Talk:Morrill Tariff

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Contents 1 Marx & Dickens 2 New Version 3 POV Discussion 4 Discussion: Relation to Secession Controversy 5 Dickens 6 Causation in History 7 Dickens & Emancipation Proclamation 8 Henry Morley 8.1 All the Year Round Articles 8.2 Put it in a footnote 8.3 Specious humbug 9 RfC on content & revert warring 10 Title of ATY article 11 Dickens meager quotes - upon which Adams has based a historiography 12 Fairness and Sympathetic Tone 13 Questia 14 Historians and economists 15 Friedman and Underwood 16 Alfred Marshall quote 17 The version now is the best I've seen so Far

[edit] Marx & Dickens

Present text

A debate was waged in England over which side to support in the war. Two of the earliest writers about the Morrill Tariff in England were Karl Marx and Charles Dickens, who both published opinion pieces in British and American newspapers. Dickens believed the Morrill Tariff to have been the underlying motive of the civil war. Writing that "The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel," Dickens attacked the tariff as an unjust economic measure and called Lincoln's unionist rhetoric "specious humbug."

Marx took the alternative view, stating that slavery was the primary cause of secession and the tariff just a pretext:

Naturally, in America everyone knew that from 1846 to 1861 a free trade system prevailed, and that Representative Morrill carried his protectionist tariff through Congress only in 1861, after the rebellion had already broken out. Secession, therefore, did not take place because the Morrill tariff had gone through Congress, but, at most, the Morrill tariff went through Congress because secession had taken place.[3] (http://www.aotc.net/Marxen.htm)

The Morrill Act was still being debated in the Senate when the first southern states began to secede (and its senators resigned) and the bill did not become law until the end of February. However several southern politicians cited the new tariff act, or its anticipated adoption in the near future, as one of their reasons for secession, so its role as a cause cannot be dismissed. The war itself did not begin until the attack on Fort Sumter on 1861 April 12.

Marx's view has, in part, given rise to a common misconception that the bill was passed as a result of the Civil War. Another variation contends that the Morrill Tariff was adopted to finance the Civil War. The bill had been pending in Congress well over a year before the war broke out though.

In more recent times, scholars have taken both views. Some historians such as Charles Beard and most economists, especially Thomas DiLorenzo, follow Dickens and have identified the Morrill Tariff as an underlying cause for the Civil War. They contend that the tariff was a source of major irritation for the south and also note that many northerners opposed secession for fear that it would undermine the Morrill Tariff's implementation and the protection they received from it.

Historians including Alan Nevins and James M. McPherson take a view that is closer to the historiography of Marx. They downplay the significance of the tariff dispute and argue that it was secondary to the issue of slavery, which dominated the four secessionist declarations. Nevins relies upon the argument of Alexander Stephens, who initially opposed Georgia's secession and disputed the severity of the threat that the Morrill Bill posed in a speech on tariffs to the Georgia Secession Convention.

This is overblown criticism of a small portion of Marx's larger article which argues that the real issue was slavery. Marx is criticized extensively, while Dickens' ridiculous (& biased by being a Brit who'd suffer financially himself from the tariff) statement is left standing unexamined. Then people who have misunderstood Marx are criticized (without saying that is not Marx's fault). Then, anyone who does not take the extreme position of Marx is still portrayed as being closer to Marx. The logical fallacies include false dilemma, straw man, guilt by association.

Take out "at most" from Marx quote & he is clearly correct. True, that Marx text does not eliminate the tariff as a cause of secession -- which he is attempting. (Later he goes extreme again & calls the tariff objection a "pretext".)

How about a source for Dickens so we can see the context? The only places I could find it on web were by ideologues or by those with many factual errors on their pages - some even have Marx agree with Dickens.

Jim - The minor changes you made to Marx and the link are fine by me. Your comments, however, such as your attempts to judge Dickens' statement are STILL oriented toward inserting your own POV though. Whether you agree with Dickens or not, his statement is a valid part of history. Nor is it guilt by association to simply note that Marx's argument has influenced subsequent ones along the same line. That is a matter of historical fact, as is Dickens' the other way. There is absolutely nothing in there that stigmatizes Marx himself for the other things that he was (e.g. a communist). Nor is there any straw man of Nevins or McPherson - you simply don't like the fact that Nevins and McPherson differ from your personal view. I don't know what else I can say other than you need to move beyond trying to make this article into your personal playground for "JimWae's opinion on the Morrill Tariff". If you can find somebody else who is a credible scholar or historical figure that shares your view, great! Put him in! But quit trying to accomodate your inability to do so by slipping your own POV into the words of others.Rangerdude 17:17, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Wrong on all counts. Marx is heavily criticized by a wiki editor (not by "an authority"), Dickens not at all. On such a basis anyone should also have free reign to criticize Dickens. Look at false dilemma - there are more than 2 possible views & only 2 are represented. What makes Dickens a qualified appeal to authority in history or economics & not just someone looking after his own wallet?--JimWae 17:58, 2005 Jan 29 (UTC)

Exactly what is Marx criticized on that you keep ranting about? The false dilemma allegation is your own invention as well, as I have invited you many times to add a third view IF you can find a credible scholar or commentator who shares it. To date you have not other than attempting to insert your own personal POV. But that is not a problem of mine - it is something you need to deal with. DIckens has been explained to you many times yet you keep returning to the same false charges against him. First off, what evidence do you have that he was looking out for his wallet? Nothing. You just threw that in there as an ad hominem attack on Dickens' motives without any evidence whatsoever because you personally disagree with his conclusions. Second, Dickens was one of the best known and most prolific political commentators in the world during the mid 19th century and, in addition to the fiction he is best known for today, was a frequent commentator on labor conditions, international relations, commerce and most of the major political issues of his day. That is what qualifies him to talk on it, and his early role in the debate is important to the historiography surrounding the tariff issue. Now, as I've told you probably a dozen times prior, if you can find a credible scholar or source who espouses your position on the tariff, by all means please name him and we can include his view. This is not an unreasonable request by any means, but otherwise you'll just have to settle for keeping it the way it is as I am not going to let you load up this article with your personal unsourced POV on the issue.Rangerdude 18:20, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• I want the source of the Dickens quote. All I can find is that single paragraph -- & only at sites that clearly push a POV. That does not look at all like a scholarly contribution so far. I did not say he WAS looking after his wallet, but given his obvious vested interest, it is incumbent to provide some indication he was not. Marx's document is a complete argument -- so far Dickens quote is just a bald assertion of opinion. I want the source of the Dickens quote.

