Senator William Grayson, one of Virginia’s first United States Senators, expressed concern that the South would eventually become the “milch cow” of the Union!87 Shortly after the American Revolution, the Northern states decided to transfer all state war debts to the federal government. This meant that the federal government would pay the war debts of the states. This would be a windfall for the North because the federal government would obtain the monies to pay the debt by raising tariffs. The result was that the Southern states were required to pay a disproportionate share of the debt. For example, the export of cotton alone from the South in 1859 was valued at $161,434,923. The total export of all goods from the North in 1859 was a mere $78,217,202.88 This differential was in place at the beginning of our political union and continued up to the establishment of an independent South. The Virginia legislature reacted to the proposal to transfer state war debts to the newly created federal government by declaring that, if enacted it would cause “the prostration of agriculture at the feet of commerce, or a change of the present form of federal government, fatal to the existence of American liberty.”89 Nevertheless the effort was successful, and thus began the systematic and “legalized” pilfering of Southern resources disguised by any excuse the numerical majority of the North could frame as necessary for the general welfare.90
In 1828, Senator Thomas H. Benton declared:
Before the Revolution [the South] was the seat of wealth, as well as hospitality. … Wealth has fled from the South, and settled in regions north of the Potomac: and this in the face of the fact, that the South, in four staples alone, has exported produce, since the Revolution, to the value of eight hundred millions of dollars; and the North has exported comparatively nothing. Such an export would indicate unparalleled wealth, but what is the fact? … Under Federal legislation, the exports of the South have been the basis of the Federal revenue. … Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia, may be said to defray three-fourths, of the annual expense of supporting the Federal Government; and of this great sum, annually furnished by them, nothing or next to nothing is returned to them, in the shape of Government expenditures. That expenditure flows in an opposite direction—it flows northwardly, in one uniform, uninterrupted, and perennial stream. This is the reason why wealth disappears from the South and rises up in the North. Federal legislation does all this.91
The Abolitionists claimed that slavery was the cause of the loss of wealth in the South. Professor Jonathan Elliot, a teacher of science at Harvard University, discounted this theory and stated that it was federal legislation in regard to the Tariff Acts that was the culprit.92
A pertinent incident is reported in The Sectional Controversy, written by W. C. Fowler and published in 1864. The author recounted an incident when, fifteen or twenty years previously, he met a friend from his college days who was at that time a prominent Northern member of Congress. The Congressman was leaving a heated meeting regarding abolition and other sectional issues. Fowler asked the Congressman what was the real reason that Northerners were encouraging abolitionist petitions. The Congressman replied, “The real reason is that the South will not let us have a tariff, and we touch them where they will feel it.”93
George Lunt, author of Origin of the Late War, noted,
In 1833 there was a surplus revenue of many millions in the public treasury which by an act of legislation unparalleled in the history of nations was distributed among the Northern States to be used for local public improvements.94
President James Buchanan’s message to Congress declared,
The South had not had her share of money from the treasury, and unjust discrimination had been made against her. …95
When the Northern president Lincoln was asked why the North should not let the South go, his reply was, “Let the South go? Let the South go! Where then shall we get our revenues!”96
Patrick Henry warned the South about placing our faith in the good will of the North when he spoke out against the proposed Constitution:
But I am sure that the dangers of this system [the Federal Constitution] are real, when those who have no similar interest with the people of this country [the South] are to legislate for us—when our dearest rights are to be left, in the hands of those, whose advantage it will be to infringe them.97
It is revealing to read Northern newspaper accounts that document the change in the mood of the North during the first months after the South seceded. At first there appears to be a mood to allow the South to exercise its right of self-determination. Then we begin to see predictions of economic loss if the North allows the ten percent tariff established by the Southern Confederacy to remain in place and to compete with its higher tariff. Some writers have noted that there were predictions that grass would grow in the streets of New York, while the port of New Orleans would flourish.98
The Northern colonies, from the earliest part of the history of the United States, had a great fear of losing their trade in the Western territories. In 1786, John Jay of New York caused an uproar in Congress among the Southern delegates with his attempt to give up rights to the Mississippi River to Spain in exchange for commercial advantages in Spanish ports.99 The great fear of the commercial North was that all or a great part of the commerce west of the Appalachian Mountains would pass through New Orleans and leave the Eastern ports with very little commerce. The North made many efforts early in American history to give control of the land and great rivers of the Mississippi Valley to Spain. This, they believed, would keep American commerce in Northern ports. These efforts are recorded in The New Nation in part by the following:
At the same time they [Northerners] wanted to control the trade of the West, and this would be denied them, they felt, if the Mississippi were open to western trade. They believed that only by closing the river could western commerce be forced eastward across the Mountains.
