Infrastructure As A Cause

[williamlayton]

We are going to start chaseing a rabbit when we talk about infastructure as a cause in the other thread.
Let me pose the question here.
Joe
What are your thoughts on infastructure--in this case favoritism--as a cause of the war?
Blessings

[subdjoe]

No, willy, I'm not going to play your game of providing targets for you. 

Why don't you tell us why, in your expert opinion, it had nothing at all to do with it.

[Dixie Dude]

I think it did.  Having 4 different gauge rail systems, with limited engines.  Trying to move troops from west to east or vice versa was a major undertaking.  North had more railroads, more engines, and fewer gauges.  With the rail system through Pennsylvania, and command of the Ohio river system, the north could quickly move men and equipment back and forth.  South had the southern Appalacians which are higher than the northern which formed a divide.  North by taking control of the Mississippi river system was able to divide the south by 1863.  It was all downhill from there. 

[williamlayton]

I don't think there was favoritism--Joe.
I think it was logistics and better/easier routes that caused the routes chosen.
Blessings

[subdjoe]

I don't think there was favoritism--Joe.
I think it was logistics and better/easier routes that caused the routes chosen.
Blessings

Have anything besides your opinion to back that up?

[williamlayton]

Nope.
But it is a valid one. Course you have to look at the geography and think rather than ask someone to tell you what to yhink.
Blessings

[subdjoe]

Nope.
But it is a valid one. Course you have to look at the geography and think rather than ask someone to tell you what to yhink.
Blessings

If it is valid, as you claim, then it should be easy for you to back it up with facts.

Here, Willy, I'll toss you a scrap from the very early 1860s.

The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury.

I eagerly await your erudite and cogent comments about how it means something totally different. 

[williamlayton]

First and foremost---who said that and where is the article.
Joe when you quote someone you give them credit. When you read and compile your own thoughts you don't have to give credit. I have never asked you to believe anything. I have presented my thoughts--you are welcome to accept or reject. I really don't care.
Lets go to the reasoning of Federal involvement in infrastructure.
It is for the betterment of the Nation. It helps folks who need to get things from one place to another do it. Roads were built to get folks and things from one city to the next town. If these things need to go to another state then it takes a bunch of folks working together to do this. If land is needed to make right of way this land must be obtained.
The Federal gov. is tasked by the people to do this.
Blessings

[subdjoe]

Geee.....a lecture on the netiquette of debate!  How good of you to point things out to me, I would be lost without your guidance.  Sorry, Willy.  I'll admit that I'm being childish here and playing this thread the way you do other threads.  Like the embargo against John Deere ploughs, ya know?  Of course, I gave you a hint as to when it was from, so you should be able to find it. In fact, a quick cut an paste for a google search brings up pages of references to that public document (not article - in fact, it is something that has been oft quoted here on other threads) I quoted a part of.  A darned sight easier than finding any doc that there was an embargo against those ploughs.  I still haven't been able to turn up anything on that.

I'll agree, part of the job of the federal government is to provide some things for the betterment of the nation.  ALL the nation.  Not just part of it.  That is my point. The South was paying for the benefit of only northern industry.  Which brings up the question of why a disproportionate amount of federal funds was spent on those improvements in the north.  Why was that, Willy? Or are you suggesting that not helping to build up the South to the same extent as the North was good for the Republic as a whole?