The Dickens article was in the British weekly news magazine All the Year Round, December 21, 1861. I don't think that's online anywhere, but you can get it in any library that has a good historical newspaper section or in one that has a collected works of Dickens series. Don't backtrack now after you've been taken to task on slandering Dickens' motives. You are STILL making ad hominem attacks on him by claiming he has some "obvious vested interest" which you have not demonstrated!

• I'd think that anyone truly interested in producing a good article, would assist in providing the name of a credible scholar themselves -- I am new to this topic. Incidentally, if you follow the links to the "credible scholars" you've provided, you'll see again that one side is attacked while the other is undeservedly left unmolested.

In all honesty none comes to mind who shares exactly your view. Nevins is probably the closest, but you tried to alter his view to fit your own and then rejected it when you learned that it wasn't indentical to yours. I'm not saying that there isn't somebody out there who shares your view. But I can't think of any right now, so that's your task. You are, after all, asserting that your personal POV is equal or comparable to those made by other historians and commentators. If you wish it to be considered as such the burden is yours to show that. I'm not sure what you're talking about with "unmolested" POV's on other links. You need to be more specific in your complaints.

• There are 6 sentences criticizing a small portion of Marx's document & extreme interpretations of it - there's an obvious POV to this article--JimWae 19:00, 2005 Jan 29 (UTC)

What are the 6 sentences? And what is the POV you claim is there? You keep making vague, general allegations with no specifics. You need to physically identify which words you think are problematic and what you think needs to be added (and no, your unsourced personal opinion is not something that will be added)Rangerdude 19:55, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Charles Adams and Tom DiLorenzo aren't real historians, just propagandists. The emphasis on Marx and Dickens in this article is eccentric to say the least. -- A Passerby

[edit] New Version

Jim -

Re -

Other historians argue that though clearly a grievance, the tariff issue was not the primary reason for secession, but was secondary to the issue of slavery, which dominated all of the secessionist declarations.

"Other historians" alone doesn't cut it. It's a copout phrase. If you know of another credible and credentialed historian name him. Otherwise, I am inclined to believe that you are really saying "JimWae argues that though clearly a grievance, the tariff issue was not the primary reason for secession, but was secondary to the issue of slavery, which dominated all of the secessionist declarations" and that isn't sufficient for inclusion in an article.Rangerdude 08:46, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• You seem to be the history student - do all historians let issues be defined by extreme positions taken by unqualified foreign writers of over 120 years ago? Isn't there anyone reasonable you can name?--JimWae 09:15, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

Exactly why are Marx and Dickens unqualified? Marx was a well known economist and Dickens was a well known author and publisher on both sides of the Atlantic. Marx's pieces were picked up by the New York Tribune, which was the leading North American paper at the time, and Dickens had several of his own magazines. They were among the best known editorial commentators in the world - kinda like what William F. Buckley and Paul Krugman are today.Rangerdude 16:48, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] POV Discussion

JimWae - I again appreciate your enthusiasm, but PLEASE hold off for a moment while I work on a revision of this article that I think will better accomodate the issues being discussed here. Your rapid reverts as I am making edits accomplish very little toward improving its content.Rangerdude 05:08, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

UPDATE JimWae - I just posted more additions that I believe will move us toward a higher quality article. I noticed that you posed some questions while you were making changes that need to be addressed. I'll do my best to address them here and invite your response, however the discussion forum is a better place for that sort of thing than the edit summary sections. Let me take your comments one at a time again:

1. You note that "The word TARIFF does NOT appear in that document - so hardly in detail - also I think it's allowed to have 10 words summarizing a link)" referring to the south carolina address. This is a matter of familiarity with the meanings, history, and context of the document itself, not how many times it uses the word "tariff." You will note that the quote refers to "duties on imports," which is the textbook definition of a tariff. That they were referring to the Morrill Tariff is evidenced in both the records of the convention, where the Address was drafted, and in the fact that it was the only tariff bill fitting that description that was pending before Congress at the time.

2. You raised a question about Robert Toombs' tariff view's relation to secession. The quote in there is from Toombs' speech to the Georgia Legislature in favor of secession. I will note that in the article to clarify it.

3. You questioned why Dickens was mentioned. As the full context of that section should now indicate, Dickens was probably the first major commentator to espouse the historical view that the Morrill Tariff caused the war. Marx was similarly the first major commentator to espouse the opposing view. Both Dickens and Marx were well known, highly qualified political commentators in their day and the treatment of the tariff ever since has more or less followed one of their two views. You were the one who complained that having Marx in there alone overemphasized him. I added Dickens to balance it out and elaborate on the debate that was going on.

Any other Comments/Questions? If not, please review the current version with the new historiography section.

