growing power of abolitionists and their moral argument as McPherson says:
By the beginning of 1862 the impetus of war had evolved three shifting and overlapping Republican factions on the slavery question. The most dynamic and clearcut faction were the radicals, who accepted the abolitionist argument that emancipation could be achieved by exercise of the belligerent power to confiscate enemy property. On the other wing of the party a smaller number of conservatives hoped for the ultimate demise of bondage but preferred to see this happen by the voluntary action of slave states coupled with colonization abroad of the freed slaves. In the middle were the moderates, led by Lincoln, who shared the radicals' moral version to slavery but feared the racial consequences of wholesale emancipation. Events during the first half of 1862 pushed moderates toward the radical position. One sign of this development was the growing influence of abolitionists. "Never has there been a time when Abolitionists were as much respected, as at present," rejoiced one of them in December 1861." [End quote from McPherson page 494] Rjensen 15:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
This has nothing to do with Jefferson. (and has been responded to aboive.
The article now contains a summary of McPherson's brilliant analysis of the role of abolitionism in Emancipation. (He's the leading expert on that topic, by the way.) "Military necessity" -- maybe but not according to General McClellan and most Democrats (and not in 1861), McPherson's point is that abolitionist moral sensibility spread rapidly in 1861-62 inside the GOP, but not inside the Democratic party, which moved into opposition on the issue of Emancipation. McPherson notes that on the question ofthe federal government buying the slaves in loyal border states, the GOP voted 100% yes and the Democrats voted 85% no. (p 498). Rjensen 17:12, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
No, McPherson's point is that the Republicans became convinced, in the words of his chapter title, that "We must free the slaves, or be ourselves subdued"; many also felt this is as a moral obligation; almost all felt it a moral good, whatever the later practical problems.. Septentrionalis 17:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I should clarify; vandalism in my summary means the distortion of "Chattanooga", which I trust will stay fixed. Septentrionalis 17:23, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Magdol's analysis

I have added to the Abolitionist section a summary of Magdol's excellent analysis: The Antislavery Rank and File: A Social Profile of the Abolitionists' Constituency (1986), p. 6:

Others, sparked by Charles G. Finney's religious revival movement, exerted their moral and ideological powers to retain domination over the poor, the infirm, the impious, some of the new manufacturing upstarts (formerly "mere mechanics"), and the new factory laboring class. Thousands accepted personal responsibility for salvation and sin. Soon, the immediatist temper of the social and religious movements was adopted by men like Garrison. This new surge of activism fed into the Garrisonians' disillusionment with the gradualist approach of colonization. Much of American abolitionists' inspiration came from the British abolitionists' stunning achievements. Garrison, along with the wealthy New York merchants Arthur and Lewis Tappan and their followers on the eastern seaboard, merged the ideals of the Enlightenment and immediatism, republican virtue and social responsibility, and Christian righteousness and fervor, with feats of organization and communication. They adopted modern methods of media saturation using pamphlets, tracts, newspapers, and corps of lecturers who became grist for the propaganda mill of their antislavery organization." Magdol cites these sources: David Brion Davis, ed., Ante-bellum Reform ( New York: Harper and Row, 1967); Louis Filler, The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860 ( New York: Harper and Row Torchbook, 1960); Merton L. Dillon, The Abolitionists: The Growth of a Dissenting Minority (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1974); James Brewer Stewart, Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery (New York: Hill and Wang, 1976); Russel B. Nye, Fettered Freedom: Civil Liberties and the Slavery Controversy, 1830-1860 (East Lansing: Michigan State College Press, 1949); Aileen S. Kraditor, Means and Ends in American Abolitionism: Garrison and His Critics on Strategy and Tactics, 1834-1850 ( New York: Pantheon, 1969); and Ronald G. Walters, The Antislavery Appeal: American Abolitionism after 1830 (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976). [end of Magdol p. 13 footnote] Rjensen 17:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
This is a type-case of a controversial (if I mistake not, Foucaultiste) position. Is there any other sentiment to retain it here? Septentrionalis
Magdol: Nothing controversial at all--and it's actual English. Pmanderson seems to have no actual complaint about the contents or the cites, --can he explain his actual position (or is that original research?) Rjensen 17:59, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Magdol does not support the persistent protrayal in the text of the abolitionists as being like the stereotype of Carrie Nation, seeking to destroy other people's sin with a hatchet. What Magdol says is "personal responsibility for sin", which agrees with the portrayal by Bartlett: they were atoning for their own sins, and encouraging others to do likewise. The interpretation of Finney's doctrine as a means of social control is controversial (which does not necessarily mean wrong), and I am glad to see it is not inserted; in any case, Magdol never suggests that Finney said anything about slavery himself. (The only other reference is a summary of his doctrine on p. 24-5) Septentrionalis 16:58, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Magdol's bibliography is a red herring. Septentrionalis 17:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

As for my PoV:

  • Were the Garrisonians inspired by religion? Evidently. So were all the reform movements of their time, even Calhoun's - if we can call it one.
  • Were they inspired only by religion? Evidently not. Septentrionalis 16:58, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality?

The present text may be neutral; what does everybody else think? Septentrionalis 17:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Jim Muldrow has commented out some paragraphs. Upon rereading, I cannot argue; they were in part redundant, and did not add much to the history of the Civil War. Septentrionalis 17:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. I don't know if 100 per cent agreement is possible, but I think this is as close as we're likely to get.Jimmuldrow 20:08, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Why the North went to War

It does, here, take two to make a quarrel. I notice no explanation of why the North went to war: as McPherson explains, a democracy cannot survive if the minority can secede, or blackmail by threat of secession, whenever it is peeved at not being the majority. It is a sign of the lack of neutrality with which some editors have approached this article that this should be missing. Septentrionalis 16:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Questions, questions

Hi, AlexMc. I noticed you asked some questions. The ones I remember are

  • What started the Civil War? Slavery or something else.
  • Was there such a thing as a right to secession?

Not bad questions.

I don't know if there is a perfect way to answer them, but I'll give it a shot.

Saying the war was caused by slavery is still a good way to start an argument. I tried that on another web site, and most people there agree with you.

But a lot of other explanations don't go anywhere. The tariff was an issue in 1830 but not in 1860. States' rights arguments were often used to defend slavery. And a lot of the leaders of secession thought they were fighting for slavery when writing declarations of reasons for secession and so forth.

The revisionist I've read is Randall, who's Lincoln the President is a fascinating (to me at least) book. He did some excellent research. But Randall said the revisionists might be revised. And modern historians mostly agree. The World War I generation, which included Randall, thought that all wars were caused by blundering politicians and propaganda. Randall mentioned some good examples of each. I personally admire his research but doubt his conclusions. You could argue about that forever, though.

Lincoln didn't do anything to immediately threaten slavery. But by 1860 it seemed that he could make good on his threat to put it "in the course of ultimate extinction." Bruce Catton said that the South destroyed slavery by starting a war to save it.

As to a right to secession, that's also something you could argue about forever. Lincoln said that Texas had a right to secede from Mexico, but changed his mind when the South seceded. By the time of the war, he said that secession is never a legal right, but a moral right at best. Since Southerners said they were fighting for slavery, Lincoln apparently didn't think they were morally right.

If mention is made of these issues, there would be a need to find a neutral point of view way of doing it. But you raised some interesting points.Jimmuldrow 01:13, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Jimmuldrow - you raise some interesting points and seem well informed about the politics of the civil war. One point needs correction though. The tariff was an issue again in the late 1850's and early 1860's due almost entirely to one event - the Panic of 1857. A relatively well known economist and tariff agitator by the name of Henry C. Carey seized onto the Panic and used it to stir up protectionist sentiments, which had been relatively dormant since a scandal rocked the Treasury Department during the Taylor Administration some 7 years earlier. The Panic revitalized the political clout of the iron and textile manufacturers and in 1859 they threw their weight behind the Morrill Tariff. In 1860 the Republican plurality in the House put together a coalition that allowed it to capture the Speaker's seat. This in turn appointed John Sherman - a vocal tariff warrior - to chair the Ways and Means committee. Sherman pushed through Morrill's bill and set the stage for a tariff fight in the Senate as soon as Congress returned after the 1860 election. It came to the Senate floor smack in the middle of the secession crisis, and only added fuel to the burning fire. Historically considered, antebellum tariff disputes were very cyclical as an issue. Everybody remembers the most famous one from the early 1830's but there were dozens of others. It popped up in some shape or another roughly every five years or so between 1816 and 1861. The major attempts at high tariffs were in 1816, 1820 (unsuccessful), 1824, 1828, 1832, 1842, 1849 (unsuccessful), and 1858-61. The major attempts to lower tariffs were in 1833, 1846, and 1857. It lapsed a bit in between these years, but it never really went away and showed up again with a front row ticket when the war broke out. - Tradeeconomist
McPherson largely agrees with this, although IIRC he treats the tariff of 1832 as a compromise, lowering the tariff of 1828; and he represents the tariff bills of the late 50's as supported by a wide coalition of Republicans and some Northern Democrats, rather than Carey alone. Septentrionalis 22:05, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, Tradeeconomist.Jimmuldrow 13:49, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Lincoln was anti-slavery, but he made it quite clear that he would happily allow slavery to prevent the secession. He cared far more about forcing the South to remain in an unhappy relationship with the North than he did about freeing the slaves (and who can say how much of this was due to his own racism). It wasn't until the war was well under way that he decided to drag slavery into it in order to garner support for his unpopular war. Mind you, this war WAS about slavery, just not in the way most people see it. What the Revisionists always fail to mention is that if slavery hadn't been present, the South would have almost definitely received the international support needed to win the war, so even if it wasn't directly about slavery, slavery still led to the South's downfall. (Note, I'm talking about the war, not the secession. The secession was definitely about slavery)
As for the right to secession, I've never seen a valid argument against it. The Constitution says absolutely nothing about it, which puts the Tenth Amendment into play, and the Tenth is quite clear. The power to secede from the United States belongs to the states or the people. Ultimately, Lincoln was in blatant violation of the Constitution in the prosecution of his war. Personally, I see no real difference between this war and any other invasion of conquest where people try to use moral arguments for justifying their actions, except for the fact that in this case historians are constantly trying to justify the North's actions and that people who see this war as a "good thing" try to use the whole slavery issue to make the far more important right to seceed issue seem irrelevant. AlexMc 19:56, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Although both New York and Virginia affirmed the right of revolution, by which they had attained independence, the Virginia ratifying convention determined, and its secretary James Madison informed New York, that "The Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever. It has been so adopted by the other States." According to the convention, reserving the right to withdraw would be "worse than a rejection". Madison to Hamilton, July 20, 1788.