The political and economic implications of agrarian expansion westward were alarming to certain mercantile interests in the East who feared the loss of their political and economic control of an expanding America.100
This fear of losing its commercial advantages to the states along the Mississippi was a prime factor in the North’s invasion of the South. Just weeks before the firing of the first shots of the war, The New York Times ran story after story about how the commerce of the North would be lost to New Orleans and to the rest of the South because of the low Southern tariff. Northerners even admitted that their reasons for fighting the South were not the result of differences in principles of constitutional law but only because their profits might be lost if the South was successful in its move for independence. On March 30, 1861, The New York Times made the following statement:
The predicament in which both the Government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws, is now thoroughly understood the world over. … If the manufacturer at Manchester [England] can send his goods into the Western States through New Orleans at a less cost than through New York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage. … If the importations of the country are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel. The produce of the West, instead of coming to our own port by millions of tons, to be transported abroad by the same ships through which we received our importations, will seek other routes and other outlets. With the loss of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many hundred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior? They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers. … Once at New Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country duty free. The process is perfectly simple. … The commercial bearing of the question has acted upon the North. … We now see clearly whither we are tending, and the policy we must adopt. With us it is no longer an abstract question—one of Constitutional construction, or of the reserved or delegated power of the State or Federal Government, but of material existence and moral position both at home and abroad. … We
were divided and confused till our pockets were touched.101 [emphases added]
In an earlier article, The New York Times complained about the loss of revenue because the tariffs were no longer being collected in the Southern states. The article bemoans the fact that new loans were needed but could not be guaranteed because the seceded states could not be forced to collect the “National” tariff.102
In an editorial, the Manchester, New Hampshire, Union Democrat had this to say about the loss of its commercial advantages if the North were to “let the South go.”
The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing. The transportation of cotton and its fabrics employs more ships than all other trade. It is very clear that the South gains by this process, and we lose. No—we MUST NOT “let the South go.”103
The New York Evening Post bemoaned the lost of tax dollars if the South was a free and independent nation. In an article titled “What Shall Be Done for a Revenue?” the following statements were made:
That either revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the ports must be closed to importations from abroad, … If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up [emphases added]; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe. … Allow railroad iron to be entered at Savannah with the low duty of ten per cent, which is all that the Southern Confederacy think of laying on imported goods, and not an ounce more would be imported at New York; the railways would be supplied from the southern ports.104
From these statements and the facts already discussed, we can see that the North’s true motive for launching an invasion into the South was not one of high moral principles, but one of greed and fear of economic loss. Thus, Yankee imperialism launched an aggressive campaign to deny the people of the South their right to a government established upon the principle of the consent of the governed:
We hold these truths to be self-evident that … Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. …
YANKEE MYTH
The North Championed the Cause of Equality, Racial Tolerance, and Human Brotherhood
No Yankee myth is more historically ridiculous than the myth of the egalitarian North! Yet, what is the response when you ask the average American what section of the country believed in and fought for human equality? Like the needle on a compass, his finger will automatically point northward, while in the background you will see a slow fade-in of the Lincoln Memorial and hear soft, sweet sounds of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”—ad nauseum!
Alexis de Tocqueville noted the following:
[T]he prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the States that have abolished slaves than in the States where slavery still exists. White carpenters, white bricklayers and white painters will not work side by side with the blacks in the North but do it in almost every Southern State. …105
Was this an ill-formed conclusion, or did it accurately represent the attitude of the Northern people vis-a-vis blacks? To determine this, we need to return to the early days of the nation, to the colonial times when slavery was still practiced in the North.