Also, I'm not sure what you're referring to when you added the POV label. Most of the language seems to be neutral now or is moving in that direction and it seems to me that you are mistaking a POV problem with your dispute over the inclusion of your paragraph. Rangerdude 05:24, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• You have DELETED virtually everything that weakens the claim that it was a major cause of secession & propped up every point that argues it was. Wikipedia is not a forum for propaganda but rather to examine both sides maturely. You do not own the article. You waited like 15 minutes to delete the POV warning I added. You have removed discussion of issues & substituted appeals to such major authorities on US history as... Charles Dickens? --JimWae 07:29, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about, Jim? I deleted a paragraph that you kept trying to recycle from an old version of the American Civil War article because virtually every single sentence in it was redundant as I noted and detailed below! What little could be salvaged from it has been incorporated into the article. The remainder of your complaints, as noted above, have either been addressed through clarification (e.g. Toombs' speech) or are factual errors on your part (e.g. your inability to make the seemingly obvious connection between the phrase "duties on imports" and tariffs in the SC Address). You also continue to ignore the purpose of Dickens' inclusion, which I described above. I removed your previous POV claim because you have detailed virtually nothing here from the article that meets the level of a point of view comment. POV tags are for articles where there is a material dispute over the language and phrasing of the article itself that cannot be resolved between multiple editors - NOT a personal means of protest whenever JimWae's favorite paragraph gets edited out or removed for redundancy. If you truly believe that there is a POV problem in this article then please detail it and post the specifics that you believe are points of view language. If you do that I'll be happy to discuss them and perhaps then we can resolve whatever it is that's troubling you. Otherwise, I see no further justification to retain it - especially with the newest version of the article (it is more to your liking now, is it not?) - and will delete it again.Rangerdude 17:03, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• I have saved an edit that presents a more balanced view & removed the POV warning. I would still like to see the analysis of the relative importance for secession without comparison to straw men - I think both Marx & Dickens can fairly only be mentioned as an early example, but would prefer to see them dumped completely - they discredit both sides - There are much more nuanced positions than <1> it was the major cause & <2> it was not a cause at all. You do not take either of those positions do you? There have been editors who have tried to ram <1> into articles.

---

• The tariff dispute, though clearly a grievance, was not the primary reason for secession, but was secondary to the issue of slavery.
  • Where is that view represented fairly in your impartial edit? How can an association with Marx not be seen as poisoning the tree?

Jim - Like it or not, Marx was the originator of that side of the argument. It's a historical fact and our purpose here is to represent that fact. You can go look up Marx's original articles online if you doubt me and McPherson himself has marxist leanings so he probably wouldn't object to the mention of Marx's name at all. Furthermore, the view that the tariff was secondary to slavery is represented in the section where it says that Nevins and McPherson "downplay the significance of the tariff dispute and argue that it was secondary to the issue of slavery, which dominated many of the secessionist declarations"

Who does point to:

• the fact that the tariff had not yet passed when the first seven states seceded;

Nevins does indirectly through the Stephens speech, which is mentioned in the current version

• the differences in the 1860s crisis compared to the Nullification Crisis of 1832 (which was about tariffs):

I'm not sure where you're trying to go with that one or why it's germane. The Morrill Tariff act itself (which is what this article is about, remember?) was compared to the Tariff of Abominations in the 1860's.

• • in 1832, several less-drastic steps were taken first, but were an untried option in 1860-61;

Actually, in 1860-61 Senator Hunter tried several times to force a compromise tariff, which was the solution to the nullification crisis. Nullification was solved because Henry Clay was willing to compromise and agreed with Calhoun that they would push a reduction through. Justin Morrill was unwilling to compromise though and they defeated all the southern amendments that tried to lower it.

• I'm referring not to lowering the tariff, but refusing to collect it, even smuggling - the South jumped to secession very fast in 1860s but not in 1828-32. Before they waited 4 years for the next president (Jackson), but 1860-61 they lost all hope of winning politically ever again. --JimWae 09:05, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

Well, SC pledged not to collect it and Lincoln said in his inaugural speech and several others that he was going to collect it anyway. The difference was that Congress knew this in 1860 and for a year's worth of debates the tariff interests were completely unwilling to compromise.

• • in 1832, no other state supported South Carolina;

Again, that is not germane to the Morrill Tariff. It's already mentioned in the Nullification Crisis article I think, and that's where it should be.

• if tariffs were the MAIN cause, why do the other states support SC in 1860-61 when not before?

Because they're hurt by the tariffs too. One of the most vocal tariff critics by 1860 was Georgia, not South Carolina.

• the predominance in the secession documents of expositions on slavery and the slave states' new minority position.

Already mentioned here - "They downplay the significance of the tariff dispute and argue that it was secondary to the issue of slavery, which dominated many of the secessionist declarations"

• did you add "which dominated many of the secessionist declarations" or do they say that?--JimWae 09:05, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

Nevins refers to the presence of slavery as the dominant theme of the declarations.

The Tariff of 1857 was not meant to reorganize the world economy, nor go back in time & remedy causes of problems - look at it as a measure intended to improve existing problems.

That's for the Tariff of 1857 article. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here with this one either.

• You have no hesitation to put in text that attacks the reasoning with vague "modern economists realize...". Even if free trade were not the CAUSE of 1857 panic, that does not mean that tariffs would not help the immediate problem (& raise revenue - btw, why'd Buchanan sign it? Cause he was from PA? If the southern senators had stayed & he had vetoed it, then Lincoln would have to own it--JimWae 09:05, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

It's a matter of simple universally accepted economic fact - the Panic of 1857 was caused by a price glut following the end of the Crimean War. Back in 1857 though the protectionists led by Henry C. Carey were claiming that free trade was to blame. This was their claim and it is why they pushed for the Morrill Bill (which was to reinstitute protection, not raise revenue, which could be done with a much lower rate increase). But it was also economic fallacy, and contextualizing the event with a proper note of the modern view of the panic is material to this article. You also ask about Buchanan, and yes - his signature had to do with his state, PA. One of the main senate sponsors of the bill was Sen. Bigler of Pennsylvania - a northern Democrat protectionist. Virtually all Pennsylvanians want the tariff no matter their party because it was Pennsylvania's pet issue as a state. As for Lincoln, at the time he was basically telling people "If Buchanan doesn't get it done by inauguration day I will after inauguration day," hence the speech that is quoted in the articleRangerdude 17:07, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The article again seems to prop up the ridiculous claim that the tariff was the PRIMARY reason for secession & I am considering re-instating a POV warning

You keep saying that but you never offer any specific passages or words that you think are doing this. Could you please be specific on what you think has a POV? I've read through it many times and the language seems more or less neutral. If anything you inserted the statements above and they were not neutral because they represented your own views on the issue - not Nevins' or McPhersons. Again, the article itself is not a forum for you to argue why you think the Morrill Tariff was or was not something. Nor do you have the right to throw in a POV dispute each and every time your pet paragraph or personal opinion gets removed from the article. A POV dispute means that there's a specific and substantive item in the article such as a wording or phrasing that you do not consider to be neutral, and you haven't identified any - only your personal opinions and arguments injected into the article. That's why I removed those statements and replaced them with ones that were better representations of Nevins' position.Rangerdude 08:39, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Where is the nuanced view represented? - <1> tariff WAS a serious grievance, but <2> slavery was the main cause - and <even 3> rapid secesssion on single issue of tariff would be unwarranted.--JimWae 09:05, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