Yep, Lincoln himself was inconsistant on the issue of secession. And reasons for secession (mostly slavery) are different for reasons the war got widespread support (the Union cause in the North, Southerners fighting for their homes and out of regional patriotism). I agree on those points.Jimmuldrow 20:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

And, as McPherson makes clear (p 240 ff), the reason the Union went to war (even low-tariff Cotton Democrats) was that if secession were permissible, no decision would ever stick, and the Union would become 36 small squabbling republics. I believe that there was a discussion between Virginia and Maryland to secede from their respective sides and declare peace, and North Carolina and Georgia considered seceding from the Confederacy. Septentrionalis 20:44, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Just wanted to add something that needs looked into, the tax of abominations. The struggling north decided to play robin hood and place a huge tax on agriculture in the wealthy south. South Carolina nullified the tariff and almost seceded in the 1830's over it, but Jackson then made a compromise tariff. The North had a policy of making taxes to benefit the north. For instance remember the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, which claimed that tariffs should be used only to raise revenue, and that it was wrong to implement them as an instrument to benefit specific industries, despite the fact that the tariffs were the single largest generator of revenue for the federal government, it was implemented to stir and protect manufacturing in New England, and so South Carolina can't take anymore in 1862 and secedes for state's rights. I think it is also of note to remember that Maryland and Kentucky had a higher percentage of slaves in their population. We must also remember Abraham Lincoln suspending the habeas corpus and imprisoning people on their way to vote for the confederacy in Maryland. This was to avoid having the white house surrounded in confederate territory, but he tramped on both the habeas corpus AND the right to vote at the same time.Cyrus255

Reconstruction--can't be summed up by one garbled sentence

Reconstruction has a very long and detailed article. the sentence: "XIV and XV were made ineffective through Ku Klux Klan violence, Jim Crow laws, former Confederate "Redeemer" governors, and other Southern resistance until the Civil Rights movement. [dubious — see talk page]" is generally false and misleading. The KKK was destroyed by the Grant administration after about 2 years. "former Confederate "Redeemer" governors" is garbled and meaningless. "other Southern resistance" is so vague as to be meaningless. The XV amendment was nullified in the 1890s in a complicated process that is not mentioned. better people should read the Reconstruction article than this garbled text. In any case this was long after the Civil War. Rjensen 17:25, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

This does not amount to a factual dispute; it's a case for some fine tuning. Septentrionalis 17:29, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Reconstruction is too complicated for two sentences, no matter how well done. Rjensen 18:03, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
That's why we have a {{main}} tag on the section. Septentrionalis 18:16, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I just thought that a brief summary should at least mention that the 14th and 15th amendments were there in theory but not in fact for about 100 years after the war ended if you're going to mention them at all. Southern resistance might be enough for the short version of the story, if that's ok with everybody.Jimmuldrow 18:26, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I thought anti-Catholicism was part of the second Klan, which was inspired by Birth of a Nation. The reconstruction era Klan wasn't exactly the same.Jimmuldrow 19:26, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The 14th Amendment remained in effect at all times. The issue was how the Supreme Court decided to interpret it--which is a very different matter quite remote from Civil war (eg Slaughterhouse cases; Plessy case) and quite impossible to summarize briefly. The main effect of the Civil War, in my opinion, were: 1) Union permanently restored; 2) slavery abolished; 3) South economically devastated and made political marginal; 4) 14th Amendment. Rjensen 19:47, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

The 15th amendment was also in effect in theory. That didn't mean anything in fact, both because of all kinds of Southern resistance (the first Klan, the second Klan, Jim Crow laws and so forth) and U. S. Supreme Court interpretations. Interpretation can be more important than the way the law is written or what it says, which is why these amendments

  • Did exist and
  • Were inactiveJimmuldrow 19:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
yes that's an important story--but the 15th came 5 years after the war ended and disfranchisement came 10 years after that--so these important episodes do not fit at all well in the Civil War article. People who are interested are advised to read the story in Reconstruction. Rjensen 20:07, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

How about replacing the disputed text with "for details on why the 14th and 15th amendments were largely ineffective until the Civil Rights movement, see Fourteenth Amendment, Fifteenth Amendment and Reconstruction."Jimmuldrow 21:10, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Russian alliance = hoax

The Wiki article on the Russian alliance is a hoax. There was no such thing. McPherson devotes one sentence to Russia in his 900 page history: " [in Oct 1862] French weighed in at this point with a suggestion that Britain, France, and Russia propose a six months' armistice--during which the blockade would be suspended. This so blatantly favored the South that pro-Union Russia quickly rejected it. The British cabinet, after two days of discussion, also turned it down. " p 556 The Heidler encyclopedia says "The arrival of Russian ships created the illusion in Paris and London of a possible Russo-American alliance" (p 1690) A Russian fleet went to San Francisco (which of course was not in the war zone) (and one ship to New York City) to avoid being blockaded if Russia went to war with Britain. There was never any negotiations between the US and Russia regarding any sort of alliance. recent articles: 1) Chapman, Roger. "HOW NORTHWESTERN OHIO NEWSPAPERS INTERPRETED THE RUSSIAN FLEET VISIT OF 1863. Citation: Northwest Ohio Quarterly 2000 72(1-2): 33-50. ISSN: 0029-3407 Analyzes twenty newspapers of northwestern Ohio to assert that the Ohio papers, in accord with their larger eastern counterparts, concluded that the presence of the Russian naval fleet anchored for seven months in San Francisco and New York signaled the Russians' desire for preparedness against a possible conflict with England and France rather than a military alliance with the United States during the Civil War. 2) Schell, Ernest. "OUR GOOD FRIENDS, THE RUSSIANS." American History Illustrated 1981 15(9): 18-26. ISSN: 0002-8770 Abstract: Russian naval support for the Union cause during the Civil War on both the East and West coasts of America turned out to be inconsequential because the Russian ships came to America to avoid an insurrection against Tsar Alexander II by the Poles in January 1863, not to aid the Union against the Confederacy and its allies the French and British. 3) Vrubel', V. Title: VIZIT DRUZHBY RUSSKIKH KORABLEI K BEREGAM AMERIKI Transl/Info: [Russian ships make a visit of friendship to the shores of America]. Citation: Voenno-Istoricheskii Zhurnal [USSR] 1977 (4): 101-105. ISSN: 0042-9058 Abstract: Discusses international relations in the wake of the Crimean War and during the American Civil War and describes how a number of Russian ships were sent to the Atlantic and Pacific oceans as part of preparations for possible war against Great Britain, and in 1863 docked in New York City and San Francisco 4) Poval'nikov, S. I. Title: GRAZHDANSKAIA VOINA V SSHA I ROSSIIA (K PREBYVANIIU RUSSKIKH VOENNYKH KORABLEI V SSHA [1863-1864 GG.]) Transl/Info: [The Civil War in the USA and Russia (to commemorate the visit of Russian naval ships to the USA in 1863-64)]. Citation: Novaia i Noveishaia Istoriia [USSR] 1973 (6): 85-96. ISSN: 0130-3864 Abstract: Introduces and publishes 12 documents relating to the visit of two Russian naval squadrons to the USA during 1863-64. The tradition of friendship between Russia and the USA in the 18th and 19th centuries resulted in the sympathy of the Russian government toward Lincoln's North. In September 1863, a Kronstadt squadron visited New York and a Pacific squadron San Francisco, each staying about nine months. Their main task was to intercept Anglo-French sea links in the event of their war with Russia, but their support for Lincoln was vital. The commanders were received at the White House and the American people welcomed the visits with enthusiasm. Based on primary and secondary sources; 12 documents, 15 notes. 5) Stevenson, Charles S. Title: ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE RUSSIAN FLEET MYTH. Citation: Military Review 1970 50(8): 35-37. ISSN: 0026-4148 Abstract: Discusses the visit of nine ships of the Imperial Russian fleet to the Union ports of New York and San Francisco in 1863. These visits were favorably interpreted by northern leaders as a sign of Russian support against a possible pro-Confederate coalition of European powers. The Russians, however, never disclosed the purpose of their visits; not until 1915 did the real purpose come to light. At that time research in the Russian archives by the American historian Frank A. Golder indicated that the Russian visit to the United States was part of a military maneuver. Moreover, the objective was to have their ships available on the high seas in case of war against a coalition of England, Austria and France, though not necessarily in support of the United States. 6) Michaels, Alexander J. Title: RUSSIAN SQUADRONS IN NEW YORK: 1863. Citation: North Dakota Quarterly 1963 31(1-2): 27-34. ISSN: 0029-277X Abstract: Discusses the contemporary origins of a supposed Russo-American alliance. No evidence has been found that the Czarist government considered a feared recognition of the Confederacy by England and France as a casus belli. In 1915 F. A. Golder in the American Historical Review published a secret report of the Russian Navy Department, stating that the Russian fleet appeared in foreign waters "at a time when an alliance of two of the most powerful sea powers threatened to attack our shores." It's a myth. Rjensen 11:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Analysis of the Outcome?

I think the following points could just as easily be argued the opposite way and are therefore filler:


  • The Confederacy's tactic of engaging in major battles drained manpower strength, when it could not easily replace its losses.
  • The Union devoted much more of its resources to medical needs, thereby overcoming the unhealthy disease environment that sickened (and killed) more soldiers than combat did.
  • Despite the Union's many tactical blunders like the Seven Days Battle, those committed by Confederate generals, such as Lee's miscalculations at the Battle of Gettysburg and Battle of Antietam, were far more serious—if for no other reason than that the Confederates could so little afford the losses.
  • Lincoln proved more adept than Davis in replacing unsuccessful generals with better ones.
  • Lincoln grew as a grand strategist, in contrast to Davis. The Confederacy never developed an overall strategy. It never had a plan to deal with the blockade. Davis failed to respond in a coordinated fashion to serious threats, such as Grant's campaign against Vicksburg in 1863 (in the face of which, he allowed Lee to invade Pennsylvania).
  • Finally, the Confederacy may have lacked the total commitment needed to win the war. Lincoln and his team never wavered in their commitment to victory.

