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Web posted June 21, 1997

Editor, The Chronicle:

This is in reference to poor George Russell Lumpkin's apologetic nonsense which begins, ``I am Southern to the bone, but...'' (letter, June 9). In five pseudo-historical paragraphs, he brushes away all the causes of the War Between the States, settling on one: The vile, wicked Southerners were so full of hate and meanness that the Yankee army had to come down here and kill a quarter million of us to take the world one more step toward Utopia. He has learned well at the Northern trough of political correctness....

From the joining together of the colonies in 1789, there was a major difference between the Northern and Southern colonies, both in demographic makeup and in economic goals....

The Tariff Act of 1816 placed a 25 percent duty on all manufactured goods. If the Southern farmer chose to buy his machinery from England, he would have to pay 25 percent more for it. The tariff of 1824 increased the duty to 33‰ percent. The next year the price of cotton in Europe fell from 32 cents a pound to 13 cents a pound. Each time a tariff took effect, the South was punished twice, first in purchasing power and second, in selling power.

On Dec. 21, 1827, the South Carolina Legislature denounced the passage of such laws by the U.S. Congress as a ``usurpation of the rights of the state.'' Despite this protest the tariff of 1828 raised the duty to 50 percent. That's hard to believe even by today's tax and spend standards. On Dec. 27, 1830, South Carolina made a formal declaration of the states' rights principles, and enacted an ordinance to nullify the operation of tariff acts of Congress....

Southern states suffered under this type of South-bashing legislation for three more decades when a new pro-tariff Republican Party ran Abraham Lincoln as its candidate. Winning only 40 percent of the popular vote (sound familiar?) he stumbled into office and one of his first pieces of legislation was the signing of the Morrill Tariff Act. The Southern states canceled their contracts with the Union, saying ``we've taken our beating long enough - we're going it on our own.'' It is interesting to note that the Constitution of the Confederate States of America guaranteed free trade and forbade the levying of tariffs.

The War Between the States was not fought over slavery (and it really wasn't fought over states' rights or the tariff). The result of the prohibitive tariffs was secession. The war was fought because the United States could not afford to lose a part of the country that was so politically helpless and so economically valuable.

Glenn Dedmondt, Johnston