That currently seems to be YOUR view more than anybody else's, Jim. This article is a place for historical discussion - not a forum for you to state your personal view on the Morrill Tariff. Find somebody credible who shares your view and we'll make mention of it. Otherwise there's no reason to give special attention to an opinion just because you hold it.Rangerdude 17:07, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

---

I concur that there are more nuanced versions, but note that the section they are mentioned in is historiography. Both Dickens and Marx are fundamental original components of the Morrill Tariff's historiography and set the stage for all else that's been developed on them. Also, Nevins' position is NOT as nuanced as you presented it. In Ordeal for the Union - his main book to discuss it - he comes very close to a categorical rejection of the tariff issue entirely and offers only one of the arguments you mentioned (that it had not passed yet). McPherson more or less echoes Nevins. Also in presenting their arguments, these should be drawn from what they actually said - not what you think they should've said (e.g. the unrelated claim about no other states joining SC's nullification in 1832). We're here to present their arguments, not make those arguments for them.Rangerdude 08:12, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• You stuck those guys in - I'd be happier if they were left out.--JimWae 09:05, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

You may be, but Marx and Dickens are part of the history of the Morrill Tariff. It doesn't matter whether or not you like them. We can't change history - only report it.Rangerdude 17:07, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion: Relation to Secession Controversy

Regarding the redundancy in the following paragraph:

While protectionist tariffs helped Northern manufacturing interests, they resulted in serious economic hardship for many Southern states – though Louisiana, with its sugar crop, was also helped by protective tariffs. Historians are not unanimous as to the relative importance which Southern fear and hatred of a high tariff had in causing the secession of the slave states, but there has been a growing tendency to lay more emphasis on it than formerly. Of the declarations of secession, only Georgia's mentions economic issues. South Carolina's address to the other slaveholding states discusses taxes (tariffs being among the few taxes in those days), but expounds at greater length on the South's new minority position, and on slavery.

Let's break it down further:

1. "While protectionist tariffs helped Northern manufacturing interests, they resulted in serious economic hardship for many Southern states"

Redundant. This is discussed in the third paragraph of the previous section, "campaigned against the bill. They opposed the tax increase because it hurt them financially. Unlike the north where manufacturers benefited from protection, the south had few manufacturing industries. Most of the southern economy depended on the export of crops like cotton and tobacco, which were hurt on the world scene by policies that adversely impacted international trade."

2. though Louisiana, with its sugar crop, was also helped by protective tariffs.

This is true about some tariffs before the war, but does it pertain to the Morrill Tariff? Not really. Louisiana's congressmen all voted against the Morrill Tariff, BTW.

• who's to say why they voted against it. Tariff did not only benefit North & to omit that is to appear biased--JimWae 20:26, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)

You are mistaken in your background on the Morrill Tariff itself. The Sugar tariff was an old feature of prior protective bills dating back several decades, not something new or specific to the Morrill Tariff. Since this is an article specifically on the Morrill Tariff and not tariffs in general it should not be included Rangerdude 04:30, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

3. Historians are not unanimous as to the relative importance which Southern fear and hatred of a high tariff had in causing the secession of the slave states, but there has been a growing tendency to lay more emphasis on it than formerly

Somewhat redundant. This is discussed in the first sentence of the same section. If you wish to elaborate on it, it should be done there rather than a repetitive second paragraph.

• this version is more neutral than

  Many historians have long neglected, overlooked, or misunderstood the role that the Morrill Tariff played in the larger secession controversy of 1860 and 1861.

• --JimWae 20:26, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)

It is accurate to note that some historians have neglected or misunderstood the Morrill Tariff, but if you can find a way to fit a sentence in about the lack of unanimity or current trends on the issue this would be the best place to put it.Rangerdude 04:30, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

4. Of the declarations of secession, only Georgia's mentions economic issues.

This could be kept, though it should be placed in the context of another existing paragraph. Otherwise it sounds choppy.

South Carolina's address to the other slaveholding states discusses taxes (tariffs being among the few taxes in those days), but expounds at greater length on the South's new minority position, and on slavery.

Redundant. The part of the South Carolina address discussing this is already quoted in this same section.Rangerdude 20:00, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• The part you left does not make the point that most of the address (which needs to be named now) addressed slavery & minority position, and taxes (NOT tariffs) to a much lesser extent.

Two things. First, when they were talking about taxes they meant tariffs. Tariffs were pretty much the ONLY type of federal taxes of any importance in the mid 19th century so the two terms were used interchangably. Second, this is once again an article on the Morrill Tariff act - not slavery. If you wish to discuss the South Carolina Address' segments on slavery this should be done in an article on slavery. It is off topic and inappropriate here though.Rangerdude 04:30, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

---

• • The article purports the tariff is an important link to secession. To take this seriously, other links need to be addressed & their relative predominance. Who are you to delete my contributions? I've worked WITH yours & expect the same consideration. This article was a hodge-podge of neo-con idealogy before I got here. --JimWae 04:54, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

Most of your original additions were redundant to the point that they restated the exact same thing that appeared a few sentences before or after them. I detailed those redundancies above. I've also made several recommendations on where to add some of the other stuff you desire to include, but instead you kept reposting more or less the exact same paragraph that you seem to have drawn from an old recycled passage that used to be on the American Civil War article page. I removed it because it was redundant and simply didn't fit in very neatly to the article then I urged you to place your comments in the existing framework. Also, what do the neo-cons have they got to do with it? Did Paul Wolfowitz or Richard Perle author the original piece or something?Rangerdude 05:30, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

---

• Marx's comment is overplayed - and important issues are buried in criticism of him. He merits little more than a footnote - instead it appears he has the whole section--JimWae 20:26, 2005 Jan 26 (UTC)

Marx's comment represents an early misperception of the Morrill Act that has persisted among some historians up until the present. As long as we're talking about how historians view the tariff it is material. I agree that the final section should be more than Marx, but that is a matter of lengthening it by adding new non-redundant material - not removing what is already there. I appreciate your efforts to do so with the previous paragraph, however it contained too many redundant and extraneous sentences and did not fit well within the article. I will try to make some additions to get us started by naming other historians and lengthening the section.