First and foremost---who said that and where is the article.
Joe when you quote someone you give them credit. When you read and compile your own thoughts you don't have to give credit. I have never asked you to believe anything. I have presented my thoughts--you are welcome to accept or reject. I really don't care.
Lets go to the reasoning of Federal involvement in infrastructure.
It is for the betterment of the Nation. It helps folks who need to get things from one place to another do it. Roads were built to get folks and things from one city to the next town. If these things need to go to another state then it takes a bunch of folks working together to do this. If land is needed to make right of way this land must be obtained.
The Federal gov. is tasked by the people to do this.
Blessings

[williamlayton]

I think you overlook some of the infrastructure the Feds were responsible for in the south.
Ports and such, navigational aids. The South had good waterways. Most of the complaints by the South were to the effect that they thought tariffs for imported goods were only paid by the South, which of course is not true. I even disagree that the amount of tariffs, the percentage of tariffs collected, were dis-portionate.
Numbers can prove anything you wish.
Blessings

[SouthernByGrace]

Willy, the article clip that Joe posted was referring to the Northern states in the 1800's. You are applying modern-day philosophy to 19th century culture and lifestyle.

Lets go to the reasoning of Federal involvement in infrastructure.
It is for the betterment of the Nation.

 
This argument is perfectly valid, in TODAY's America, but you CAN'T relate this to the 1800's. This article is talking about how the federal government was so involved in infrastructure in the NORTH and how the North were so dependent on that government money (remember, these were the same people that got ridiculously rich from the SLAVE TRADE), and how the SOUTH was NOT dependent on government money. The article even shows how the New England fishermen STILL get government subsidies to this day, to the tune $500,000 a year!!

As far as your opinion, you are entitled to it, but you have NO right to claim the high road and always be right while claiming the other fella is always wrong, based solely on your opinion. I don't care how much you studied a topic, you had to form your opinion from Something. That Something is a source, William. And according to your own logic, you should give credit to that source. WHERE did you learn it from (read and compile your own thought) and form the opinions that you claim?

Joe when you quote someone you give them credit. When you read and compile your own thoughts you don't have to give credit.

...and This is the Absolute best hypocrisy I have seen  from you lately, William:

First and foremost---who said that and where is the article.

William, we have had this discussion before. IT WILL NOT continue. You are not going to continue touting your opinion as the absolute gospel (the Deere stainless steel plows, among Many More) while you ask for a source from someone else and never give one yourself.

SBG
     

[subdjoe]

, but you CAN'T relate this to the 1800's. This article is talking about how the federal government was so involved in infrastructure in the NORTH and how the North were so dependent on that government money (remember, these were the same people that got ridiculously rich from the SLAVE TRADE), and how the SOUTH was NOT dependent on government money. The article even shows how the New England fishermen STILL get government subsidies to this day, to the tune $500,000 a year!!
   

SBG, if you note, I say that the piece I quoted was from the early 1860s, so that was $500,000 in 1860s money.

[williamlayton]

Well now---If it is OK for you folks to always be right, why not another fellow.
I only did that because evrytime I give opinion it is thrown in my face.
Now as far as being right---this is just coffee talk isn't it? It is not life or death. C'mon SBG--think this thru.
Blessings

[subdjoe]

Maybe because you state your opinion as iron bound fact, Willy.  Or maybe because you tend to hammer people for sources, but rarely, even when begged repeatedly, give a source.  You don't even say that you don't recall where but you will look it up, then follow through on it. 

And I love how you tell us to lighten up when we come at you the way you come at those who dare to challenge your fifth grade textbook orthodoxy. 

[williamlayton]

Joe
To my knowledge that is one of the few times I ever asked for a refrence. I do remember a coupleof times but it was not in doubting, just wanted to read more.
I understand that you and most here think they are correct--I do also. But that is not calling anyone a liar---we read and come to different conclusions.
I really never think of you as a bad person for you opinion---I just disagree some. Sometimes I agree with you and state that when I do.
These little threads will not change opinions---I ceratinly have no expectations of that in my post.
It is a few folks sitting around a coffee table and having a good lively discussion of things we see differently.
Blessings

[subdjoe]

We must not be reading the same forums then, Willy.  Because I recall you consistently asking for sources, and then often rejecting those sources.

Nice device, by the way:

But that is not calling anyone a liar---we read and come to different conclusions.

Implying that someone made the claim that you called people liars.  After all, you wouldn't say that you aren't calling anyone a liar if no one accused you of it, right? 