We will reserve the discussion of the financial reasons that forced the North to discontinue the system of slavery for the next chapter. We will note, however, that, as soon as the supply of white labor in the North became sufficient to reduce the cost of said labor, then and only then did the abolition of slavery become possible. Again, note that it was financial profits and not moral principles that fueled the Yankee’s attitude toward slavery. John Adams of Massachusetts stated that the people would have killed both slave and master had the institution continued.106 Certainly no sense of human brotherhood can be found in his statement. It is also noteworthy that, when Rhode Island passed a law providing for the gradual emancipation of slaves, the law was very carefully written to preclude any interference with the ongoing slave trade that was enriching the state.107
After Northern blacks gained their freedom, they were still viewed as an economic threat to white labor. White laborers of the North resented any competition from blacks. When New Jersey passed a law forbidding the importation of slaves into the state, it noted that it was taking this action “… so that white labor may be protected.”108
The racial bigotry of the Northern population against black workers had the effect of barring blacks from social and economic advancement, thereby contributing to the ever-increasing poverty of free blacks. One commentator of the period stated that free blacks had been better off as slaves.109 Professor McMaster, University of Pennsylvania, stated that “… In spite of their freedom they were a despised, proscrived, and poverty-stricken class.”110
The attitude of the Northern people toward the free black is best described by the authors of William Lloyd Garrison’s biography:
The free colored people were looked upon as an inferior caste to whom their liberty was a curse, and their lot worse than that of the slaves. …111
Not only was entrance into the labor market limited in the North but also the accessibility of education was restricted. Connecticut passed a law declaring that non-resident blacks could not attend public schools because “… it would tend to the great increase of the colored people of the state.”112
The North also passed exclusion laws to forbid free blacks from coming into its states. New Jersey passed one of the first of these laws. It prohibited free blacks from settling in that fair state. Massachusetts passed a law that allowed the flogging of blacks who came into the state and remained for longer than two months.113 In 1853, Indiana’s constitution stated that “… no negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the state… ,”114 Illinois in 1853 enacted a law “… to prevent the immigration of free negroes into this state. …”115
Not satisfied with a mere statute, in 1862, and while its boys in blue were pillaging the South, Illinois passed by overwhelming popular vote an amendment to the state’s constitution declaring that “… No negro or mulatto shall immigrate or settle in this state.”116
Oregon’s 1857 constitution provided that “… No free negro or mulatto, not residing in this state at the time of adoption [of the constitution of the state of Oregon] … shall come, reside, or be within this state… ,”117
It appears that there was a strain of race paranoia in the North that caused Northerners to fear a black peril, as if Northerners thought their fair states would be engulfed by hordes of free black men, women, and children. The Northern president Lincoln attempted to alleviate this fear in his message to Congress, in December of 1862:
But why should emancipation South send free people North? … And in any event cannot the North decide for itself whether to receive them?118
This irrational fear of black people was not a phenomenon that appeared during the war. Northerners’ fear of black political power can be seen in their laws disenfranchising blacks. Remember, these are Northern states disenfranchising their black population even though the ratio of the black population to the white population was relatively insignificant as compared to that in the Southern states. The following is a partial listing of Northern states that barred blacks from voting:
STATE
YEAR BLACKS BARRED FROM VOTING
New Jersey
……… 1807
Connecticut
……… 1814
Rhode Island
……… 1822
Pennsylvania
……… 1838119
The precarious condition of free Northern blacks can be demonstrated by reviewing the declining population figures of Northern blacks. The census for the period of 1790 to 1830 indicates a drop of the free black population of New York from 2.13 percent to 0.57 percent of the total population.120 Similar declines can be seen in other areas of the North. Dr. Edgar McManus
declared that many, if not the larger percentage, had been the victims of kidnappers and “forced migration.” Free blacks were kidnapped and sold into slavery. In New York City alone, in one year, more than thirty-three cases of such kidnapping were revealed.121 The Yankee developed the habit early of selling blacks into slavery and found it to be very lucrative practice and a hard habit to break!
The racist attitude of the North was well established and persisted up to and beyond the war. William H. Seward in 1858 declared that “The white man needs this continent to labor in and must have it.”122
John Sherman, William Tecumseh Sherman’s brother, made this declaration on April 2, 1862:
We do not like the negroes. We do not disguise our dislike. As my friend from Indiana [a Mr. Wright] said yesterday: “The whole people of the Northwestern States are opposed to having many negroes among them and that principle or prejudice has been engraved in the legislation for nearly all the Northwestern States.”123
During the war, when Gen. John A. Dix proposed to remove a number of escaped slaves from Fortress Monroe to Massachusetts, the governor of Massachusetts objected, stating “… the Northern States are of all places the worst possible to select for an asylum for negroes.”124
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