The lost cause mythology

Right said:
Mott the Hoople said:
More lost cause mythology. Lincoln believed no such thing. /QUOTE] Your theory, not backed up his writings.
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It most certainly is. Lincoln on many occasions wrote that as President, and barring a constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery, he had a legal obligation to respect slavery and laws regarding slavery where it was legally and Constitutionally protected.

If you mean he wrote nothing regarding slavery dying on the vine that's true because it wasn't.

Or if you mean it's my theory that slavery wasn't dying in the South...well not hardly. Go check out the primary source data yourself. In 1860 slavery, economically speaking, was doing just fine and was, in fact growing.
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Mott the Hoople said:
Yes I do and I'm sorry but your arguments simply have nothing to do with what caused the War. The Union may have fought to preserve the Union and, at the beginning, was willing to preserve slavery where it legally existed in the south to preserve the Union but the majority of the Nation was not willing to permit slaveries expansion into the territories. It was for this reason the South that chose secession and war.

So I guess if you're trying to make some other point it eludes me.
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Not sure how else to express it, Lincoln did not prosecute the war at the outset, out of any moral concerns, he was purely motivated by taxes. He even said so himself in his inauguration address. I truly believe that if they had seceded then the British and French would have ensured that slavery was phased out as the price of doing business.
 
Corazón said:
Not sure how else to express it, Lincoln did not prosecute the war at the outset, out of any moral concerns, he was purely motivated by taxes. He even said so himself in his inauguration address. I truly believe that if they had seceded then the British and French would have ensured that slavery was phased out as the price of doing business.
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I can only say that is a pretty far fetched extrapolation and has literally nothing to do with points I've made about the lost cause mythogies. The only significant taxation issue during the Civil War was the issue of internal improvements, damns, roads, levees, bridges, etc that Republicans in the north wanted the government to pay for and which Southern Democrats opposed as the primary source of federal tax revenue was from tariffs. That wasn't even remotely a cause of the Civil War and is part of the lost cause mythologies I am debunking. Taxation, though a controversial issue at that time, was not a cause of the Civil War. Slavery was.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I can only say that is a pretty far fetched extrapolation and has literally nothing to do with points I've made about the lost cause mythogies. The only significant taxation issue during the Civil War was the issue of internal improvements, damns, roads, levees, bridges, etc that Republicans in the north wanted the government to pay for and which Southern Democrats opposed as the primary source of federal tax revenue was from tariffs. That wasn't even remotely a cause of the Civil War and is part of the lost cause mythologies I am debunking. Taxation, though a controversial issue at that time, was not a cause of the Civil War. Slavery was.
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I suggest you read this!! To my mind it proves very well the old saw that the winner gets to write the history. I don't have a dog in this fight but it does seem to me that there is a huge amount of mythologising surrounding Lincoln and his motives for war.


When Charles Adams published his book For Good and Evil, a world history of taxation, the most controversial chapter by far was the one on whether or not tariffs caused the American War between the States. That chapter generated so much discussion and debate that Adams's publisher urged him to turn it into an entire book, which he did, in the form of*When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession.

Many of the reviewers of this second book, so confident were they that slavery was the one and only possible reason for both Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency and the war itself, excoriated Adams for his analysis that the tariff issue was a major cause of the war. (Adams recently told me in an email that after one presentation to a New York City audience, he felt lucky that "no one brought a rope.")

My book, The Real Lincoln, has received much the same response with regard to the tariff issue. But there is overwhelming evidence that: 1) Lincoln, a failed one-term congressman, would never have been elected had it not been for his career-long devotion to protectionism; and 2) the 1861 Morrill tariff, which Lincoln was expected to enforce, was the event that triggered Lincoln’s invasion, which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

A very important article that documents in great detail the role of protectionism in Lincoln’s ascendancy to the presidency is Columbia University historian Reinhard H. Luthin's "Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff, "published in the July 1944 issue of The American Historical Review. As I document in The Real Lincoln, the sixteenth president was one of the most ardent protectionists in American politics during the first half of the nineteenth century and had established a long record of supporting protectionism and protectionist candidates in the Whig Party.

In 1860, Pennsylvania was the acknowledged key to success in the presidential election.*It had the second highest number of electoral votes, and Pennsylvania Republicans let it be known that any candidate who wanted the state’s electoral votes must sign on to a high protectionist tariff to benefit the state’s steel and other manufacturing industries.*As Luthin writes, the Morrill tariff bill itself "was sponsored by the Republicans in order to attract votes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey."