[edit] Dickens

Is there a source to see the article by Dickens in which he makes his statement on the Tariff? Considering his abolitionist statements, it is surprising to see him negating slavery as a cause of the conflict. Thanks, -Willmcw 03:07, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If you had taken the time to read the previous discussion, you would know that the source of it is the British magazine All the Year Round from December 21, 1861.Rangerdude 05:01, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I read it. Where can I find a copy of the All the Year Round from December 21, 1861 to verify it? From what source was the quote directly obtained? -Willmcw 05:20, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Contact a library with historical newspapers on file. The Library of Congress would be my suggestion if you don't know of any others. I also suspect it would appear in a "Collected Works of Dickens" style anthology, of which there are no doubt many.Rangerdude 05:26, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Where did you find it? -Willmcw 05:41, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This source seems to suggest that Marx and Dickens agreed:

Observers in Britain looked beyond the rhetoric of "preserve the Union" and saw what was really at stake. Charles Dickens views on the subject were typical:

Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils. The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.

Karl Marx seconded this view:

The war between the North and the South is a tariff war. The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for sovereignty.

"A Jeffersonian View of the Civil War", by Donald W. Miller, Jr.

What's up with that? -Willmcw 03:12, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, it seems that the author of that article took Marx's quote out of context. He was actually summarizing his opponent's argument and then spent the rest of the article rebutting it. You can find the full version here [1]

Rangerdude 05:01, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

---

• The Dickens anti-Union remarks are only available online in snippets from those supporting the Confederacy. The "champion" of this article repeatedly refused (by reverts, etc,) to cast the debate in any way other than Dickens v Marx - claiming that was the typical "historical" breakdown. (He also refused any introduction of any middle view that was not supported by someone equally as famous/respected as Thomas DiLorenzo, Lew Rockwell and friends. Not being interested in devoting my entire life to the topic, I could not find one -- and he did not offer any.)

No Jim. You did not offer ANY source or person who espoused a belief identical to your own. The so-called "middle view" was in reality "JimWae's view." You at first tried to alter Nevins' belief to make it match this view more closely than it actually did, but when I pointed out that you were assigning beliefs to Nevins that he did not hold, you started inserting your own POV as a competitor to his and DiLorenzo's. The offer still stands, BTW, if you've found somebody who espouses your position. If not, quit whining. Rangerdude 05:18, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• I would characterize it somewhat differently - but am not interested in rehashing everything endlessly. You will think what you will -- but you were very uncooperative, & POV yourself. Btw, you misuse the term historiography - and admit only your own single kind of it - that writing about history must conform to standard templates in which they have traditionally been cast by previous writers. I am more interested in pointing out more reasonable positions that people can take - instead of being sticking to their dogma. Someday someone will write that reasonable position. I ask again why you seem to have no interest yourself in finding an author not stuck in a false dilemma?--JimWae 05:30, 2005 Feb 13 (UTC)

I'm not here to do your homework for you, Jim, and as it stands right now the only person taking the position you espouse is you. Several authors have commented on the tariff issue. I've cited Nevins and DiLorenzo as some of the better known ones, who characterize the most common opposing views fairly well. You seem to espouse some sort of "third way" approach, which is fine for you to hold as a personal belief, but it's a position that's NOT as commonly held among historians as you would evidently like to believe. I've read many books and articles on this subject and I've seen variations along the lines of DiLorenzo and variations along the lines of Nevins, but not your personally tailored version. If I had I would've cited it already. I'm not saying for certain that it isn't out there, but it is evidently far more elusive than you would have us believe.Rangerdude 05:38, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Perhaps Dickens was just expressing disgust that the war was not as yet to abolish slavery. It would be a public service if someone would post the text of the 1861 Dickens article.
• Marx presents that view to argue against it - see http://www.aotc.net/Marxen.htm. If author, like several other neo-confederates, cannot tell that, he is that much less an authority.

--JimWae 03:43, 2005 Feb 13 (UTC)

How do we know that Dickens was not also presenting a view in order to refute it? I've also 'googled' the Dickens quote and none of the web references that I found list a specific date, so I assume the editor who added it has an additional reference. Considering the vast amount of Dickens material available on-line, the essay that this quote was excerpted from should be available. If not, I think that it is suspect, and should be removed. -Willmcw 04:30, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Nice try Will, but you're attempting to apply the google standard of citation, which is insufficient by any standard. The date and publication are fully sourced on that quote. It's not my job to walk you through a library if you can't find it on your own.Rangerdude 05:01, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think, in the interest of NPOV, it is imperative that a more extensive quote be provided by those advocating its inclusion OR that a more NPOV source be provided that refers to it--JimWae 05:14, 2005 Feb 13 (UTC)

It looks as if you've added more material from the article, so it's pretty extensive as it stands right now. And why do you need an NPOV source that refers to it when you have the original source of the article itself?Rangerdude 05:31, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• because, believe it or not, I have some amount of trust in you. But why should others? I also removed some more of your editorializing. Note I say "quoted as writing" & had apparently until you removed it. If you can make your case stronger, do so, I do not have the original...--JimWae 05:35, 2005 Feb 13 (UTC)

It's not my burden to personally escort you to the library, Jim. I gave you a full source with all the material you need to verify it. That is enough for academic writing, and thus certainly will do for wikipedia.Rangerdude 05:43, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No, it isn't good enough for Wikipedia. We need verifiable sources. Listing an unobtainable publication from 140-years ago does not provide a verifiable source. Until such a source is provided, the quote should be removed. Presumably you found it somewhere, please share your source. -Willmcw

Since when is something any good research library has not verifiable? You've got both the source and the means of checking it. It's not my fault if you're too lazy to do so. And I already told you my source - All The Year Round, 12/21/61. The title of the article is "American Disunion" BTW. Evidently others have found this source as well as the article seems to have been quoted all over the internet. Of course you could obtain the very same thing from the Library of Congress IF you so desired [2] Rangerdude 06:03, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Since you know the date and the article title, I presume you are you reading the original. If so, please provide the context. If not, from where did you get that info? It's an easy question to answer. -Willmcw 06:29, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The context is it's an opinion article he wrote about the war for the magazine he edited. I don't have the time or interest to retype the entire thing for you, though I will happily give you the basics. "The struggle between North and South has been of long duration. The South having the lead in the federation had fought some hard political battles to retain it." A recounting of the electoral results from 1860 follows this plus a discussion of secession's legality where he quotes Jefferson and some other arguments to support the secessionist view.

