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Posts:
3,543
From:
Monticello
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1/15/07
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(1 of 7)
Were the tariffs illegal?
Nov 3, 2009 8:00 AM
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The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
USC, Article I, Section I.
The phrases "common Defence and geneal Welfare of the United States," as well as the term "uniform," is explicit.
However the North clearly used taxes almost exclusively as a means to transfer wealth from the Southern states, via non-uniform taxes deliberately legislated to disprportionately target the South, as well as special-interest rent-seeking by the North in order to increase overall taxes, and squander them on politicaly-active groups seeking graft-kickbacks, subsidies, specialized tax-breaks, and other handouts.
And when this failed in 1833 under the tax-protest of Nullification, the North began rationalizing slavery as an excuse to continue their twisting the law to redistribute and plunder wealth, in order to gain congressional hegemony by attracting abolitionists to their movement, while illegally blocking the South from gaining ground in contrast.
This is without a doubt why the southern states seceded, i.e. due to the illegal tax-scheme designed to rob the South of its rightful wealth via organized bureacratic pillaging; and slavery was simply a deceptive political lever.
This clearly violated the original terms of the constitutional compact among the states; and the North's continued breaches of good faith irrefutably dissolved any and all compactual obligations between them.
This is clear from a purely objective view, even leaving aside the fact that every state is and was a sovereign nation by original understanding and law.
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Posts:
7,583
From:
MD
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4/25/00
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(2 of 7)
Re: Were the tariffs illegal?
Nov 3, 2009 9:27 AM
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"This is without a doubt why the southern states seceded, i.e. due to the illegal tax-scheme designed to rob the South of its rightful wealth via organized bureacratic pillaging; and slavery was simply a deceptive political lever. "
Brian,
Would it be asking too much for a hint as to where we can find a reference to this "illegal tax-scheme" as to what it was, where and when it happened.
The duty imposed on an imported article was exactly the same in Portland, ME, NYC, Baltimore, Richmond, VA, Charleston, SC, New Orleans, San Francisco and all other customs districts. Some so-called economic experts have incorrectly asserted that locally imposed wharvage fees and other harbor use fees were somehow connected to customs duties. This was/is not true it was simply locally imposed fees to cover port operation fees such as dredging, maintenence and differ from port to port, depending on cost of operation.
The Port of NY, for example had relatively low fees because of high vessel entrances and exits gave a fast turnover of wharf facilities and the deep and fast moving East River, where sailing ships entered NY, was self-dredging while some ports, such as Charleston, had relatively high dredging costs and vessel turnover was slower than NY in many ports.
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Brgds,
Pat
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Posts:
3,543
From:
Monticello
Registered:
1/15/07
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(3 of 7)
Re: Were the tariffs illegal?
Nov 3, 2009 1:55 PM
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This is without a doubt why the southern states seceded, i.e. due to the illegal tax-scheme designed to rob the South of its rightful wealth via organized bureacratic pillaging; and slavery was simply a deceptive political lever. "
>>Brian,
Would it be asking too much for a hint as to where we can find a reference to this "illegal tax-scheme" as to what it was, where and when it happened.
I told you: it was a movement among the Northern states and Republicans to redistribute privately owned wealth from the economies of the southern states, to northern economies and special-interests.
>> The duty imposed on an imported article was exactly the same in Portland, ME, NYC, Baltimore, Richmond, VA, Charleston, SC, New Orleans, San Francisco and all other customs districts.
But duties were not the ONLY taxes mentioned: the Constitution also mentions Imposts and Excises.
Likewise, such must be imposed SOLELY for the COMMON DEFENSE AND THE GENERAL WELFARE-- NOT for the betterment of local or special-interests.
NOR could duties be imposed for the purposes of protecting select special-interests from foreign competition.
At the time of the war, 95% of taxes were paid by duties; likewise these duties were not truly "uniform" in the sense of being flat-tariffs on all imports-- but on the contrary they were deliberately targeted with selective ear-marks on various goods, as imposed by the majority in the Congressional legislature for partisan benefit.
This greatly shifted overall tax-burdens disproportinoately to the southern states, likewise for non-defense and non-general welfare benefits to the North, at southern expense.