I Think all of the above points from “Analysis” could easily be argued the opposite way and are filler that should be deleted. It would be just as easy to make the following list to prove the opposite of the above:

  • Lack of manpower meant either losses from battle or retreat, either one of which was a problem. Joe Johnston avoided major battles, but so what?
  • The North lost twice as many soldiers from infection and disease as from battle. The germ theory of disease wasn’t accepted until years after the war, when it was popularized by Lister and Pasteur. Some civil war books estimate the same loss from disease on both sides.
  • Northern generals made blunders as bad or worse at Fredericksburg, Chancerlorsville, Cold Harbor, the Crater and so forth. The problem for the South was lack of manpower, which was covered before the above points were mentioned.
  • Both sides had good and bad generals.
  • Davis had strategies. They all failed, but not for lack of strategies, like trying to get support from England and France. In the end, it didn’t matter.
  • Lack of total commitment? Does this refer to Jefferson Davis and Lee? If so, you must be reading different history books than the ones I’ve read.Jimmuldrow 16:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Readers expect explanations; any editor who has solid sources to back up his theories please provide page numbers -otherwise it's just OR. For example "*Both sides had good and bad generals. " indeed yes but the issue is whether Lincoln or Davis did a better job of finding and promoting the better ones. I think most historians say Lincoln did, which is what the article reports. On medicine, the Confeds were a very sickly bunch in part because they did not spend on medicine. (Their defense of the horrors at Andersonville was that Confed soldiers had equally poor medical treatment.) Davis did not have a military strategy and the article needs to say that (compare Union's Anaconda Strategy). The article notes the failure of his diplomacy. "Total commitment" is fully referenced and has been discussed by numerous historians. One symptom--much more frequent Confed surrenders (Starting at Ft Henry-Donelson, where the top Confed generals ran away!). Rjensen 17:34, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you need page numbers detailing Johnston's retreats and and their results, as opposed to battles of attrition? Or to Davis' policy of fighting not just to the end but even when there was no hope of success? Or to Fredericksburg and Cold Harbor? Or to Southern Generals like Jackson and Cleburne and Stuart and Longstreet in addition to Lee? Or to high rates of death and disease on both sides? Or to Southern strategies to influence the Copperheads and Northern war weariness by trying to win a negotiated peace and a victory for the Northern Democrats? Or successful strategies to purchase ships like the Alabama and Florida?

If equally valid arguments can be made either way, why keep that kind of stuff?Jimmuldrow 17:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I do not believe that "equally valid" arguments can be made on both sides. The analysis section is supposed to represent the consensus of military historians, and if one point does not do so we need to rewrite it. Davis never had a military strategy--he hoped for totally external forces (British navy at war with US, Lincoln defeated). Meanwhile he lost city after city without a a plan to defend them--and thus they gave up without much of a fight (St Louis, Baltimore, Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Macon, Savannah, Columbia for example)--those were huge losses. -- He did fight for Vicksburg but military historians give him low grades on that one. Most of his effort was defending one city: Richmond, as so many others were given up with little or no fight. (Davis did fight for Atlanta, Chattanooga, Charleston, Mobile). On the whole, Davis had no plan to defend the South and did not ask people like Lee or Stonewall Jackson to create one. Surrendering all those cities is strong evidence the Southern people were not committed to victory. (Recall how the Russians 40 years before defeated Napoleon).

Tariff issue explained

Historians have been looking at the tariff issue for 100 years. The great majority reject the notion that tariffs played a major role in secession. Key facts: 1) the tariffs of 1850s were low and were not protective; they were pro-South and passed by Southern votes in Congress. 2) The North was not generally high tariff--only one state Pennsylvania did indeed want higher tariffs--including both Dems and GOP--but that state did not control Congress; 3) Railroad interests opposed tariffs--because they would have to pay the taxes on iron; 4) in late Feb 1861 AFTER the Confeds left the Congress Congress did pass the first Morrill tariff--and Buchanan (a Democrat from Pennsy) signed it. Its goal was to raise revenue to pay for the war. The South never paid this tariff of course. 5) The Confed was not low tariff--it did oppose protective tariffs but one of its first acts was to impose a 10% tariff on all trade from the North. This was far higher taxation than any in American history. 6) Lincoln did pledge to exert federal authority throughout the South--and collect the tariffs (he actually did not collect any)--the Confeds opposed him because they had a new nation and would not allow US tax collectors in their main harbors; 7) The Confed did not secede because of tariffs. No major Confed leader in 1860-61 said that was a main cause. 8) if southerners wanted lower taxes they certainly would have avoided a war at all costs because war = taxes. Rjensen 11:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Rjensen - Your historical facts are severely flawed on several accounts and almost completely neglect the consensus of economic historians. So instead of just reverting I suggest you take a look at some of the sources I gave and better inform yourself about the history of trade in the United States. As my username indicates, I hail from the field of trade economics professionally. The changes I made represent the consensus of the leading economic historians, both in the historical classics (Frank Taussig) and the current leaders of the field (Doug Irwin, James Huston). Your stated objections are also historically wrong and I'd be happy to address them point by point.
1)The low-tariff dynamics of the 1850's were the result of the success of the Walker Tariff of 1846 and a Treasury Department scandal in 1849 that greatly discredited an attempt that was being made at the time to restore protectionism. The free traders accordingly won the day thru the late 1850's. But that all began to change due to the Panic of 1857, which became a rallying cry for the protectionists. Huston's book on the Panic is THE leading current historical work about it and he discusses how the protectionists in Congress tried to use it to change the tariff. One of the bills that resulted was Morrill's, proposed in 1859.
2) You've got it wrong here too. Look at the vote on the Morrill Tariff in the House on May 10, 1860. The majority of every single northern state's congressional delegation voted in favor of protection - not just Pennsylvania. If you want to get into the detailed history of it I advise you read up on the Ways and Means committee at the time and see who petitioned it for protection. It was Pennsylvania and New Jersey iron, Massachussetts glass and textile manufacturers, Rhode Island cloth producers, Vermont sheep growers, and dozens of others from all over the northeast. PA was probably the most vocal, but by no means the only supporters. Also look at the tariff's sponsors themselves. Morrill owned a large sheep farm and wanted protection for it. Thaddeus Stevens of PA ran an iron mill. James Simmons, the senator from RI who led the bill in the Senate, ran one of the largest cloth mills in the country.
3) Some railroad interests did oppose the tariff, but these were progressively further out west where the lines were being laid. In the north they were a minority interest compared to the iron and textile mills - a fact evidenced again by the majority votes in favor of protection in the House.
4) Your right it passed the SENATE in 1861 after the first wave of secession. But that's only part of the history. As Huston shows, the Morrill Tariff was actually proposed in 1859 and written in 1858. Taussig also points out very clearly that it passed the House in 1860 before any thought of the war was even entertained. The senate vote was only the tail end of an event 3 years in the making, and the protectionists won every step of the way before that in spite of southern opposition.
5) By 1860's standards the 10% confederate tariff was one of the lowest in the entire world. By comparison, the United States tariff rate never dipped below 17% in the entire 19th century. (17% was under the 1857 tariff, which was considered "free trade" by the standards of the time). It's faulty economics and bad history to call the lower confederate tariff protectionist. The 10% was for revenue, since tariffs were also used to raise revenue back then and should be thought of as something comparable to a sales tax on imported goods.
6) For Lincoln's position on the tariff see Gabor Borritt's 1966 article and Luthin's 1944 article. They both show that he was strongly aligned on the protectionist side of the issue.
7)How can you honestly say that when I quoted you one who did cite the tariff among his reasons to secede - Robert Toombs. There were dozens of others just like him who railed about tariffs (yes - along with slavery and states rights and all the other stuff, but it indisputably was listed among their causes). The South Carolina secessionist convention even published a list of reasons to secede and one of the planks was the tariff. Again you're just practicing bad history when you make claims like that.
8) Faulty logic and faulty economics. People go to war all the time over high taxes (the American Revolution being among the more famous of these).

There's a famous quote by Frederic Bastiat every trade economist knows: when goods cease to cross borders, armies will.

That said, I've stated an explanation and I've given top quality academic sources for everything I wrote. You need to better inform yourself about those sources rather than blanket reverts based on historically erronious claims. Sincerely - Tradeeconomist
RJensen responds: I think the historians have the story right.
  • 1-- the South had the low tariff it desired from 1847 till 1861. That makes it an unlikely cause of war.
  • 2-the Morrill tariff did not pass in 1860, so that's not a good reason for war. Am Revolution was about who would set the taxes not how high they were.
  • 3--No railroad wanted a tariff on iron.
  • 4. the south already seceded in 1861 when the Morrill tariff passed. They would NOT return for a low tariff--indeed they never proposed that compromise.
  • 5 CSA tax of 10% was the biggest tax hike in American history.

which suggests they were not tax-averse.

  • 6. Lincoln wanted to restore the Union and would have traded anything to do that (except slaves in territories.) He was not asked to trade a low tariff by the South.
  • 7. Looking at the debates on secession one sees very few references to the tariff. (Historians look at the documents.) Please read some sources: Southern Pamphlets on Secession, November 1860-April 1861 ed by Jon L. Wakelyn University of North Carolina Press. 1996. There are only 17 mentions of the tariff in 400 pages of speeches and pamphlets. (most mentions are incidental) I think some support for the Tariff-grievance theory can be found on page 10 --two sentences in a long speech("North and East bribed the West by internal improvement, and by donations of the public lands --and the West in her turn, bribed the North and East with the Tariff. Internal improvements and a Tariff of protection, are twin born abominations"); also on p, 298-99 two sentences in a long speech: ("we are to have this most oppressive tariff bill to tax the country outrageously, while the pending homestead bill gives the public property to the "landless." ). So that's it-- a couple lines in two speeches, both of which said the Homestead Law was as bad or worse. To refute the thesis one Confed spokesmen deny that it was an issue (p. 91: "With the exception of a few dull speeches in favor of a protective tariff, intended for circulation in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and still fewer number of pitiful appeals for squandering the public lands, the whole canvass was conducted by the most bitter and malignant appeals to the anti-slavery sentiment of the North.") Bottom line: very few Confeds even mentioned the tariff in their long list of grievances, and the two who did gave it a couple sentences. So Wiki should follow that example. Rjensen 21:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Once again, Rjensen has taken it upon himself to speak for all "historians". And no one here would EVER selectively cite, would they? So glad we don't have to do any reading ourselves, since Dr. Jensen has determined everything personally. Since many of us actually do read however, ponder this quote from Kenneth Stamp (you've heard of him, right?): "A low tariff was to be the Confederacy's chief device for emancipating its planters and merchants from northern exploitation. And the tariff became the challenge which, more than anything else, crystalized sentiment among Yankee businessmen in favor of applying force against the South. (emphasis mine; And the War Came: The North and the Secession Crisis, third printing 1990, p231; Stamp cites Foner, Business and Slavery. So Foner and Stamp ignore Rjensen's argument, and argue that the tariff was an issue causing the North to be more aggressive in application of force. BusterD 22:35, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
well Stampp (spelled with two p's) wrote that in 1950 when Beardian history was in its last stages of popularity. the Foner book (1941) was by Philip Foner the Communist historian who was an uncle to Eric Foner. Eric Foner certainly does not hold those views--I have a hard time thinking of more than a couple historians who think the tariff was a big deal in 1860. As the detailed quotes I provided indicated, very few southerners in 1860-61 thought it was a big deal (they were more upset with the Homestead law, by the way). So what we have is regurgitated left wing history from the 1940s. Rjensen 22:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Rjensen - historians are qualified to recount and document historical events. Most of them however do not have the training or credentials to make economic analyses of policy or to assess its political economy. That's why the field of economic history came into existence. Historians have many things they are good at, but analyzing trade policy has never been one of them and it shows both in the version of the article you want to keep and in your responses to my comments and sources here. Let's look at your points again.