The most influential newspaper in Illinois at the time was the Chicago Press and Tribune under the editorship of Joseph Medill, who immediately recognized that favorite son Lincoln had just the protectionist credentials that the Pennsylvanians wanted. He editorialized that Lincoln "was an old Clay Whig, is right on the tariff and he is exactly right on all other issues. Is there any man who could suit Pennsylvania better?"

At the same time, a relative of Lincoln’s by marriage, a Dr. Edward Wallace of Pennsylvania, sounded Lincoln out on the tariff by communicating to Lincoln through his brother, William Wallace. On October 11, 1859, Lincoln wrote Dr. Edward Wallace: "My dear Sir: [Y]our brother, Dr. William S. Wallace, showed me a letter of yours, in which you kindly mention my name, inquire for my tariff view, and suggest the propriety of my writing a letter upon the subject. I was an old Henry Clay-Tariff Whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject than any other. I have not since changed my views" (emphasis added). Lincoln was establishing his bona fides as an ardent protectionist.

At the Republican National Convention in Chicago, the protectionist tariff was a key plank. As Luthin writes, when the protectionist tariff plank was voted in, "The Pennsylvania and New Jersey delegations were terrific in their applause over the tariff resolution, and their hilarity was contagious, finally pervading the whole vast auditorium. Lincoln received "the support of almost the entire Pennsylvania delegation" writes Luthin, "partly through the efforts of doctrinaire protectionists such as Morton McMichael . . . publisher of Philadelphia’s bible of protectionism, the North American newspaper."

Returning victorious to his home of Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln attended a Republican Party rally that included "an immense wagon" bearing a gigantic sign reading "Protection for Home Industry." Lincoln’s (and the Republican Party’s) economic guru, Pennsylvania steel industry publicist/lobbyist Henry C. Carey, declared that without a high protectionist tariff, "Mr. Lincoln’s administration will be dead before the day of inauguration."

The U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Morrill tariff in the 1859-1860 session, and the Senate passed it on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration. President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian who owed much of his own political success to Pennsylvania protectionists, signed it into law. The bill immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent (according to Frank Taussig in Tariff History of the United States) to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items. The tax burden would about triple. Soon thereafter, a second tariff increase would increase the average rate to 47.06 percent, Taussig writes.

So, Lincoln owed everything--his nomination and election--to Northern protectionists, especially the ones in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He was expected to be the enforcer of the Morrill tariff. Understanding all too well that the South Carolina tariff nullifiers had foiled the last attempt to impose a draconian protectionist tariff on the nation When Charles Adams published his book*For Good and Evil, a world history of taxation, the most controversial chapter by far was the one on whether or not tariffs caused the American War between the States.*That chapter generated so much discussion and debate that Adams's publisher urged him to turn it into an entire book, which he did, in the form of*When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession.

Many of the reviewers of this second book, so confident were they that slavery was the one and only possible reason for both Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency and the war itself, excoriated Adams for his analysis that the tariff issue was a major cause of the war.*(Adams recently told me in an email that after one presentation to a New York City audience, he felt lucky that "no one brought a rope.")

My book,*The Real Lincoln, has received much the same response with regard to the tariff issue.*But there is overwhelming evidence that: 1) Lincoln, a failed one-term congressman, would never have been elected had it not been for his career-long devotion to protectionism; and 2) the 1861 Morrill tariff, which Lincoln was expected to enforce, was the event that triggered Lincoln’s invasion, which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

A very important article that documents in great detail the role of protectionism in Lincoln’s ascendancy to the presidency is Columbia University historian Reinhard H. Luthin's "Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff,"*published in the July 1944 issue of*The American Historical Review.*As I document in*The Real Lincoln, the sixteenth president was one of the most ardent protectionists in American politics during the first half of the nineteenth century and had established a long record of supporting protectionism and protectionist candidates in the Whig Party.

In 1860, Pennsylvania was the acknowledged key to success in the presidential election.*It had the second highest number of electoral votes, and Pennsylvania Republicans let it be known that any candidate who wanted the state’s electoral votes must sign on to a high protectionist tariff to benefit the state’s steel and other manufacturing industries.*As Luthin writes, the Morrill tariff bill itself "was sponsored by the Republicans in order to attract votes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey."

The most influential newspaper in Illinois at the time was the*Chicago Press and Tribune*under the editorship of Joseph Medill, who immediately recognized that favorite son Lincoln had just the protectionist credentials that the Pennsylvanians wanted.*He editorialized that Lincoln "was an old Clay Whig, is right on the tariff and he is exactly right on all other issues.*Is there any man who could suit Pennsylvania better?"