At one point, 80% of the overall tax-burden was shouldered by the Southern states, despite having only some 25% of the population, and less than that of the overall wealth.
Do you REALLY think that this was part of the original bargain between the states? Or do you think it's a poker-game where "majority deals" with a marked deck?
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Posts:
7,583
From:
MD
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(4 of 7)
Re: Were the tariffs illegal?
Nov 3, 2009 4:59 PM
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> This is without a doubt why the southern states
> seceded, i.e. due to the illegal tax-scheme designed
> to rob the South of its rightful wealth via organized
> bureacratic pillaging; and slavery was simply a
> deceptive political lever. "
>
> >>Brian,
> Would it be asking too much for a hint as to where we
> can find a reference to this "illegal tax-scheme" as
> to what it was, where and when it happened.
>
> I told you: it was a movement among the Northern
> states and Republicans to redistribute privately
> owned wealth from the economies of the southern
> states, to northern economies and special-interests.
>
In other words, you have no source than your imagination.
>
> >> The duty imposed on an imported article was
> exactly the same in Portland, ME, NYC, Baltimore,
> Richmond, VA, Charleston, SC, New Orleans, San
> Francisco and all other customs districts.
>
> But duties were not the ONLY taxes mentioned: the
> Constitution also mentions Imposts and Excises.
> Likewise, such must be imposed SOLELY for the COMMON
> DEFENSE AND THE GENERAL WELFARE-- NOT for the
> betterment of local or special-interests.
>
> NOR could duties be imposed for the purposes of
> protecting select special-interests from foreign
> competition.
Could you share some of these "imposts and excises" that unduly affected the south? Roads, defense, etc are not "general welfare"?
>
> At the time of the war, 95% of taxes were paid by
> duties; likewise these duties were not truly
> "uniform" in the sense of being flat-tariffs on all
> imports-- but on the contrary they were deliberately
> targeted with selective ear-marks on various goods,
> as imposed by the majority in the Congressional
> legislature for partisan benefit.
>
> This greatly shifted overall tax-burdens
> disproportinoately to the southern states, likewise
> for non-defense and non-general welfare benefits to
> the North, at southern expense.
> At one point, 80% of the overall tax-burden was
> shouldered by the Southern states, despite having
> only some 25% of the population, and less than that
> of the overall wealth.
>
Since the duty was paid in the North, mostly NYC, it was these Northern states that paid the taxes. With 25% of the population the southern ports paid less than 10% of the customs duties. Do you have any evidence to prove otherwise?
There is no evidence that an undue amount of the imported goods, beyond demographics went south.
> Do you REALLY think that this was part of the
> original bargain between the states? Or do you think
> it's a poker-game where "majority deals" with a
> marked deck?
I think it was fair. The south did not pay more per capita, excluding slaves, than any other part of the country on customs duties. The "imposts and excises" is, in a phrase Brian loves, a red herring.
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Brgds,
Pat
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Posts:
1,901
Registered:
11/14/07
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(5 of 7)
Re: Were the tariffs illegal?
Nov 3, 2009 10:23 PM
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Brian states above:
> "This is without a doubt why the southern states
> seceded, i.e. due to the illegal tax-scheme designed
> to rob the South of its rightful wealth via organized
> bureacratic pillaging; and slavery was simply a
> deceptive political lever. "
From American Taxation, American Slavery, pg. 168-169:
"I should emphasize that the argument that everyone knew that the impost or tariff would fund the federal government is not based solely on a few snippets from the Constitutional Convention. The experience of the founders-to-be from 1776 on had demonstrated that other forms of funding were wildly impractical and contentious (e.g. land valuation) or promptly provoked nasty arguments about slavery (e.g. poll taxes).
That experience ultimately led to the realization that the impost (tariff) was the perfect federal tax. It was easily administered and collected, requiring no cumbersome and intrusive machinery to value property and equalize those values. It was largely invisible to ordinary citizens, and the argument could always be made that payment of the tax was voluntary--if you don't want to pay it, don't buy imported goods. And for similar reasons, it was impossible to know who exactly was bearing the tax or whether the citizens of particular States were bearing an undue portion, eliminating State claims of unfairness."