He introduces the tariff issue as follows: "Then if it be not slavery, where lies the partition of the interests that has led at lastto actual separation of the Southern from the Northern States?" The tariff discussion begins there, of which the meat is the part that's been quoted. The article finishes "The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel"Rangerdude 06:41, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for providing that. I'm quite surprised that he takes that position and does not, in the same breath, condemn slavery. Given how out-of-character that opinion piece is for Dickens, I think it is appropriate to quote his other writings on the South and the slavery issue. I'll find something pertinent and add it. Cheers, -Willmcw 06:52, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It may be appropriate to quote Dickens on slavery elsewhere on wikipedia (perhaps the civil war article or the abolitionist article), but remember that this is an article specifically about the Morrill Tariff and thus his statements specific to the Morrill Tariff should be the thrust of what's included. Simply noting that he was anti-slavery is fine, but providing quotes and an extensive discussion of that would be off topic for this article (though not necessarily somewhere else). Also, Dickens reiterated the same position on the Morrill Tariff several times in later issues. There was a bit of a sparring match going on between the different british papers then over tariffs vs. slavery, so he drafted several later responses defending his position and attacking the other one. Marx, as noted, was writing for other British newspapers taking the opposite view.Rangerdude 07:19, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

None of the quotes you offer from Dickens mention the Morrill Tariff. Maybe the whole Dickens discussion should go to causes of the Civil War article. -Willmcw 04:51, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Dickens "...has also been quoted as writing "The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states." Quoted by whom? If Dickens wrote it, let's post the actual source.

Yes, the quote is more of Dickens. I don't know what JimWae was trying to say with "has also been quoted as writing" Rangerdude 04:19, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Is this quote also from the "American Disunion" article? -W.

(adding to buried thread) The quote I'm asking about is the "Northern onslaught" sentence. Although I see it quoted frequently, nobody gives a source. -Willmcw 11:09, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• "Some historians such as Charles Beard... follow Dickens and have identified the Morrill Tariff as an underlying cause for the Civil War." - In what work does Beard address the origins of the Civil War? What is the foundation for this assertion?
• Thanks, -Willmcw 03:10, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Beard took that view in several books and articles. The most famous is probably The Rise of American Civilization

Each of those mention the Morrill Tariff by name? Do you have a quote? Thanks-Willmcw 04:39, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes. The next week in All The Year Round Dickens also did a followup article specifically entitled "The Morrill Tariff". I don't have a copy of Beard's book, but just about any library anywhere should. That he is one of the main proponents of the tariff theory is common knowledge to those familiar with the issue, BTW. Nevins styles his argument in the other direction as a response to Beard.Rangerdude 05:02, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Then maybe we should be quoting essays that address the Morrill Tariff, rather than the overall economic issues of the war. Can you find a quote from Dickens on Morrill, per se? Cheers, -Willmcw 05:24, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The second one, IIRC, was a followup/continuation of the first one. I don't have the full text of the second one though, and the first is more succinct in terms of something to excerpt. The first article is basically a summary of how the GOP came to power and was using their power to enforce taxation on the south (as in the Morrill Tariff)Rangerdude 06:07, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If the quote is not directly about the Morrill tariff, then it belongs "elsewhere on wikipedia", or so experienced editors tell me. -Willmcw 11:21, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It is directly about the Morrill Tariff, which was the only U.S. tariff policy in existence at that time and thus necessarily the one Dickens was talking about. As an aside, your time would be much better spent on wikipedia by actually adding something constructive to various articles rather than fruitlessly attempting to deconstruct what others have already done. Right here for example, you've added virtually nothing substantive to this article yet wasted hours needlessly nitpicking back and forth over a quote where the source was already identified several weeks ago and which turns out to be valid despite every attempt you've made to draw it into question.Rangerdude 16:55, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your words of advice. Getting back to the matter at hand, is the "Northern onslaught" quote from one of those two Dickens articles? Cheers, -Willmcw 21:21, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• it often appears as

  calling Lincoln's unionist rhetoric "specious humbug"

• Note placement of quotes. It does seem unlikely Dickens would attack any onslaught upon slavery. I wonder if Dickens view changed at all after the Emancipation Proclamation or 13th amendment --JimWae 21:58, 2005 Feb 14 (UTC)

I've pulled the quote until we can see (yes, see) a source for it. I've been around the Internet long enough to be wary of often-repeated, never-sourced quotes. Even if it is accurate true to its context, it seems like it belongs in the Origins of the American Civil War article, or in Dickens' bio rather than in an article about a specific tariff. -Willmcw 00:35, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Marx wrote his article BEFORE Dickens, yet Marx is arguing against the view of Dickens. What basis is there to take Dickens as the major historical proponent of that view when Marx argued against it before Dickens presented it? Do historians other than pro-South ones cast the discussion in terms of "like Dickens" or "like Marx"? -- or is this a play on emotions (Dickens [& all who agree with him] good, Marx [and all who agree with him] bad)? Is there nothing new under the sun since 2 guys (only one of which had visited the US -- and that for only a few weeks almost 20 years earlier, who also had already written stories & articles criticizing the US and had a vested interest in validation of that criticism) in England (a country that suffered as a result of the war) wrote for opposing newspapers about a war?