1. Your argument is simplistic and logically fallacious. Policies are not stagnant, and neither are economic events. By early 1861 there was already a well organized and steadily progressing movement to restore protectionism that had been underway since the Panic of 1857. The fact that the Morrill tariff hadn't passed the senate yet in no way negates the indisputable fact that the movement behind it was gaining steam and had been steadily progressing for over 3 years. 2. Your history is wrong again. The Morrill Tariff passed the House on May 10, 1860. It was already half way to becoming law before any thought of secession was even seriously entertained, and the Republicans made it a campaign pledge to push it thru the senate after the election. Your claim that the colonists' only objection with high british taxes was representation is similarly simplistic and uninformed. One needs only to read the 9th article declared by the Stamp Act Congress to discover that they were just as angry about the size of the tax as the lack of representation in imposing it: "That the duties imposed by several late acts of Parliament, from the peculiar circumstances of these colonies, will be extremely burthensome and grievous, and, from the scarcity of specie, the payment of them absolutely impracticable." 3. You have yet to demonstrate that the railroads controlled a majority in any northern state's congressional delegation. Seeing as the majority in all of them voted for iron protection on May 10, 1860, you appear to have a difficult task at hand. 4. Once they seceded, the south didn't seem to want to return for much of anything or any compromise on anything. They wouldn't return on the Corwin Amendment about slavery either, and the deep south wouldn't even entertain the proposals of the Crittenden Resolutions or the Washington Peace Conference. 5. Your claim is mathematically challenged. 10% < 17%, which was the old "free trade" tariff before secession. It's also less than a third of what the Morrill Tariff imposed by hiking the rates to over 30%. Thank you for demonstrating my point though on how most historians are professionally unequipped to analyze economic policy. 6. Actually (and you would know this if you read historians like Luthin or Boritt), Lincoln's belief in protectionism was unwavering throughout his career. He also made multiple recorded and well documented promises between his election and inauguration that he would support a protectionist policy in the coming year. True, he was fairly consistent on the territorial issue as well. But as a point of comparison, Lincoln was willing to make far more concessions on slavery (e.g. the aforementioned Corwin amendment, and a January 1861 proposal that offered a concession on slavery in New Mexico) than he ever did on the tariff during the same period. 7. Documents are indeed important, and nobody ever claimed they were exclusively dominated by the tariff. What I did say - and what is historically factual - is that the tariff appeared repeatedly in secessionist documents as a cause. Some documents may also be assigned weight based on their authors, and many "document collections" (including the Wakelyn book) cast their nets far beyond the leading figures of secession. I've already provided a leading southern politician - Toombs - who assigned extensive blame to the tariff in a well known and major secession speech. That is more than sufficient to demonstrate the tariff was one of the sources of irritation for them.

All said and done, Rjensen, I believe this discussion has demonstrated two things about the tariff. First, the older version of the article that you keep reverting to is fraught with inaccuracies, frequented by overly broad and ahistorical generalizations, and characterized by an overall lack of documentation, sources, or other reputable and verifiable scholarship cited to support it. For that reason alone you are on very shaky ground to continue reinserting it, to say nothing of the glaring lack of concern for consensus you demonstrate by reverting to it. Second, your attempts here to establish yourself authoritatively on the tariff issue have been wholly inadequate and give the general impression of an uninformed position coupled with a heavy point of view. As another poster indicated, you repeatedly profess to speak for all historians. Yet somehow you have managed to simultaneously misstate the most basic undisputed historical facts surrounding American tariff history. Even more apalling, you simply cast off the analyses of the leading current experts and classic works in economic history, seemingly for no other reason than that their immensely more qualified analyses of trade conflict with the simplistic and uninformed notions you entertain about the same topic for yourself. You continued input is welcome, and you've been given a clear opportunity here to state your case but I must conclude that I find it wanting. Therefore I will continue to insist that the revisions I made were both legitimate and accuracy-improving, and restore them as need be - pending consensus and input by other wiki contributors, of course - in the event that you should continue revert warring to retain the erronious and unsourced version that preceded it.

For anybody else who may be following this discussion, I look forward to your input and hope that you share a goal of making constructive improvements to this article. I'm happy to contribute what I can from my own professional expertise and eager to receive the input of others so long as that input demonstrates an intellectual capacity for learning, cooperation, continued improvement, and reasoned discourse. Sincerely - Tradeeconomist


All - As I mentioned earlier the South Carolina Convention declaration - one of the first and most widely circulated secessionist documents - is online at [1]. It was written by Robert Barnwell Rhett, a leading secessionist. I mention it again because it basically condenses their causes for secession into two issues: slavery and tariffs. It addresses both of them at length and in detail. It also states specifically that these are the two main issues behind secession: "the consolidation of the North to rule the South, by the tariff and Slavery issues, was in the obvious course of things." Regardless of what one thinks about the old tariff argument of the war the South Carolina declaration is a major and leading document for the secessionists. The weight it assigns to the tariff is alone sufficient to merit its discussion here on wikipedia and to refute Rjensen's version that claims the tariff was not an issue at all. - Tradeeconomist

Secession pamphlets

Rjensen just added a section including the sentence "Thus the leaders represented in the standard collection of pamphlets regarding secession make only two brief mentions (about tariffs) of less than 30 words." The speech at this link [2] is reproduced from the Wakelyn book according to its header. The sections that deal with the tariff are titled "RESOURCES OF THE SOUTH, AND NORTHERN DEPENDENCE" and "DECISIVE ACTION IMPERATIVE." I ran the first paragraph of "RESOURCES OF THE SOUTH, AND NORTHERN DEPENDENCE" thru Microsoft Word Count and it alone contains 451 words, or 15 times as many words about the tariff that Rjensen claims are in Wakelyn's whole book. In light of this evidence it appears that Wakelyn's work is being misrepresented. The methodology that arrived at the "30 words" count strikes me as amateurish armchair history, and certainly doesn't seem to rise to the level of an encyclopedia. - Tradeeconomist

P.S. The paragraph is interesting because it makes a detailed argument that the south was being unfairly taxed by the tariff, so I'll reprint it here:

"In this connection it may be pertinent to examine into the operations of the Federal Government, and of northern connection, and ascertain how much the South is annually drained and depleted by what is paid to the North. The facts prove that the southern States have been to the North as the conquered province were to Rome, when the tributes exacted from them were sufficient to defray the whole expenses of the Government. A report of the Secretary of the Treasury for 1838 shows that, in the five years, 1833-'37, out of $102,000,000 of expenditure, only $37,000,000 were in the slave States; yet, during the same years, they paid $90,000,000 of duties to $17,500,000 paid by the free States. The amount of customs collected, says Kettell, in the past seventy years, reaches eleven hundred millions of dollars, a large portion of which was disbursed at the North. Bounties to fisheries have amounted to over $13,000,000, and have been paid mostly to Maine and Massachusetts. Like unjust inequalities are exhibited in the appropriation of public lands, in the light-house system, in the collection of customs, in the internal improvement system, in the erection of court and custom houses, and hospitals and post offices. An intelligent writer says, that the heads of federal expenditure show that while the South has paid seven-ninths of the taxes, the North has had seven-ninths of their disbursements. The North furnishes, in great degree, our carriers, importers, merchants, bankers, brokers, and insurers. One of the ablest statisticians and political economists in America, Mr. Kettell, a northern man, estimates the annual amount of means sent North by southern owners and producers, as the sum of their dealing with the North, at $462,560,394. The South furnishes six-sevenths of the freight for the shipping of the country, while the North supplies one-seventh. The South pays $36,000,000 per annum to the shipping interest for the transportation of the products of slave labor. "All the profitable branches of freighting, brokering, selling, banking, insurance, &c., that grow out of southern products, are enjoyed in New York. The profits that importers, manufacturers, bankers, factors, jobbers, warehousemen, carmen, and every branch of industry connected with merchandizing, realize, from the mass of goods that pass through northern cities, are paid by southern consumers." The same careful authority approximates the annual load which southern industry, dependent on southern labor, is required to carry, at $231,500,000, and distributes among bounties to fishermen, customs, importers, manufacturers, shippers, agents, travellers, &c. It is this North grown rich from the earnings of slave labor, dependent for its prosperity and profits upon southern wealth, that has placed Lincoln and them that "hate us to rule over us." Jeshurun has waxed fat and kicked."

Morrill Tariff

It sounds like Tradeeconomist knowa a lot about the Morrill Tariff, and raised some interesting points. I think the tariff should be mentioned, but more concisely. And some of the older version had some good points as well.

From what I understand, the Morrill Tariff was passed by the House of Representatives in 1860, mostly over Southern opposition. Seven Southern states seceded from the Union. The Senate, minus Southerners, made the Morrill Tariff a law for the North.

There is no doubt the tariff raised the temperature of the debate. The only remaining question is by how much?

To answer this, we need to assume the leaders of secession meant what they said, since we can't read their minds. Of the four reasons for secession written by Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia and Texas, only the one from Georgia mentioned the tariff in addition to the slavery issue. Also, Alexander Stephen's Cornerstone Speech mentioned the tariff, but stated that slavery was the "cornerstone" of the Confederacy.

So fears for the future of slavery were mentioned the most, but the tariff was also mentioned as well. It was not THE reason but A reason for secession.