At the same time, a relative of Lincoln’s by marriage, a Dr. Edward Wallace of Pennsylvania, sounded Lincoln out on the tariff by communicating to Lincoln through his brother, William Wallace.*On October 11, 1859, Lincoln wrote Dr. Edward Wallace:*"My dear Sir:**[Y]our brother, Dr. William S. Wallace, showed me a letter of yours, in which you kindly mention my name, inquire for my tariff view, and suggest the propriety of my writing a letter upon the subject.*I was an old Henry Clay-Tariff Whig.*In old times*I made more speeches on that subject than any other.*I have not since changed my views"*(emphasis added). Lincoln was establishing his bona fides as an ardent protectionist.

At the Republican National Convention in Chicago, the protectionist tariff was a key plank.*As Luthin writes, when the protectionist tariff plank was voted in, "The Pennsylvania and New Jersey delegations were terrific in their applause over the tariff resolution, and their hilarity was contagious, finally pervading the whole vast auditorium."*Lincoln received "the support of almost the entire Pennsylvania delegation" writes Luthin, "partly through the efforts of doctrinaire protectionists such as Morton McMichael . . . publisher of Philadelphia’s bible of protectionism, the North American*newspaper."

Returning victorious to his home of Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln attended a Republican Party rally that included "an immense wagon" bearing a gigantic sign reading "Protection for Home Industry."*Lincoln’s (and the Republican Party’s) economic guru, Pennsylvania steel industry publicist/lobbyist Henry C. Carey, declared that without a high protectionist tariff, "Mr. Lincoln’s administration will be dead before the day of inauguration."

The U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Morrill tariff in the 1859-1860 session, and the Senate passed it on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln’s inauguration.*President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian who owed much of his own political success to Pennsylvania protectionists, signed it into law.*The bill immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent (according to Frank Taussig in*Tariff History of the United States)*to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items.*The tax burden would about triple.*Soon thereafter, a second tariff increase would increase the average rate to 47.06 percent,*Taussig writes.

So, Lincoln owed everything--his nomination and election--to Northern protectionists, especially the ones in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.*He was expected to be the enforcer of the Morrill tariff.*Understanding all too well that the South Carolina**tariff nullifiers had foiled the last attempt to impose a draconian protectionist tariff on the nation by voting in political convention not to collect the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations," Lincoln literally promised in his first inaugural address a military invasion if the new, tripled tariff rate was not collected.

At the time, Taussig says, the import-dependent South was paying as much as 80 percent of the tariff, while complaining bitterly that most of the revenues were being spent in the North.*The South was being plundered by the tax system and wanted no more of it.*Then along comes Lincoln and the Republicans,*tripling*(!) the rate of tariff taxation (before*the war was an issue).*Lincoln then threw down the gauntlet in his first inaugural:*"The power confided in me," he said, "will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government,*and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion--no using force against, or among the people anywhere"*(emphasis added).

"We are going to make tax slaves out of you," Lincoln was effectively saying, "and if you resist, there will be an invasion."*That was on March 4.*Five weeks later, on April 12, Fort Sumter, a tariff collection point in Charleston Harbor, was bombarded by the Confederates.*No one was hurt or killed, and Lincoln later revealed that he manipulated the Confederates into firing the first shot, which helped generate war fever in the North.

With slavery, Lincoln was conciliatory.*In his first inaugural address, he said he had no intention of disturbing slavery, and he appealed to all his past speeches to any who may have doubted him.*Even if he did, he said, it would be unconstitutional to do so.*

But with the tariff it was different.*He was not about to back down to the South Carolina tariff nullifiers, as Andrew Jackson had done, and was willing to launch an invasion that would ultimately cost the lives of 620,000 Americans to prove his point.*Lincoln’s economic guru, Henry C. Carey, was quite prescient when he wrote to Congressman Justin S. Morrill in mid-1860 that "Nothing less than a dictator is required for making a really good tariff" (p. 614, "Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff").

Voting in political convention not to collect the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations," Lincoln literally promised in his first inaugural address a military invasion if the new, tripled tariff rate was not collected.

At the time, Taussig says, the import-dependent South was paying as much as 80 percent of the tariff, while complaining bitterly that most of the revenues were being spent in the North. The South was being plundered by the tax system and wanted no more of it. Then along comes Lincoln and the Republicans, tripling (!) the rate of tariff taxation (before the war was an issue). Lincoln then threw down the gauntlet in his first inaugural: "The power confided in me," he said, "will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government,and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion--no using force against, or among the people anywhere"(emphasis added).

