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Re: Morrill Tariff (LONG)
In Response To: Re: Morrill Tariff (LONG) ()

"...This scheme...The South would get the best of the bargain. Its geographical position was the more favorable for national aggrandizement, and it would secure an undivided property in those desirable reversion which have been thought to contain the "manifest destiny" of America. Not only the spacious and fertile districts of the Southwest, but the provinces of the Isthmus, might be numbered among its private expectations. It would escape, too, the annoyances of the restrictive tariffs imposed upon it for the exclusive benefit of the North....

...Nor has the policy of the North been in any degree less suicidal. If anything, indeed, could have justified the revolt of the South it would have been the unscrupulous selfishness exemplified in the new Tarriff. Thinking to turn public strife to purposes of private gain, the representatives of the Northern interests seized an opportunity of enacting a Tariff for the enrichment of a few manufacuturers and ironmasters at the expense of the whole country. In so doing they have simply played into the hands of the seceders, and that, in all human probability, without even the compensation for which they were looking. It is perfectly certain that they have justified the arguments leveled by Southern statesmen against their exclusive and anti-social spirit. it is equally certain that they have alienated the feelings of European trade, but it is by no means so certain that they have contrived to exclude from American markets the goods which, to the great advantage of the American people, we have hitherto sent there. The South in this respect might have given them a timely warning....

...In the politics of the world, the two jealous, if not hostile, sections of the Union will now neutralize each other. In the trade of the world, they will both be losers together. The South has destroyed its own monopoly by forcing it s customers to create a rival commerce; and the North, though it will not succeed in depriving its citizens of the most needful commodities, will have driven away a productive trade from its harbors. The new President might well ask in his Inaugural Address whether anything of which the States of the Union complained was likely to be mended by their separation." 'The American Question, The Mistaken Policy of the Two Governments' London Times, March 22, 1861.

No mention of slavery in the entire article.

_____________________
David Upton

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