That much being said, I thing Tradeeconomist made some excellent points.Jimmuldrow 04:05, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry some of the debates around here get over-heated at times, Tradeeconomist. I have to admit you write better than some of us, and you seem well-informed.Jimmuldrow 04:43, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


Jimmuldrow - Thank you for the information and discussion. I specialize in trade history & its led me to study most major U.S. tariff acts in more detail than most people probably ever should have. Morrill is of course one of them. I had forgotten the tariff was mentioned in the Georgia declaration. There were also two declarations from south carolina. One was by Memminger to the people of South Carolina and didn't mention the tariff. The other was by Rhett to the other southern states urging them to join in secession - about half of it is tariff and half is slavery, and Rhett says they are the two main issues. It goes to show that different secessionists had different priorities. Rhett and Toombs were old "tariff warriors" before the war so it's not surprising. Stephens is an interesting case himself because he was a latecomer to secession, and a Whig before the war (the party that favored protectionism in the 1840's). When his state of Georgia met to secede Stephens initially opposed it. Toombs made the tariff argument to urge secession, and in one speech Stephens tried to argue that the Morrill Tariff could be blocked as a rebuttal (Also if memory serves me - but i'll have to double check - it was Toombs who inserted the tariff part into Georgia's declaration). A few months later Stephens did a 180 degree about face - both on secession and on the tariff - and became one of the most vocal confederates. Also read in light of everything they wrote your characterization - not THE reason, but A reason - is very accurate about the tariff in secession. Making the passage on it more concise is also a good future goal. The reason I included so much detail is because I detected another editor was very hostile to the entire contribution I made. The details and sources helped to demonstrate the description's validity when the hostile editor was basically contesting every single thing I said, and with very little historical basis. Condensing it down in the future is okay by me once things have cooled off a bit, and as long as I can get assurances from Rjensen that he won't keep reverting to erronious old versions without discussion. Sincerely - Tradeeconomist

Very good an reasonable points. I agree.Jimmuldrow 11:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The tariff theory is considered outdated and no longer mainstream by the hundreds of historians who have worked over the debates. Evidence presented above shows it was rarely mentioned. It is rificulous to say that Toombs caused the Civil war. As for the economics, what model are we using that predicts causes of wars? Rjensen 11:57, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


Rjensen - you have neither demonstrated your characterization of the current position of *all* historians to be true nor responded to my contention that expert analyses of trade policy is better situated to the hands of economic historians, who have a different consensus than the one you claim as your own and purport to as that of *all* historians. Economic historians have the proper methodological training to examine issues of political economy, whereas most historians do not. That is why I remarked earlier that your attempts to weigh the Morrill Tariff's support bases and opposition are simplistic and historically uninformed. Seeing as nobody ever suggested that Toombs alone started the war, the only ridiculous matter here is your strawman attribution of that preposterous claim to me or whoever it was that you intended that for. I did however say that Toombs was an influential political figure in the secessionist movement, and his complaints about the Morrill Tariff accordingly merit mention. As to your "evidence presented above" that purportedly shows the tariff was "rarely mentioned" I have already shown your analysis to be flawed. As I demonstrated above, one single paragraph out of one single pamphlet in the the Wakelyn book contained a discussion of the tariff some 15 times as long as what you have incorrectly purported to exist in the entire Wakelyn book. I invited comments at the time I revealed this to be the case, and you have evidently chosen not to respond. I will accordingly be removing that passage from the article shortly for want of accuracy. - Tradeeconomist
I don't think economists are trained to read 19th century documents. They build models and we have not seen the model that Tradeeconomist is using. Here's my model: 1) if tariff had been a major grievance in 1860, Southerners would have said so in panphlets and editorials. Evidence: they rarely did so -- fewer than 1% of speakers brought it up; only 4 out of many (1000?) editorials make it an issue. 2) If tariff was the key dispute then someone would have proposed a compromise regarding tariffs. Many compromiseswere proposed but none focused on the tariff, and I think few if any even mentioned it. Conclusion: tariff theory fails. Rjensen 15:39, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The experts are correct to avoid any encouragement of a complete Beardsian theory. But it seems that the point here is that the Morrill Tariff did in fact add to the controversy. Of course, the biggest economic cause of the war, excluding other issues, was slavery itself. But the Morrill Tariff especially deserves mention as well.

It doesn't sound like anyone here is trying to say that the Morrill Tariff is the ONLY cause of the war. But it was A cause. It was mentioned as a complaint against the North by more than one secessionist.Jimmuldrow 12:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The Morrill tariff passed Congress and was signed by a Democratic president around march 1, taking effect in april. By that time the 7 deep south states had formed a separate country. So how did the Morrill tariff CAUSE people in, say, Mississippi or texas or Florida to secede? It was almost never mentioned in those states.Rjensen 12:36, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

See above. The tariff passed the House and added to the debate in 1860, before secession.Jimmuldrow 13:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

alas, apart from Toombs few Southerners seem to care about the tariff. Why did they so rarely mention it in their long speeches and pamphlets and editorials? Rjensen 16:00, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Economics

I'll take a stab at the economic causes of the war for people to throw helpful suggestions and brickbats at. Here goes:

The main economic cause of secession was Southern fears for the future of slavery as an economic system. Almost all the secessionist leaders mentioned slavery as a reason. As the Declaration of Reasons for secession from Mississippi said, " We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property."

However, protectionist issues, such as the debate over the Morrill Tariff in 1860, were also mentioned by secessionists, especially Robert Barnwell Rhett and Robert Toombs. Of the four deep South states that wrote declarations of reasons for secession, only the one from Georgia mentioned protectionist measures. And Alexander Stephens Cornerstone speech mentioned the tariff, but said that slavery was the "cornerstone" of the Confederacy. The timing of the House of Representatives vote on the Morrill Tariff (May 10, 1860) increased friction between the sections.[12]

Southern Senators might well have been able to block the Morrill Tariff from becoming law had they remained in the Senate, but by then seven Southern states and their Congressmen had seceded.

Douglas Irwin notes that antebellum tariff policy was often determined by the crucial swing vote of the Midwest.[3] This section had an export economy of food crops giving them reason to side with the South at times, though it also had fledgling industries of its own and benefited from the railroad and canal programs that often accompanied Northeastern tariff proposals. Notably, there was no unanimity of support for a single tariff program even within each region. Northern farmers also depended upon exports; early railroad managers desired reduced tariffs on imported iron; many Northern Democrats opposed any federal role in the nation's infrastructure, and Southern Whigs such as Henry Clay favored it. Throughout the antebellum period though, majorities in the southern congressional delegation favored free trade while majorities from northeastern industrial states such as Pennsylvania consistently sought protection.

Southern agitation over the tariff reached its peak in 1832 with the nullification crisis, in response to the protectionist Tariff of Abominations and the Tariff of 1832. The government reversed policy toward free trade until the Tariff of 1842 reestablished protectionism at the urging of northeastern manufacturers. Southerners were able to form a coalition with the Midwest in 1846, resulting in the Walker Tariff reductions of that year. Free trade would remain the policy throughout the 1850's much to the satisfaction of the South. The Panic of 1857, notes James Huston, breathed new life into the protectionists' sails and sparked a movement for a revived tariff. Rep. Justin Morrill, a sheep farmer from Vermont who faced import competition from Canadian wool, proposed a protectionist revision of the existing tariff schedule in 1859. His Morrill Tariff passed the House of Representatives on a strictly sectional vote on May 10, 1860. Pressures to pass the bill in the Senate quickly became a campaign issue for the Republican Party in the Northeast, while the Southern delegation sought to delay its vote in the Senate until the following year. A heated battle of rhetoric from both sides compounded the tariff issue. Economist Henry C. Carey led the protectionist charge in Northern newspapers by blaming free trade for the economic recession and accompanying budget shortfalls. Southerners circulated copies of Thomas Prentiss Kettell's 1857 book Southern Wealth and Northern Profits, which argued that protective tariffs unduly burdened the slave states to the benefit of the north. The Morrill Tariff finally reached the Senate at the height of the secession crisis. Robert Toombs of Georgia summarized the South's position at the time, denouncing "the infamous Morrill bill" as where "the robber and the incendiary struck hands, and united in joint raid against the South."[4]Jimmuldrow 03:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

But would it have survived the filibuster and passed Congress if all Senators had taken their seats? Septentrionalis 15:35, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

That's a good point, Septentrionalis. Southerners did have enough Senators to block bills they didn't like for many years, and that point should be included.Jimmuldrow 15:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

That's an interesting question about what would've happened had they stayed in their seats. It's also a very difficult one to answer because it is necessarily speculative. If I were to make an educated guess I would say the south would've been able to hold out and delay it for a little longer - probably around the summer of 1861 - but would've succumbed either in the winter session or the next year for a couple reasons. First, the makeup of the Senate was changing. Republicans got two new Senators from Kansas in the late spring, and picked up Stephen Douglas' Illinois seat when he died in the early summer. Second, the Lincoln administration indicated it wanted a higher tariff. Had there not been the war they probably would've devoted considerable energy into getting the bill passed. We will never know for sure, but I do know for a fact that around the time of secession they debated whether or not the south would be able to block any northern bills in the senate. One secessionist's speech argued that the Senate would split evenly on the vote, and Hannibal Hamlin would cast the tiebreaker for the protectionists. Another claimed they could continue preventing it from reaching the floor as long as Hunter controlled the Finance Committee. But as we all know, legislative battles are unpredictable and I can conceivably see it going either way until at least late 1861 when the protectionists would've probably gotten the upper hand from new GOP votes. - Tradeeconomist


And there were Northern Democrats, many of whom were low-tariff men. What this needs, as usual, is secondary authority. Septentrionalis 16:38, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

That was mentioned, but perhaps Tradeconomist could provide a specific inline reference with page numbers for that.Jimmuldrow 18:08, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll have to get some books from my office to check the votes, but there were about a dozen or so northern democrats in the House who were anti-protectionist. Almost every Republican voted protectionist there and in the Senate. There were fewer northern Democrats who were anti-tariff in the Senate. One of them - Bigler from Pennsylvania - was extremely pro-tariff. The most vocal anti-tariff northerner was probably Rice from Minnesota. Douglas from Illinois also opposed the tariff, but he died in early 1861 and the seat went Republican. Bright of Indiana also probably would've opposed the tariff, but he was absent the day they voted. If memory serves me right one of the California senators wavered back and forth on protection and may have ended up being the deciding vote had the south stayed. - Tradeeconomist


One thing economics does is estimating the costs and benefits of policies. What was the cost/benefit of the tariff to people north and south, per capita? Given the risk of economic devastation in a losing war, how much tariff $$ should the south risk on a war? (assuming it acted to maximize economic welfare --something historians do not assume.) Rjensen 18:28, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Rjensen - the quick non-technical answer to your question is that protective tariffs tend to cause net welfare reductions for the country as a whole. Put another way, the targetted industries do gain from it but their gains are more than offset by the economic losses to consumers in general throughout the nation. The mathematics behind it show that the producer surplus gain of the protected industry is necessarily less than the rent seeking and harberger waste incurred upon the consumer surplus by the same tariff. Some regions, of course, will experience more concentrated producer surplus gains (which is why congressional districts with iron mills in them go for protection) but even regionally, the nets are mathematical losses. As to your risk assessment hypothetical, it seems somewhat contrived. No participant knew in 1861 what the costs and economic devastation of the war would bring, and in fact most thought it would be a quick simple war that ended after only a few months. It is therefore impossible to assign a realistic risk assessment either way. - Tradeeconomist

