It’s likely difficult for many of us — and nearly impossible for younger generations — to imagine a world without air conditioning, refrigeration, and amply-filled grocery stores. Which is nothing to say of a life without the Internet, smartphones, and Amazon.
Consider for a moment that just over a hundred years ago, many Americans didn’t live to see their fiftieth birthday — and the most common cause of death was dysentery.
To truly understand any historical event, one must study it within the proper context — what is commonly referred to as “contextualization.” But as generation after generation pass, we internalize notions about why people behaved the way they did in the past.
And often, we interpret stories of events through the lens of popular culture — many of which are not entirely accurate.
Plausible enough until I read a couple of books by Charles Adams, a tax historian and author from New England — hardly a Southern extremist with an ax to grind.
Furthermore, Lincoln promised to enforce the fugitive slave laws as president — laws passed by Congress in 1793 and 1850 to provide for the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another state or territory.
It’s too easy to assign blame for the Civil War on the South and slavery — and intellectually lazy.
In 1860, nearly all federal tax revenue was generated by tariffs — there were no personal or corporate income taxes. And the Southern states were paying the majority (approximately eighty percent) of the tariffs with an impending new tariff that would nearly triple the rate of taxation.
More tariffs in 1842 and 1857 along with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision worked to further divide the country. In May of 1860, the House of Representatives passed the Morrill Tariff Bill, the twelfth of seventeen planks in the platform of the incoming Republican Party — and a priority for the soon-to-be-elected new president.
Perhaps his views changed between his time in Congress and becoming president. But it’s doubtful given his involvement in the creation of the state of West Virginia during the Civil War, which provided his party additional electoral votes and congressional representation — an act Lincoln’s own attorney general believed was unconstitutional.
Even though he was elected president, he had done so with almost no support from the South and less than forty percent of the popular vote. And in a move that many refer to as “political genius,” Lincoln appointed his political rivals to cabinet positions, ostensibly to destroy enemies by making them friends — a move that would lead to disloyalty and backroom drama.
Meanwhile, the South was moving forward to organize as a new nation. On February 8, 1861, the Confederate States of America (CSA) was formed and inaugurated Jefferson Davis as its president. There was, it seemed, no way to remedy the secession issue and its associated financial stress on the North — except by forcing the South to rejoin the Union.
From all outward accounts, Lincoln wanted a war with the South — some might say he needed it — and that’s what he got. The loss of tax revenues from the Southern ports would not go unpunished as he promised in his inaugural address.
I recommend Those Dirty Rotten Taxes: The Tax Revolts that Built America and When in the Course of Human Events by Charles Adams. Also, The Real Lincoln by Thomas J. Dilorenzo.
Designer, writer, contrarian, photographer, and connoisseur of bourbon.