"We are going to make tax slaves out of you," Lincoln was effectively saying, "and if you resist, there will be an invasion. "That was on March 4. Five weeks later, on April 12, Fort Sumter, a tariff collection point in Charleston Harbor, was bombarded by the Confederates. No one was hurt or killed, and Lincoln later revealed that he manipulated the Confederates into firing the first shot, which helped generate war fever in the North.

With slavery, Lincoln was conciliatory. In his first inaugural address, he said he had no intention of disturbing slavery, and he appealed to all his past speeches to any who may have doubted him. Even if he did, he said, it would be unconstitutional to do so.

But with the tariff it was different. He was not about to back down to the South Carolina tariff nullifiers, as Andrew Jackson had done, and was willing to launch an invasion that would ultimately cost the lives of 620,000 Americans to prove his point. Lincoln’s economic guru, Henry C. Carey, was quite prescient when he wrote to Congressman Justin S. Morrill in mid-1860 that "Nothing less than a dictator is required for making a really good tariff" (p. 614, "Abraham Lincoln and the Tariff").
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https://mises.org/library/lincolns-tariff-war
 
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Corazón said:
I suggest you read this!! To my mind it proves very well the old saw that the winner gets to write the history. I don't have a dog in this fight but it does seem to me that there is a huge amount of mythologising surrounding Lincoln and his motives for war.




https://mises.org/library/lincolns-tariff-war
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Are you kidding me Tom? You're citing a tax attorney and a supply side fundamentalist on history? Tom...let's be clear, the Southern States opposed tariffs because of the cotton trades, were foolishly uninterested in internal developments (that is to say building infrastructure) nor did they have developing industries that they were trying to protect but stating this as a cause of the Civil War has long been a thoroughly debunked notion of the lost cause mythology.

Adams is a fringe writer and an anti-tax ideologue who over emphasizes taxation as a political issue. He is hardly a credible source and even assuming he was you don't need some third party observers to determine what the cause of the Civil War was. You only need to read the article of secession by the States who seceded. The tariffs argument as the cause of the Civil War is the easiest component of the lost cause mythology to refute because of the vast amount of primary documents issued at the time clearly state what the issue that compelled them to War was and defy you to provide a primary source document from the States that unequivocally State that Tarriffs were the reason they seceded.

Adams argument is just plain silly. How silly is it? The Morrill Tarrif was passed after the election of 1860, After most Southern members of congress had resigned office because their States had seceded and was signed into Law by James Buchanan who, despite Adams bizarre claim to the contrary, was notoriously sympathetic to the South. I mean think Tom, given the electoral realities of the time it would have been impossible for Buchanan to have been elected as a Democrat if he had not been strongly sympathetic to the South. Adams claims are nonsense. Yes Lincoln and the GOP were protectionist at that time but in no way did tarriffs compel the South to secede.

Your false premise that Lincoln had a motive for starting the war is also silly and has no basis in fact. Again the primary source documents of the time make it abundantly clear that Lincoln was willing to bend over backwards to compromise on slavery to end secession. So that's simply a silly argument.
 
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Mott the Hoople said:
Are you kidding me Tom? You're citing a tax attorney and a supply side fundamentalist on history? Tom...let's be clear, the Southern States opposed tariffs because of the cotton trades, were foolishly uninterested in internal developments (that is to say building infrastructure) nor did they have developing industries that they were trying to protect but stating this as a cause of the Civil War has long been a thoroughly debunked notion of the lost cause mythology.

Adams is a fringe writer and an anti-tax ideologue who over emphasizes taxation as a political issue. He is hardly a credible source and even assuming he was you don't need some third party observers to determine what the cause of the Civil War was. You only need to read the article of secession by the States who seceded. The tariffs argument as the cause of the Civil War is the easiest component of the lost cause mythology to refute because of the vast amount of primary documents issued at the time clearly state what the issue that compelled them to War was and defy you to provide a primary source document from the States that unequivocally State that Tarriffs were the reason they seceded.
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Yeh like you haven't mentioned the articles of secession a millions times already! I bet you didn't ever read the article but just immediately dismissed it.
 
I never read that Lee was 'the greatest general', just that he surrendered as a gentleman in order to avoid further bloodshed.
 
Corazón said:
Yeh like you haven't mentioned the articles of secession a millions times already! I bet you didn't ever read the article but just immediately dismissed it.
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No actually I did read it, or I wouldn't have referenced the Morrill tariff of Charles Adam. BTW Lincoln also signed one of the most important pieces of legislation in American history, though I'm reasonably sure Adams would have despised it too. Do you know what that act was?
 