On this I basically agree with Rjensen. There was a lot more to causes of the war than just economics. The Economics sub-section deals with the economic aspect in particular, and even there it's hard to get away from Rhode's theory of the cause of the war. But I think the tariff issue should be mentioned and put in perspective for two reasons: First because a few leaders of secession mentioned it as an additional reason for secession in addition to the slavery issue, and second because many people reading the article will think we're avoiding the issue if we don't mention it and put it in perspective.Jimmuldrow 19:07, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Jimmuldrow makes a good point. The article should mention that only a couple southerners (esp Toombs, Rhett) thought the tariff was a major issue for them. Rjensen 19:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Rjensen, both Toombs and Rhett convinced their respective states to identify the tariff as a cause for secession. Portraying it as nothing more than an "issue for them" understates this fact. - Tradeeconomist

Also, one Wikipedia policy is "Do not bite the newcomers."Jimmuldrow 19:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

What did the secessionists say to the border states they tried to get to join them (early 1861)? To quote a recent scholarly review essay:

"In Apostles of Disunion, Charles B. Dew does not speak to Southern "manhood" when he talks about all the "ambassadors" sent out to Southern states (even those who were not wavering) to convince them that the right thing to do was adhere to the dictates of the Montgomery Convention in February 1861, and follow those assembled there out of the Union. Overwhelmingly, these "Apostles of Disunion" based their advocacy of secession on Northen opposition to slavery. The commissioners went from state to state, giving especial attention to those states that were undecided, like Kentucky and Virginia, proclaiming that the majority North had seriously mistreated the minority South over the past one hundred years or so. The issue of states rights did factor into the secessionist movement (maybe this was such a "given" that few of these "apostles" even referred to it), but the issue of slavery was the primary, overwhelmingly important motive. According to S. F. Hale, "commissioner" from Alabama writing to B. Magoffi, the Governor of Kentucky. "... [T]he election of Mr. Lincoln is hailed not simply as a change of administration, but as the inauguration of new principles and new theory of government, and even as the downfall of slavery." Henry Lewis Benning, "commissioner" from Georgia to Virginia, told the citizens of the Old Dominion why Georgia had seceded: "It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of slavery." On and on these arguments went in late 1860 and early 1861: it was slavery that the South was out to protect. And it may fairly be stated that if it had not been for slavery, perhaps a compromise could have been reached between the North and South even to the point of preventing the Civil War. It was only after the conflict ended that people like Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, Benning, and Hale began to claim that it was a principle of "states rights," and only states rights, that brought on this horrile civil conflict. It was slavery, and not some kind of "wounded manhood" that produced this great national trauma." by Carlton Jackson in The Mississippi Quarterly. Volume: 55. Issue: 2. Year: 2002. pages 288+. Rjensen 19:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually Rjensen the most famous and most widely circulated secessionist message to the other southern states in 1861 was South Carolina's Address, authored by Rhett. Link: [5]. This was a statement officially adopted by the South Carolina secession convention (first to secede) and sent out to all the other southern states to urge them to join them. It focuses on two issues that Rhett considered to be the two main causes for secession. As Rhett put it those were "the consolidation of the North to rule the South, by the tariff and Slavery issues." - Tradeeconomist

How little attenbtion paid to tariffs in 1861

Georgia had a major debate re secession right after Lincoln was elected, and the speeches are in print. On Nov 13, 1860 Toombs gave a 20 page speech. It has only one paragraph on the tariff issue:

Toombs: "It is true that the present tariff was sustained by an almost unanimous vote of the South; but it was a reduction--a reduction necessary from the plethora of the revenue; but the policy of the North soon made it inadequate to meet the public expenditure, by an enormous and profligate increase of the public expenditure; and at the last session of Congress they brought in and passed through the House the most atrocious tariff bill that ever was enacted, raising the present duties from twenty to two hundred and fifty per cent above the existing rates of duty. That bill now lies on the table of the Senate. It was a master stroke of abolition policy; it united cupidity to fanaticism, and thereby made a combination which has swept the country. There were thousands of protectionists in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New- York, and in New-England, who were not abolitionists. There were thousands of abolitionists who were free traders. The mongers brought them together upon a mutual surrender of their principles. The free-trade abolitionists became protectionists; the non-abolition protectionists became abolitionists. The result of this coalition was the infamous Morrill bill --the robber and the incendiary struck hands, and united in joint raid against the South.” (end Toombs quote--from William W. Freehling and Craig M. Simpson, eds ‘’Secession Debated: Georgia's Showdown in 1860. Oxford University Press. 1992. Pp 37-38]
Toombs was immediately answered by Alexander Stephens who said: “The next evil that my friend complained of was the tariff. Well, let us look at that for a moment. About the time I commenced noticing public matters this question was agitating the country almost as fearfully as the Slave question now is. In 1832, when I was in college, South Carolina was ready to nullify or secede from the Union on this account. And what have we seen? The tariff no longer distracts the public councils. Reason has triumphed. The present tariff [of 1857] was voted for by Massachusetts and South Carolina. The lion and the lamb lay down together,--every man in the Senate and House from Massachusetts and South Carolina, I think, voted for it, as did my honorable friend [Toombs] himself.: [ibid p. 61]
Only one other speaker, Henry L. Benning in a long 45 page speech also raised the tariff issue; he argued that because of the current tariff “50 millions of dollars was, therefore, the sum which the South in 1860 paid to the North without receiving one cent in return. It was a mere bounty to the North.” [ibid 136] He added that the escaping fugitive slaves cost the South about $1.1 million a year. [page 140]. Bottom line: when the rhetoric got serious not even Toombs paid much attention to tariffs. Rjensen 20:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The real Toombs speech on the tariff

Rjensen is misrepresenting historical source records again. Considering that he also did this several times with the Wakelyn book despite evidence to the contrary that I provided, I'm becoming increasingly suspicious of his intentions here. The aforementioned Toombs speech actually contains the following excerpt on trade-related economic policies (trade shipping regulations, "internal improvements," and the Morrill bill). It is four long paragraphs and 805 words in length, or some four times as long as the 207 word excerpt that Rjensen presents above as constituting the whole of Toombs' discussion of trade in his speech. - Tradeeconomist 01:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

"The instant the Government was organized, at the very first Congress, the Northern States evinced a general desire and purpose to use it for their own benefit, and to pervert its powers for sectional advantage, and they have steadily pursued that policy to this day. They demanded a monopoly of the business of ship- building, and got a prohibition against the sale of foreign ships to citizens of the United States, which exists to this day.
They demanded a monopoly of the coasting trade, in order to get higher freights than they could get in open competition with the carriers of the world. Congress gave it to them, and they yet hold this monopoly. And now, to-day, if a foreign vessel in Savannah offer[sl to take your rice, cotton, grain or lumber to New-York, or any other American port, for nothing, your laws prohibit it, in order that Northern ship-owners may get enhanced prices for doing your carrying. This same shipping interest, with cormorant rapacity, have steadily burrowed their way through your legislative halls, until they have saddled the agricultural classes with a large portion of the legitimate expenses of their own business. We pay a million of dollars per annum for the lights which guide them into and out of your ports. We built and kept up, at the cost of at least another million a year, hospitals for their sick and disabled seamen when they wear them out and cast them ashore. We pay half a million per annum to support and bring home those they cast away in foreign lands. They demand, and have received, millions of the public money to increase the safety of harbors, and lessen the danger of navigating our rivers. All of which expenses legitimately fall upon their business, and should come out of their own pockets, instead of a common treasury.
Even the fishermen of Massachusetts and New England demand and receive from the public treasury about half a million of dollars per annum as a pure bounty on their business of catching codfish. The North, at the very first Congress, demanded and received bounties under the name of protection, for every trade, craft, and calling which they pursue, and there is not an artisan in brass, or iron, or wood, or weaver, or spinner in wool or cotton, or a calicomaker, or iron-master, or a coal-owner, in all of the Northern or Middle States, who has not received what he calls the protection of his government on his industry to the extent of from fifteen to two hundred per cent from the year 1791 to this day. They will not strike a blow, or stretch a muscle, without bounties from the government. No wonder they cry aloud for the glorious Union; they have the same reason for praising it, that craftsmen of Ephesus had for shouting, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," whom all Asia and the world worshipped. By it they got their wealth; by it they levy tribute on honest labor. It is true that this policy has been largely sustained by the South; it is true that the present tariff was sustained by an almost unanimous vote of the South; but it was a reduction - a reduction necessary from the plethora of the revenue; but the policy of the North soon made it inadequate to meet the public expenditure, by an enormous and profligate increase of the public expenditure; and at the last session of Congress they brought in and passed through the House the most atrocious tariff bill that ever was enacted, raising the present duties from twenty to two hundred and fifty per cent above the existing rates of duty. That bill now lies on the table of the Senate. It was a master stroke of abolition policy; it united cupidity to fanaticism, and thereby made a combination which has swept the country. There were thousands of protectionists in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New-York, and in New-England, who were not abolitionists. There were thousands of abolitionists who were free traders. The mongers brought them together upon a mutual surrender of their principles. The free-trade abolitionists became protectionists; the non-abolition protectionists became abolitionists. The result of this coalition was the infamous Morrill bill - the robber and the incendiary struck hands, and united in joint raid against the South.
Thus stands the account between the North and the South. Under its ordinary and most favorable action, bounties and protection to every interest and every pursuit in the North, to the extent of at least fifty millions per annum, besides the expenditure of at least sixty millions out of every seventy of the public expenditure among them, thus making the treasury a perpetual fertilizing stream to them and their industry, and a suction-pump to drain away our substance and parch up our lands."
The issue is what were the causes of the Civil war. How serious were economic grievances?? Few southerners mentioned them, and those few in 20 and 20 page speeches rarely gave the topic more than a paragraph. (One person did say it was a $50 million a year matter, but gew paid attention by copying his argument.) The compromisers did not add any economic compromises, which is very strange if they were trying to avert a war based on economics. Apart from some fringe libertarians we have very few major scholars in 50 years who think in terms of economic causation. Hence they article should explain it was not a big causal factor. Rjensen 13:07, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Rjensen - the issue illustrated in this particular section is that you substantially misrepresented Toombs' speech in your earlier claim by underrepresenting the attention he paid to the tariff. The fact that you did the exact same thing previously with the Wakelyn book gives good reason to question your professionalism in doing so. Since it's happened so many times now it's looking less and less like an accident, and more like agenda-pushing of the very worst kind. If you tried to pass off the claims you made earlier about Toombs' speech in an scholarly publication and got caught, as happened here, it would be a major blemish on any academic career. If you did it twice in a row by also misrepresenting the Wakelyn book it would turn into an outright academic scandal. Wikipedia isn't academia, but I still believe this article's text should strive for the same standards a rigorous scholarly study would use. Sincerely - Tradeeconomist

Economics continued

All - I undid most of the changes made by Rjensen earlier today and restored most of the text before it. While I'll be the first to acknowledge that this text is far from perfect and continues to need refinement, I strongly believe that it is superior in fact and documentation to the changes that replaced it. Seeing as Rjensen continues to reinsert many of these changes, it is only fair for me to address each point by point and indicate why I find them to fail on standards of factual accuracy.