I'm not sure what you're asking again, Jim. Marx wrote dozens of articles about the civil war from 1861 through 1865. So did Dickens. The two quoted ones are among their better known. I still don't see how anything included anywhere in the current wording could be construed to mean Dickens=good/Marx=bad as you keep asserting. The language at present is very neutral and makes no such claim either way.Rangerdude 04:28, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Causation in History

In the field of history, the term cause has at least two meanings, often mistakenly conflated.

• One meaning conforms to Aristotle's final cause -- as a goal or purpose. For example, the abolition of slavery became a Union goal or intended outcome for the American Civil War following the Emancipation Proclamations and so was a cause or reason to continue the war. This meaning is not what is meant by the term causality.
• Another meaning treats historic events as agents that bring about other historic events. This is a somewhat Platonic and Hegelian view that reifies causes as ontological entities and the term causality is used sometimes in this manner. In this view, slavery is often said to have inevitably produced the American Civil War as a result. In Aristotelian terminology, this use of the term cause is closest to his efficient cause.

I think the whole enterprise of arguing causality in history is something of a fool's venture. Different people have different hot buttons & differnt goals. To deny something as a cause is to try to ascertain counterfactuals - "if X were the only 'causal' event, would Y have happened" - (sufficient cause) --JimWae 01:37, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)

That's nice and all, but (1) what does it have to do with this discussion and (2) what changes are you proposing we make around it? Rangerdude 04:30, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

---

[edit] Dickens & Emancipation Proclamation

• Of course Dickens did not put his comments in context of the Emancipation Proclamation - it was over a year in the future. Comment I added did not say that Dickens said anything about EP. But section deals with "causes" of the war & as far as the North was concerned it is entirely officially true that "slavery" was not yet a cause. Shouldn't all readers have an opportunity to be reminded that D's comments were written before EP, when even the North said slavery was not a cause?
• I suspect that Dickens might even have been disappointed that it was not a "cause", don't you? Can you tell me then there is nothing in D's article expressing such disappointment? Do you have any source for Dicken's comments AFTER the EP? Did he maintain the same views after EP?
• Again we come back to the different meanings of cause, don't we?--JimWae 05:09, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

• • Those are all speculative renderings, Jim. If Dickens himself didn't say it we don't have the right to contextualize him in a way that implies he would have behaved differently had the Emancipation Proclamation come earlier. Simply "suspecting" that Dickens "might" have been disappointed at something is similarly speculative and improper for an encyclopedia. Furthermore, I am not aware of any comment he made fitting the description you provide. If you know of one and can direct me to it that's another thing, but right now you're just speculating on a whim and that's not enough to justify the additions you wish to make. Rangerdude 05:16, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Dickens was not reporting on events - he was a journalist & a crusader. Reminding readers that his comments were made before the Union made slavery a cause is not saying he would not have made those comments if the EP had already been proclaimed - it is reminding people that Dickens did not know what we know when he made the comments --JimWae 05:31, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)
• Dickens expressed great disappointment with America in his reports of his 1st visit, verging on or being anti-American. On his 2nd visit he said he was pleased with the changes he then saw. I doubt you'd ever agree, but this whole idea of basing a historical analysis of the war on this quote of Dickens is not a sound basis. --JimWae 05:31, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

• • Find a quote by Dickens that gives credence to the speculative contextualization you desire and you can quote it in the article. Otherwise, it's still just speculation and "reminding readers" constitutes deciding for them what you think they should or should not be thinking, which is in itself POV. Rangerdude 05:54, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• The article builds its own POV on a foundation of small quotations with NO context --JimWae 06:09, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

• • If you've got any specifics then name them. The quotations are historically documented and fully contextualized as part of a newspaper debate that waged over the tariff at the time. As usual however, you seem to object to the fact that the historically documented context in existence does not conform to your personal interpretations. But personal interpretations are just that and per the NPOV policy are not permitted. As I said, if you can find an actual quote or source on your Dickens interpretation, post it! Otherwise your addition is speculative and POV. Rangerdude 06:14, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Yeh, I suppose nobody in England would write words critical of the Union cause just after Fremont was dismissed for freeing slaves & his orders were rescinded - I'm sure no abolitionists in America nor in England would use emphatic nor hyperbolic language to present their disappointment with Lincoln --JimWae 06:58, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)
• that phrase "as it stands" means something else too, I'm sure --JimWae 07:14, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

• • No matter how you phrase it, Jim, you still need sources. I've read many English newspapers and they say many things, of which a reasonably strong representation is included here, but I've yet to encounter ones saying exactly what you wish for them to say - and that despite searching. If you know of something I've missed suggest where it may be found. Otherwise, sitting here and whining about how you can't slip in a POV speculative statement into the article isn't very productive. Rangerdude 07:03, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I need sources to say what Dickens said, of course. I think we can do without the perrsonal attacks here though, no? What you removed cannot be called speculation - it clearly was fact - you just do not find it sufficiently relevant, that is all. Building an analysis of the war on this thin quote from Dickens - WITHOUT the CONTEXT of his remark - is pretentious. In a much longer article, about which I care not enough to write, such context (as the North's position on abolition so far) would certainly be an area to investigate (along with other contexts)--JimWae 07:14, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

• • If you are engaging in speculation and I state that you are speculating and if you are trying again to insert POV and I state that you are inserting POV, Jim, it's not a personal attack. It's a valid criticism of your editing practices - especially if it is recurring, as happens to be the case on this article. What you included was speculative because it suggested that Dickens' viewpoint was influenced by its development before the emancipation proclamation and hinted his viewpoint would've been different otherwise. That is not our judgment to make, and unless you've got the goods to back it up, it's inappropriate speculation for this article. Dickens' remarks are currently contexted no differently than Marx's or anybody else's. Why single them out for speculation? Rangerdude 07:28, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• What I saw as personal attack was the part about "whining" which you repeatedly use in our discusssions. Discussions about whether something is POV or not are, of course, not personal attacks. Marx's comments I can find easily. If you get a chance, could you do me (& perhaps wikipedia & yourself) a favour and provide any of the paragraphs that come before this one (emphasis mine) from his December 28, 1861, follow-up article, "The Morrill Tariff", in his periodical All the Year Round?

