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Re: Disunion reasons shift...
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George --

It's not reasonable to discuss antebellum politics in terms of North and South. The controversy over nullification involved President Andrew Jackson, a plantation owner from Tennessee, and Senator Calhoun and other leaders from South Carolina. Whigs favored a high protective tariff, a measure opposed by most Democrats, North and South.

The full package sponsored by Whigs (and their successors, the Republicans) could not be enacted until the Civil War and later. Absence of Southern congressman who would have opposed many of these measures made passage of measures favored by Whigs much easier.

An excellent discussion of the high protective tariff and how it benefited Northern industry during the decades following the war can be found in Michael Lind, What Lincoln Believed: The Values and Convictions of America's Greatest President. As Lind mentions Pat Buchanan as the best-known politician of our day to support a high tariff. However, President Obama supports a 35% tariff rate on imported tires, so that kind of economic thinking still exists today.

My copy of What Lincoln Believed came from Square Books in Oxford MS. Prior to reading Lind's book, my understanding of Lincoln and the way his policies changed the course of the United States was decidedly limited.

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Southern Secession Movements
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Disunion reasons shift...
Re: Disunion reasons shift...
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Re: Disunion reasons shift...
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Re: Disunion reasons shift...
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Re: Disunion reasons shift...