  1. Railroads - Rjensen builds practically his entire attempt to characterize the political economy of the tariff on the fact that railroad construction companies needing iron for their tracks opposed the tariff in the north. This is a simplistic and historically uninformed argument. Although railroads had a direct opposing interest to higher iron tariffs, this interest simply did not produce any northern votes in Congress against the Morrill Tariff. When the House voted on May 10, 1860 there were less than a dozen northerners who voted no. Everyone other northern member and the clear majorities in the northern state congressional delegations voted "yes" for iron protection. The railroads didn't even make a dent in the vote. This is because the tariff's political economy is far more complex than the simple matter of identifying railroad opposition. First, the railroads were outgunned - they were but one single industry while the tariff's backers contained dozens and dozens of industries - iron production, sheep, woollens, textiles, glass, lead, hemp etc. Second, the protectionists made conscious moves to placate the railroads by packaging their tariff with "internal improvements" and land grant bills that the railroads wanted. These perks often more than offset the tariff losses of having to use domestic iron. So the railroads backed down. Sentences suggesting the north was closely divided (and it wasn't - the congressional vote in the north was almost unanimous) because of railroad interests should not be reinserted.
  2. "Anaylsis" of southern debates - Rjensen has claimed many times that "analysis" of southern debates by "historians" shows that the tariff was barely even discussed at all prior to the war. All of this "analysis" is really his own. The books he cites are all document collections such as Wakelyn, but the authors of those books did not tally tariff references in a systematic scholarly study. Rjensen tallied them by hand using an amateur methodology of his own design and biases. It's bad enough to try to add personal research into the article because Wikipedia prohibits this with WP:NOR. Worse though, I quickly exposed several glaring errors in Rjensen's tallying methods that show he has severely understated the references more than once. This claim should not be reinserted either.
  3. Anonymous "historians" - Whenever Rjensen wants to state an opinion about the tariff in the article he attributes it to an anonymous collective of "historians" or "major scholars." I've asked him to name them and give a citation for this group of "historians" many times but he never does. In argumentation this practice is called "Argumentum ad Verecundiam anonymous" or appealing to anonymous authorities. It is insufficient to establish proof of what is being claimed. Since the named authorities are all anonymously referenced there is no way to independently cross check them - a violation of Wikipedia citation standards. I also believe Wikipedia considers this practice to be a type of weasil word usage.
  4. Tariff of 1857 - Rjensen has repeatedly suggested that northern support for the Tariff of 1857 meant it went away as an issue. He refers to Stampp, who mentioned that northerners also backed the bill at the time, then interprets this to support his claim about 1860. This is a historically uninformed claim though, and one I've corrected many times. Some northerners supported the 1857 Tariff reduction (but by no means all - Justin Morrill certainly didn't). The ones that did did so because for two interconnected reasons: (1) it lowered the tariff on raw material inputs for their production, and (2) the protectionists at the time were in political disarray with the breakup of the Whigs and completely out of power. Some northern factories accordingly settled for second best to protection, which was a tax cut on their inputs. This all changed after the Panic of 1857 though. Protectionists seized on the Panic as political red meat. They blamed the recent tariff cuts for it, and within a year they became an organized force in Congress again. By the 1859 lame duck session they were powerful enough to propose the Morrill Tariff. The protectionists picked up enough seats by in the next Congress that they were able to pass it by the House (remember - in the Constitution tax bills must start in the House) on May 10, 1860. And in 1860 they made it a campaign issue. When the protectionists were organized again the northeastern industries that backed the 1857 reductions jumped over to the Morrill Tariff and gave it their support. When congress voted every northern state was in favor.
  5. Pennsylvania - Rjensen keeps portraying Pennsylvania as the lone source of protectionism in 1860. First off, this defies common sense - if only PA wanted a tariff then where did the bill come from? One state alone isn't enough to pass a bill. This simplistic claim is also historically uninformed. Pennsylvania was assuredly the most vocal tariff state with advocates like Henry Carey and mill-owner Thaddeus Stevens backing the bill, but it was far from alone in its advocacy. Massachusetts textile factories also supported it, as did their congressmen. So did Vermont sheep farmers (including Justin Morrill himself) who wanted tariffs on wool. The Senate's most vocal supporter was James Simmons of Rhode Island - owner of one of the largest woollens and yarn mills in the country. New England glassmakers also gave their support. So did New Jersey iron manufacturers, including Thomas Dudley - the chair of the New Jersey Republican Party and author of the GOP's protectionist platform plank in 1860. Industry support came from all over the northeast - not just Pennsylvania. Again, this was directly reflected in the vote on the Morrill Tariff where all those states' congressional delegations gave it a resounding yes.

These and other similar faulty historical claims have no place in this article. I've gone to great length and into great detail to discuss, explain, and document their flaws and to show what actually happened. While I profess no absolute knowledge of this period, I do possess a background that specializes in American trade policy and offer it here to improve the factual accuracy of this article. I believe that my edits have done so on the whole. While again there is always room for continued revision of them and I invite such revision, I get the distinct impression that most of Rjensen's changes are intended to remove and undo my contributions - not to improve upon them. I hope you can accordingly see just how frustrating it is when I put in a sincere effort into improving the article, then Rjensen keeps coming back and reverting to the same erronious rusty old arguments as if nothing at all had changed and no correction had ever been made. I hope for once he will desist, but recent experience tells me this hope is in vain. Sincerely - Tradeeconomist

McPherson spends several pages, beginning on 192, describing the economic tensions between the Republican Party and the South: the Republicans were interested in a higher tariff, homesteads, and public support for schools and agricultural services in the territories; the South was solidly against these, and had been able to defeat them with the help of Northern Democrats, including Buchanan. The South also demanded a federal slave code for the territories, so that slavery could exist there; and they destroyed Douglas's candidacy because he did not support this.
On a deeper level, however, the reason the South's interests were different from so many in the North was slavery. So which is the cause? That's a matter of definition.
I deprecate Rjensen's habit of calling his own opinions the consensus of all historians. Septentrionalis 01:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Discuss military history in Wikipedia at Society for Military History meeting 2007

The Society for Military History is considering a session on Wikipedia at its annual meeting (Frederick Maryland, April 19-22, 2007). Any active editor who would like to be a panelist please contact rjensen@uic.edu Thanks Rjensen 01:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Civil War States

A few weeks ago, I created a page 'Civil War States' that gave a quick and easy reference to which states were on which side, as the article, and its supporting articles, do not make this easy to read. However, it was then redirected to the main article. I believe it should have remained, as it was a quick reference, like the Cassini-Huygens abbreviation page.

Well, in the first place, it should have been American Civil War States because there are many states that have been involved in civil wars beyond the American states. But I looked at your original content before it was redirected and I think redirection was the appropriate action. The main ACW page has a superior treatment of state participation. Hal Jespersen 14:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject American Civil War

WikiProject American Civil War has been proposed at Wikipedia:WikiProject United States and other places. See the discussion at WikiProject Military history/United States military history task force and/or comment|support|oppose|whatever here. Thanks in advance. • CQ 19:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

More economics

Well, Rjensen's back at it again. I left for a couple weeks thinking we had finally settled the key matters of fact about tariffs, but it looks as if the second he realized I was gone Rjensen came back and started restoring the same old inaccurate claims and personal agendas that were there before I worked on this section.

I'd like to address a few matters in particular that I consider especially egregious, and ask that Rjensen be more respectful of these issues in the future. Rjensen:

1. When there's a directly pertinent and documented piece of original source material being used in the article it is NOT okay to simply delete it and replace it with your own personal commentary and opinions saying something different. A case in point is the statement by Robert Barnwell Rhett on the tariff problem. You deleted it and a bunch of other material without any explanation here [6] and falsely described your edit as adding "cites and quotes on tariff."

2. When a well regarded scholarly source is cited to indicate a historical fact about the period, it is NOT okay to simply delete it and replace it with your own personal commentary and opinions saying something different. A case in point is the quotation about antebellum tariff politics by Frank Taussig. Taussig is a highly regarded expert on economic history and the book that quote came from is considered a classic in the field. You deleted it and a bunch of other material without any explanation here [7].

3. When you make an edit that removes significant amount of material from the article and especially material that comes from a cited source, it is NOT okay to use an edit summary that suggests you merely added or clarified something. You do this all the time. See the link in #1 for an example. #2 is another example because you made no mention of deleting Taussig or making other changes. When this is done it's certainly misleading, and probably a borderline case of intentional deception aimed at cloaking the deletion of material you don't personally agree with. If you think you are fooling anybody you're not, so don't do it.

4. It is NOT acceptable to dismiss a historical perspective or theory with unsourced anonymous ad verecundiam attributions to "historians" in general. You also do this all the time, especially when the historical issue being discussed doesn't square with your own personal view. You are not representative of all "historians" nor do you speak on their behalf. The articles here need to be transparent and verifiable, so if you can't give a good source on scholarly consensus you have no basis in claiming it.

5. You're still wrong about the railroad example. Yes, railroads wanted cheaper foreign iron. But they also wanted the government to give them free or cheap land and sponsorship in building new lines. They wanted this latter benefit so much that they were even willing to forgo the cheaper iron via free trade. They did just that in 1860 when the Republicans offered them sponsorship on "internal improvements" projects in exchange for the Morrill Tariff, which is why almost all the northern congressmen including those with railroads in their districts voted FOR the iron protection. It is NOT acceptable to ignore this fact and keep reinserting your own mistaken and simplistic attempt at political economy because you wish to stubbornly cling to it for whatever reason.

