Would it be weird for a non-white person to fly the Confederate flag? (to live in, moving to)

[mark9989]

Still continuing the Northern tariffs. It's my understanding it was imposed to benefit northern industrial interests by subsidizing their production through public works. But it had the effect of forcing the South to pay more for manufactured goods and disproportionately taxing it to support the central government. It also injured the south’s trading relations with other parts of the world.
I thought the south was paying just a few years or leading up to the war about 87 percent of federal tariff revenue? basically, the South as a region was being reduced to a slave status, with the federal government as its master.

Isnt another reason for secession was he fact that Lincoln promised not to interfere with slavery, but he did pledge to collect the duties and imposts? Wasnt he was the leading advocate of the tariff and a public works policy?

Before the war, Lincoln himself had pledged to leave slavery intact, to enforce the fugitive slaves laws, and to support an amendment that would forever guarantee slavery where it then existed. I think the "hot button" issue for the south, or at least the deep south, was the fugitive slave laws, and the norths effort to bar slavery from new territories. Am I completely wrong here? I guess it depends on where you went to school and who's the author of the book you read.

[djmilf]

The thing about tariffs is that they are taxes on goods imported from outside the country. Various tariffs taxed various things in the history of the United States, sometimes to the benefit of the northern industrialists at the expense of everyone else; other times to the benefit of nearly every body except a few select industries. And tariffs do increase the price of imported goods, allowing domestic manufacturers to have higher prices due to less price competition from abroad.

The other thing about tariffs is that they were one of the few means by which the Federal government in the first half of the 1800's could raise funds to pay for defending the country, running the central government, and paying off the bonds issued by the government. Governments need money in order to operate.

The statement about the South paying 87% of the federal tariff revenues, while possibly and/or probably true, sounds a little off to me.

As of 1860 there were about 9 million people in the southern states that made up the Confederacy, including roughly 4 million blacks, most of them slaves. At the same time there were 22 million people in the Union. Assuming that the slave population wasn't purchasing imported goods, that leaves about 5 million Southerners to pay 87% of the federal tariff revenues.

What about the 22 million Northerners? Weren't they also affected by the tariffs? The industrializing North East might accept the tariffs because they could see a benefit in their expanding manufacturing trade. But there were more than 8 million people in the Midwest, nearly all of whom were farmers. These Midwesterners would also be affected by any tariff on imported manufactured goods, just as the Southerners were.

Just what were the 5 million Southerners purchasing that the 18 million Northerners weren't? The only answer that I can come up with (and it is entirely conjecture) is that the Southerners must have been purchasing their manufactured goods almost exclusively from Europe while the Northerners were purchasing their manufactured goods almost exclusively from the Northeast.

What were Southerners buying from Europe that they couldn't/wouldn't buy from the Northeast? What were Northerners not buying from Europe that the Southerners were buying?

[mark9989]

Very good questions to ponder. I always heard that the south did buy most of their manufactured goods from europe. Im sure there's an explanation for this. Im just too lazy at this particular moment to look it up.

[Colddiamond102]

Originally Posted by TomDot

You forgot one.....they lost under that flag too.

sorry couldn't resist.

And you may go straight to the Blazes, Sir.

[djmilf]

Originally Posted by mark9989

Very good questions to ponder. I always heard that the south did buy most of their manufactured goods from europe. Im sure there's an explanation for this. Im just too lazy at this particular moment to look it up.

I've been thinking and doing some remembering from my high school and college history classes about railroads built in the United States prior to 1860.

I know that the railroads were different between the North and the South, specifically the width between the iron rails (or gauge) of the railways. It was because Southern railroad companies used British built locomotives and cars, while Northern railroads used engines and cars built by New England companies that employed a wider gauge than the British.

I also remember that after the Civil War the Southern rail lines were rebuilt and converted to the wider gauge used in the North. This was done ostensibly to "unify" the nation's rail systems, but it also just happened to make only American built (New England built) locomotives and cars usable on the rail lines in the South. This would have effectively knocked the British out of the locomotive market in the United States.

This would be one example of the difference between the North and the South in the purchasing of domestic versus imported manufactured goods.

[Steve-o]

140+ years after the fact and people still argue about this stuff.

Hilarious.

[djmilf]

Originally Posted by Steve-o

140+ years after the fact and people still argue about this stuff.

Hilarious.

No, just trying to understand it.

[Perfect Stranger]

Tom, I don't know if you're still there, but to be brutally honest, you're an odd fellow who seems to have a desperate need to belong. Now I share many of the valuesd you mention and I suppose some people would call me a conservative on some issues, but I think you're overdoing it. How many threads must you start about the Confederate flag and John Deere (which, as others have pointed out, is a Midwestern company anyway). I think it's rather sad that someone who presumably is a second or third generation American (correct me if I'm wrong) is asking for permission to "hate the Yankees" and needs to adopt a different flag because he thinks the stars and spangles are too liberal for him. You really could do withouth that parochial attitude. I don't to go all pop psychology about it but I'm assuming you're a teenager and you're going through that "not fitting in" phase. I think your issues are more personal than political. Wherever you go you will find people with opposite values. The best way to go about it is being vocal about what you believe in, not becoming some sort of charicature and wearing John Deere hats, which, while I'm not by any means an authority on fashion trends, seems to me it's more a hipster thing that anything else these days.

Eventually if you're really fed up with the place you live in, you can always move. But right now, I'm now i'm going to be a real jerk and a borderline racist, you come across as the kind of guy who would go on a killing spree in a Virginia university.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by Geography Freak

Tom, I don't know if you're still there, but to be brutally honest, you're an odd fellow who seems to have a desperate need to belong. Now I share many of the valuesd you mention and I suppose some people would call me a conservative on some issues, but I think you're overdoing it. How many threads must you start about the Confederate flag and John Deere (which, as others have pointed out, is a Midwestern company anyway). I think it's rather sad that someone who presumably is a second or third generation American (correct me if I'm wrong) is asking for permission to "hate the Yankees" and needs to adopt a different flag because he thinks the stars and spangles are too liberal for him. You really could do withouth that parochial attitude. I don't to go all pop psychology about it but I'm assuming you're a teenager and you're going through that "not fitting in" phase. I think your issues are more personal than political. Wherever you go you will find people with opposite values. The best way to go about it is being vocal about what you believe in, not becoming some sort of charicature and wearing John Deere hats, which, while I'm not by any means an authority on fashion trends, seems to me it's more a hipster thing that anything else these days.

Eventually if you're really fed up with the place you live in, you can always move. But right now, I'm now i'm going to be a real jerk and a borderline racist, you come across as the kind of guy who would go on a killing spree in a Virginia university.

That was indeed very rude and uncalled for.

[grapico]

Yes,

you will see some blacks flying it to basically slap the rest in the face...

I played ball with a big black guy who had a confederate flag on the top inside of his truck.

It has also been used by some black rappers in this way... note MJG and 8ball