Mott the Hoople said:
No actually I did read it, or I wouldn't have referenced the Morrill tariff of Charles Adam. BTW Lincoln also signed one of the most important pieces of legislation in American history, though I'm reasonably sure Adams would have despised it too. Do you know what that act was?
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You are probably talking about the Homestead Act 1862! Then again you might well be referring to the Revenue Act of the same year.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
They are not Tom. The North did not secede. I suggest you read the original documents of succession by the States who actually did secede and who started the shooting. The Union and the Republican Party consistently stated they would not interfere with slavery where it legally existed prior to succession. It wasn't until the second year of the war that slavery was adopted as a primary issue for the Union effort which is meaningless as that had nothing to do with the cause of the Civil War.
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Tom refuses to read them.
 
Right said:
I never read that Lee was 'the greatest general', just that he surrendered as a gentleman in order to avoid further bloodshed.
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That's not exactly correct. That Lee was a gentleman of high character I do not dispute. But Lee did not surrender to stop bloodshed at least not when he should have. After Atlanta fell and Lincoln was re-elected the Confederacy was defeated. Lee could not leave the Petersburg siege with out abandoning Richmond. Grants brilliant Overland campaign had the Army of Northern Virginia trapped at Petersburg, had destroyed the Confederate western army under Hood at Nashville and had the Army of Tennessee penned in Georgia where it was utterly unable to stop Shermans March. The Confederate Armies still in the field were overwhelmed, undermanned, out of supplies and were utterly incapable of defeating the five Union Armies in the field. A situation that Lee was largely responsible for by his grand strategic failures of wasting Confederate manpower through offensive campaigns (that failed) and his single minded focus on the Virginia theatre at the expense of the Western theater of the war where the war was won by the Union.

With the fall of the critical logistics center of Atlanta the Confederacy had lost any hope of winning the war militarily and with Lincoln's reelection any chance for a political solution was gone. The Confederacy was in fact defeated at that time and if Davis and Lee were truly concerned about ending the bloodshed they should have ended the war then by surrendering. They didn't. They continued fighting for six more months at considerable loss of life to both sides when all chances for a Confederate victory were gone.

Now there are those who would blame Jeff Davis for this, and Davis certainly deserves a large measure of blame but Lee was, at that time, Commander in Chief of all CSA Armies and could have ended the bloodshed by surrendering in defiance of Davis when it had become clear the Confederacy had been defeated. Which, I repeat, became clear when Atlanta fell and Lincoln had been re-elected.
 
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Corazón said:
You are probably talking about the Homestead Act 1862! Then again you might well be referring to the Revenue Act of the same year.
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Arrgghhh my apologies. I had meant to say Lincoln had signed another Act with Morrill's name on it. That would have made guessing far easier.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
That's not exactly correct. That Lee was a gentleman of high character I do not dispute. But Lee did not surrender to stop bloodshed at least not when he should have. After Atlanta fell and Lincoln was re-elected the Confederacy was defeated. Lee could not leave the Petersburg siege with out abandoning Richmond. Grants brilliant Overland campaign had the Army of Northern Virginia trapped at Petersburg, had destroyed the Confederate western army under Hood at Nashville and had the Army of Tennessee penned in Georgia where it was utterly unable to stop Shermans March. The Confederate Armies still in the field were overwhelmed, undermanned, out of supplies and were utterly incapable of defeating the five Union Armies in the field. A situation that Lee was largely responsible for by his grand strategic failures of wasting Confederate manpower through offensive campaigns (that failed) and his single minded focus on the Virginia theatre at the expense of the Western theater of the war where the war was won by the Union.

With the fall of the critical logistics center of Atlanta the Confederacy had lost any hope of winning the war militarily and with Lincoln's reelection any chance for a political solution was gone. The Confederacy was in fact defeated at that time and if Davis and Lee were truly concerned about ending the bloodshed they should have ended the war then by surrendering. They didn't. They continued fighting for six more months at considerable loss of life to both sides when all chances for a Confederate victory were gone.

Now there are those who would blame Jeff Davis for this, and Davis certainly deserves a large measure of blame but Lee was, at that time, Commander in Chief of all CSA Armies and could have ended the bloodshed by surrendering in defiance of Davis when it had become clear the Confederacy had been defeated. Which, I repeat, became clear when Atlanta fell and Lincoln had been re-elected.
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This is actually the first time in my life I can remember an obscure message boarder from England lecturing Americans about our history.

I guess if one spends enough time on message boards, they eventually see it all!
 
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