The whole reason for the creation of the tariff as a system of taxation to operate the US government was to eliminate arguments over cash collection by other means and to prevent those 'nasty' arguments about slavery.
Unionblue
--
Belief does not make truth.
Evidence makes truth.
And belief does not make evidence.
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Posts:
1,901
Registered:
11/14/07
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(6 of 7)
Re: Were the tariffs illegal?
Nov 3, 2009 10:38 PM
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Tariffs were legal, as both the North and the South representatives in Congress voted for increases or reductions in tariff rates, right up until the Civil War.
Tthey just were not a primary source of contention nor a cause for the Civil War.
"Higer taxes on imports had never been lowcountry Nullifiers' cardinal obsession, not even back when they nullified the tariffs of 1828 and 1832. Federal tax policy slid further down the totem pole of grievances in 1860. True, William Porcher Miles on occasion called new taxes the worst Lincolnian menace. So too, Robert Barnwell Rhett demanded that high tariffs be brought front and center, when the South Carolina secession convention presented its rationale for disunion.
But most lowcountry arguments for secession barely mentioned tariffs. As an economic threat, potentially higher taxes were but a hangnail compared to the potential confiscation of tens of millions of dollars in slave property--comprising more dollars invested per white citizen in the lowcountry than anywhere else in the South. Since the gentry could not imagine rice cultivation without slaves, gentlemen thought emancipation would also lose them more tens of millions of dollars in improved land--again, a more costly investment than planters elsewhere held at risk. So from a narrowly pecuniary viewpoint, secessionists considered the slavery issue far more important than the tariff issue--and slavery involved far more than economics. Without slavery's race control, trembled lowcountrymen, the blackest population in the South would annihilate white society (including its economy)."
{William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion, Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861, pg. 366)
Unionblue
--
Belief does not make truth.
Evidence makes truth.
And belief does not make evidence.
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(7 of 7)
Re: Were the tariffs illegal?
Nov 3, 2009 10:58 PM
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Here is another article that does a good job discussing the ante-bellum Southern economy:
"During this period, the vast majority of Southern imports and exports were routed through New York. Had the South imported from abroad as much as the North and West, there could have been no sensible reason for such a detour: Southern ships could trade directly to Europe. But direct trade with Europe was not possible. The greater part of goods imported into the South originated from the West, not from Europe. Although the South depended upon Europe as well as the North for manufactured goods, its imports from Europe were smaller in value than imports into the North and West and smaller in bulk than the staples it exported. Thus, if the ships carrying cotton had sailed from Southern ports direct to Europe and back, they would have had to return in ballast. New York and New England's domination of the Southern market was therefore not accidental (Genovese 160).
The South also had little hope of increasing European imports to balance the trade to make it possible to trade directly with Europe. The reason for the inability to raise imports is the same reason for the South's limited industry: restricted Southern demand. The Southern cotton, iron, paper, wool, and railroad industries struggled because there was a low level of Southern patronage: the opinion of the editor of the Southern Agriculturalist in 1828, that the South lacked sufficient customers to sustain a high level of manufacturing, echoed throughout the antebellum period. Small demand therefore not only crippled the South's economy by hindering manufacturing and industrialization, but also by forcing foreign trade to be conducted through the North because direct trade was rendered severely unprofitable (Genovese 160-1).
Contrary to the opinions of many historians, the low-level of Southern demand cannot be blamed primarily on plantation self-sufficiency, since manuscripts show that plantations frequently required outside services. The root of insufficient demand can be found in the South's population. The rural, poverty-stricken majority was composed of slaves, subsistence farmers, and poor whites. Also, the population of the South was very small compared to that of the North. If Maryland, in which slavery was declining, and Delaware, which was a slave state in name alone, are excluded, the median population per square mile in the slave states was 18, and Kentucky was high with 31. In comparison, Massachusetts had a population of 158 per square mile; Rhode Island, 138; Connecticut, 98; New York, 84; New Jersey 81; and so forth. In the West, Ohio had 59; Indiana, 40; and illinois, 31 (Genovese 161-3)."
The entire article may be viewed here:
http://cghs.dadeschools.net/slavery/white_south/market.htm
Unionblue
--
Belief does not make truth.
Evidence makes truth.
And belief does not make evidence.
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