These are simple things and they're all matters of common sense and common courtesy. Talk about frustrating... - Tradeeconomist 02:44, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Railroads

Just to take one example: Yes, railroads wanted cheaper foreign iron. But they also wanted the government to give them free or cheap land and sponsorship in building new lines. That is not true. The land grant RR's were new operations created after 1863. The RR's of 1850s wanted low tariffs. Rjensen 03:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
And exactly what do you think the Republicans offered the railroads in 1860 in exchange for the protective tariff plank? That's right. Federal assistance. This was in 1860 GOP platform plank 16: "That a Railroad to the Pacific Ocean is imperatively demanded by the interests of the whole country; that the Federal Government ought to render immediate and efficient aid in its construction." They delivered on that promise a few years later. In exchange the railroad companies shut up about the Morrill Tariff, which is why iron protection got a clear majority out of every single northern state's congressional delegation when the House voted on May 10, 1860. - Tradeeconomist
The GOP offered zero to the existing Railroads of 1860. The transcontinental (Union Pacific/Central Pacific) did not exist in 1861 and did not demand low tariffs. The Pennsylvania, B*O, New York Central, Boston and Maine, Delaware & Hudson, Illinois Central, etc etc did exist, did represent billions in $$$ and did oppose tariffs. Rjensen 04:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

If all the railroads you named opposed tariffs so much, then would you mind telling me which northern congressmen they were able to influence into voting against the Morrill Tariff? If you cannot do so - and I suspect you won't be able to do so given that northern support for the bill was nearly unanimous - then we must conclude that the vaunted free trade influence of the railroads in 1860 was nowhere near what you suggest. You might also want to rethink your claims about the timing of railroad legislation because you are simply mistaken. Here's a partial list of railroad bills introduced in the 36th Congress' first session (1859-60) alone. They include everything from grants to existing railroads to a proposal on the transcontinental railroad.

  • S. 377 "to authorize the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company to extend the Washington branch of their road to the Potomac river, and across the same, by an extension of the present structure known as the Long Bridge"
  • S. 64 "to authorize the extension and use of a branch of the Alexandria, Loudoun, and Hampshire railroad within the city of Georgetown"
  • S. 258 "making a grant of lands in alternate sections to the State of California to aid in the construction of railroads therein"
  • H.R. 812 "to amend an act entitled an act granting public lands, in alternate sections, to the State of Mississippi, to aid in the construction of railroads in said State"
  • S. 167 "for the purpose of aiding in the construction of a line of railroad across that portion of the public domain lying between the Mississippi river and the eastern boundary of the State of California"
  • S. 266 "to extend the provisions of the act of June 3, 1856, to certain lands in Florida, for the benefit of the Girard and Mobile railroad"
  • S. 387 "for the relief of certain actual settlers on land granted to the State of Arkansas for railroad purpose"
  • S. 460 "making a grant of lands in alternate sections to the State of California to aid in construction of railroads therein"
  • S.J.R. 10 "relating to the route of the railroad from Fond du Lac, on Lake Winnebago, in the State of Wisconsin, to Lake Superior"
  • H.R. 287 "granting lands to the Territory of Kansas, in alternate sections, to aid in the construction of a railroad therein"
  • H.R. "granting the right of way and a portion of the public lands to aid in the construction of a railroad from Elwood to Maryville, in the Territory of Kansas"
  • H.R. 646 "to secure contracts and make provision for the safe, certain, and more speedy transportation, by railroad, of mails, troops, munitions of war, military and naval stores, between the Atlantic States and those of the Pacific"
  • H.R. "making a grant of, to the State of Iowa, in alternate sections, to aid in the construction of a railroad in said State"
  • H.R. "granting a preëmption to the State of Iowa, to aid in the construction of the Macgregor, St. Peter's, and Missouri river railroad"
  • H.R. "granting alternate sections of, to aid in the construction of certain railroads in the Territory of Nebraska"

Given the abundance of federal railroad legislation precisely of the character I described in the year I indicated, I humbly await your retraction of the previous claims on this subject that you made, Rjensen. I do not wait with my breath held though, as sadly I fear arrogance will trump intellectual honesty as you continue this particular aspect of the discussion. - Tradeeconomist

Not a single bill to help the northeastern railroads. -- the titles indicate they most for the benefit of the SOUTH, or the territories that did not yet vote. So what is the southern complaint? Rjensen 08:45, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Since when did the B&0, as in the same railroad you named as a northeastern railroad that you incorrectly asserted to have received *no help*, cease to be a northeastern railroad? I'd also appreciate it, Rjensen, if you did not edit my posts as you did above. Your comments should be posted independently, thus I have removed your appended "help south" postings above (which is also incidentally misleading - Southern railroads used locomotives and rail constructed in the north and midwest). You might also want to note that, as I indicated, the bills above are only a partial list from the 36th Congress 1st session. The list covers barely even half of the railroad bills filed that session alone. A couple more railroad bills that you previously denied the existence of from the 1859 and 1860 sessions:

  • S. 527 "granting public lands and a loan of the credit of the Government to the People's Pacific Railroad Company, to aid in the construction of a railroad from the Missouri river to San Francisco, on the Pacific coast, and the same to aid in the construction of the northern and southern"
  • H.R. 241 "in relation to a railroad along Pennsylvania avenue, in the city of Washington"
  • S. 583 "to authorize the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company to extend the Washington branch of their road through a tunnel east of the Capitol, to some point on the water from Third street east to Seventh street west, exclusive of the public grounds"
  • S. 263 "granting the right of way over, and depot grounds on, the military reserve at, in the State of Michigan, for railroad purposes"
  • S. 552 "making a grant of land in alternate sections to the Territory of Nebraska for the construction of a railroad"
  • S.J.R. 78 "to enable certain railroad companies in Kansas to procure the right of way"
  • S. "bill to authorize the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint three engineers-in-chief, with assistants, to report locations of railroads to the Pacific Ocean and Puget Sound, upon these routes, with estimates of the cost of each"
  • S. "for the relief of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad Company"
  • S. 596 "to authorize the enrollment, registry, and license of certain, or vessels owned by the Buffalo and Lake Huron Railroad Company"
  • H.R. "to grant to the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Company, and to the Metropolitan Railroad Company, five hundred thousand acres each of the public lands, to be located in the Territory of Nebraska, to aid in the completion of said railroads respectively"

In short, Rjensen, you were and remain flat out wrong when you claim the railroads weren't getting federal assistance in exchange for being quiet about the tariff bill. The facts simply don't support your version of history, no matter how many times you try to cloak your amateurish and uninformed viewpoint in the language of anonymously attributed historical consensus. With continued frustration - Tradeeconomist

businessmen & opposition to war

Until about March 1861 many, if not most, northeastern business interests wanted a compromise to avoid war. This radically undercuts the argument that they wanted a war. Stampp (1981) says "the characteristic posture of the conservative northeastern business community was far from antisouthern. Most merchants, bankers, and manufacturers were outspoken in their hostility to antislavery agitation and eager for sectional compromise in order to maintain their profitable business connections with the South. The conclusion seems inescapable that if economic differences, real though they were, had been all that troubled relations between North and South, there would be no substantial basis for the idea of an irrepressible conflict." Donald (2002) p 157 says "important northeastern business interests that had earlier favored compromise" became prowar in March 1861. Philip S. Foner, Business and Slavery: The New York Merchants and the Irrepressible Conflict ( Chapel Hill, 1941), shows most were anti-war. McPherson Battle Cry p 247: "New York merchants and Democrats with ties to the South were talking of setting up as a free city. A prominent New York lawyer secretly informed railroad president George B. McClellan in December 1860 that "when secession is fairly inaugurated at the South, we mean to do a little of the same business here & cut loose from the fanactics of New England & of the North generally, including most of our own State." In January 1861 Mayor Fernando Wood brought this matter into the open with a message to the aldermen advocating the secession of New York City." McPherson p 253: "Despite the one-sided nature of this[Crittenden] "compromise," some Republican businessmen who feared that a secession panic on Wall Street might deepen into another depression urged party leaders to accept it." from The Greatest Nation of the Earth: Republican Economic Policies during the Civil War by Heather Cox Richardson 1997. Page 35. p. 35: "While many wealthy Democrats from the city voiced their opposition to the war, Union newspapers noted that key financiers were talking with Jefferson Davis and offering to float Confederate bonds. During the war, radical newspaper editor Horace Greeley lamented that Cornelius Vanderbilt's son "is about the only rich man's son among us who is a Republican." from The New York City Draft Riots: by Iver Bernstein - 1990. Page 143-4: "The common commitment of many New York merchants and Southern leaders to free trade and white supremacy made the political choices of the secession winter of 1860-61 especially difficult. The plan for New York City to secede from the Union as a free-trade republic, publicized by Fernando Wood in a January 1860 speech to the Common Council, was debated openly by some Democratic merchants and considered privately by many....President Buchanan also saw the secession of New York City as a real possibility and sought to reassure New York friends concerned for their commercial future. ...there were indeed prominent Democratic merchants who entertained the idea of New York as a free city in the context of a generalized and peaceable breakup of the Union. The high-duty Morrill Tariff rushed through the new Republican Congress and the free-trade provision of the Confederate Constitution fur- ther caused some merchants to wonder whether the Republican North would have the city's best interests at heart. more." On the widespread merchant opposition to the high-duty Morrill tariff bill of 1861, see Philip Foner, Business and Slavery: The New York Merchants and the Irrepressible Conflict ( Chapel Hill, 1941), 261-84. from Siddali, "The Sport of Folly and the Prize of Treason": Confederate Property Seizures and the Northern Home Front in the Secession Crisis " in Civil War History, Vol. 47, 2001 "Businessmen feared that they would bear the brunt of war because they stood to lose the most and because they no doubt would have to pay the costs." Lots of evidence that businessmen were not advocates of war and indeed many favored close ties to the South. Rjensen 08:40, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Rjensen seems to be playing games with words here. I did not ask for evidence of merchant opposition to the Morrill Tariff. Since merchants are in the business of carrying goods, they typically favor policies that increase trade between nations. Thus their opposition to a protective measure like the Morrill Tariff was never really in question, nor would their opposition to the war on trade grounds be an issue. Rjensen claimed earlier, however, that northeastern business in general opposed the war - not simply merchants. In reality many northeastern businesses - as in wool, yarn, and cotton mills, iron producers, ironware producers, glassmakers, and dozens of other similarly protected industries - supported and clamored for the war as soon as they realized secession was undermining their tariff protection. One case in point is Senator James F. Simmons of Rhode Island. He was one of the wealthiest men in the Senate and owned one of New England's largest yarn factories. He was also a vocal pro-war Republican, particularly after he realized that the Morrill Tariff bill he personally carried through the Senate would be threatened by secession. - Tradeeconomist
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