[us920669]

I hesitate to wade in on this, but I think it's clear that most internal improvements benefited the north, simply because the north's needs were capital-intensive and northern businessmen welcomed government assistance.  Plantation agriculture created many fortunes, not only among planters but also factors, wholesalers etc, but those reaping the richest rewards wanted to retain sole control.  A very conspicuous exception was the Gadsden Purchase, rammed through by the pro-southern President Pierce, for the primary purpose of enabling a southern trans-continental railroad.  There were a host of problems, including diplomatic wrangling with Mexico and the fact that many southerners were opposed to the idea, but through a skillful sweetening of the deal the necessary 2/3 majority vote in the senate was secured.  Mexico got $10 million, a very large slice of pie back then, although many citizens of the north were less than overjoyed.

As president of the railroad company Gadsden would have become very wealthy.  He envisioned a single unified southern railroad and a separate state of Southern California.  Gadsden made known his desire to bring thousands of settlers and slaves.  Of course, there wasn't time to standardize the south's railroads, but if the line had been even partly completed, the Confederate expedition to California may have succeeded, as the mood in Los Angeles was decidedly pro-Southern early in the war, and a new state created.  Such a state would most likely have been reconstructed, but there is no telling if it would have been rejoined with the northern portion or if it would have remained a separate state right down to the present.     

[williamlayton]

OH MY LORD, Joe.
I did not say that anyone called any other a liar.
Blessings

[subdjoe]

OH MY LORD, Joe.
I did not say that anyone called any other a liar.
Blessings

No, you did not SAY it, and I did not SAY that YOU said anyone called you a liar, I said "nice device" as in literary or rhetorical device,  but you sure implied it by your comment "But that is not calling anyone a liar" 

Again, why defend yourself that way when NO ONE even hinted that you were calling people liars?  Why raise that issue?  Why plant the seed that maybe someone had accused you of it?  Like that classic, by likely apocryphal, lawyers trick question, "Have you stopped beating your wife?"  No basis in fact, but plants the impression that just maybe the person does beat his wife. 

By the way, got a source to documentation supporting your claim that England embargoed John Deere ploughs in or around the Civil War era?

[williamlayton]

Nope.
Blessings

[williamlayton]

US
You are correct about Los Angeles but the money was in Sacramento and the gold.
I don't know but was Los Angeles much more than a fairly large town, at this time?
Gadsten was pretty correct but his hands were bound by the infighting within the Soutern rail men. There seemed to be no co-operation and certainly no desire to see a larger picture.
The South has always seemed to be about wanting to maintain the status quo. When things around them change, they wanted to stay the same and when men went around them to make changes that benefitted their desires it only seemed to create resentment.
Blessings

[us920669]

I understood that LA was next to nothing, probably some Southern filibusterer-adventurer types hoping to get in on the ground floor of a long shot proposition.  Of course, many a nation has been founded by just that.

The shallowness of Southern leadership is also apparent.  Maybe it's the experience of working your own land and seeing the crops come up - makes you think of it as the most natural thing in the world and oppose any change to it.  As King Cotton turned the soil of the East to sand and the plantations had to relocate to the Mississippi Valley, you would think the permanence of it all would come into question, but apparently it didn't.  The South had its - dare I say Progressives? - men like De Bow and Ruffin, but they remained lonely voices in the wilderness.

[subdjoe]

Sentiments in CA were pretty evenly split.  A few telegrams from Lincoln to the Presidio in San Francisco helped keep CA in the Union.  And secured the important quicksilver mines in San Jose.

Here is some reading material, if you care to peruse it.

http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/history/32239-how-southern-california-tried-to-split-from-the-north.html

http://www.militarymuseum.org/HistoryCW.html

http://www.drumbarracks.org/Original%20Website/California.htm

[williamlayton]

Good reads.
Blessings

[us920669]

Absolutely!!  Thank you