• "If it be not slavery, where lies the partition of the interests that has led at last to actual separation of the Southern from the Northern States? [...] Every year, for some years back, this or that Southern state had declared that it would submit to this extortion only while it had not the strength for resistance. With the election of Lincoln and an exclusive Northern party taking over the federal government, the time for withdrawal had arrived [...] The conflict is between semi-independent communities [in which] every feeling and interest [in the South] calls for political partition, and every pocket interest [in the North] calls for union [...] [T]he quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel" (CA p. 90-91). http://www.dixieoutfitters.com/heritage/cw6.shtml --JimWae 07:44, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

[edit] Henry Morley

According to "The Letters of Charles Dickens", Volume Nine 1859-1861, Edited by Graham Storey, Clarendon Press – Oxford, 1997, neither article was written by Dickens, but both by Henry Morley.

To W. H. Wills, 11 December 1861 (p537)

My Dear Wills, … It is scarcely possible to make less of Mr. Spence’s book, than Morley has done.(10)

FOOTNOTE (10)

In his "American Disunion", AYR, 21 Dec 61, VI, 295, arguing that the “Federalist cry of anti-slavery as a casus belli is not altogether a true issue” (p.299; he only mentions [James] Spence’s book [The American Union, its Effects on National Character and Policy, with an Inquiry into Secession as a Constitutional Right, and the Causes of the Disruption] in the final paragraph, though with praise; he followed it up with “The Morrill Tariff”, 28 Dec, VI, 328, attacking the Union’s imposition of protective tariffs as the real cause of recession and quoting with approval two paragraphs from Spence’s book (p330)

--JimWae 22:21, 2005 September 2 (UTC)

Does that mean that our "two irreconcilable views" really belong to Marx and Morley? -Willmcw 23:00, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

To W. H. Wills, 1 December 1861

My Dear Wills,

…In your last, when you write of Mrs. Linton, you say nothing of the book on the American Union in Morley’s hands. I hope and trust his article will be ready for the next No. made up. There will not be the least objection to having American papers in it.

So much for "scholarship" and the necessity of using the beloved Dickens & the fearsome Marx as paradigms--JimWae 23:51, 2005 September 2 (UTC)

According to our bio, Morley was first trained in medicine, then became a literary biographer. I don't see how he could be considered, then or now, as a notable critic on the issues of the American Civil War or tariffs. -Willmcw 00:36, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

No less qualified than Dickens, I'd say - but certainly less charismatic and less "notable". Maybe now we can put an end to this foolishness of letting issues be defined by extreme positions taken by semi-qualified foreign journalists & polemicists of over 120 years ago. (Btw, Marx wrote before Morley, yet article has Marx writing in opposition to Morley's position.) This all took place with the Trent Affair and the blockade affecting the UK as background. Marx's pieces on the Trent Affair are quite interesting - but maybe we can stop comparing every non-secessionist to Marx too. --JimWae 03:12, 2005 September 3 (UTC)

Perhaps he was more even qualified than Dickens - he went on to write the introductions to John Locke's "Two treatises on civil government" in 1884, and to Locke's "Of civil government and toleration" in 1889. But I think it's time we had the full text of both articles made available - I could not get either at the university library here. --JimWae 04:02, 2005 September 3 (UTC)

Oops, keep forgetting Morley's articles are really too minor to keep in this article in anything like the way they were when attributed to CD. --JimWae 04:34, 2005 September 3 (UTC)

Regardless of whether the articles were written by Morley, Dickens, or Queen Victoria, the concept of that in 1860s England there were "two irreconcilable views" of the Morrill Tarriff and the origins of the Civil War appears to be original research. I don't recall that we've ever found a scholar who has proposed this theory. -Willmcw 04:59, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

If you were even remotely familiar with the subject matter you would know otherwise. The British view of the war in America has been written about in dozens of historical texts and is almost always portrayed in the two viewpoints presented here - those who saw the war as over trade and those who saw it as over slavery. It was a debate that included the leading figures and publications of Britain in that era - Dickens, Marx, Lord Acton, John Stuart Mill, Lord Palmerston, Earl Russell, The Economist magazine, the Times etc. Also, regarding JimWae's supposed footnote, it is not at all clear that the footnote is referring to Morley or attributing the two articles to Morley. Rather it appears to be a reference to Dickens' view on Spence's book, noting that he - Dickens, not Morley - mentioned Spence in those two articles. The articles themselves give no indication of having been written by Morley and every text I've ever seen referring to them attributes the authorship to Dickens, who also took a similar view in other London publications in addition to All The Year Round. There was even an article written by John Stuart Mill in Fraser's Magazine that was styled as a response to Dickens. Rangerdude

---

To W. H. Wills, 1 December 1861 (p529-530)

My Dear Wills,

…

In your last, when you write of Mrs. Linton, you say nothing of the book on the American Union in Morley’s hands. I hope and trust his article will be ready for the next No. made up. There will not be the least objection to having American papers in it.

To William Henry Wills, 11 December 1861 (p537)

My Dear Wills,

…

It is scarcely possible to make less of Mr. Spence’s(8) book(9), than Morley has done.(10)

FOOTNOTE (8)

James Spence, Liverpool merchant; wrote a series of commissioned pro-Confederacy letters to The Times; described there as “the Confederacy financial adviser in England” (History of The Times, II, 380 and n and 384). His American Union (see below) was followed by a pamphlet, On the Recognition of the Southern Confederacy, 1862 (3 edns)

FOOTNOTE (9)

The American Union, its Effects on National Character and Policy, with an Inquiry into Secession as a Constitutional Right, and the Causes of the Disruption, 1861; 4th edn 1862. His Preface, dated 2 Nov, makes clear his opposition to the North.

FOOTNOTE (10)

In his "American Disunion", AYR, 21 Dec 61, VI, 295, arguing that the “Federalist cry of anti-slavery as a casus belli is not altogether a true issue” (p.299); he only mentions Spence’s book in the final paragraph, though with praise; he followed it up with "The Morrill Tariff", 28 Dec, VI, 328, attacking the Union’s imposition of protective tariffs as the real cause of recession and quoting with approval two paragraphs from Spence’s book (p330).

--JimWae 19:36, 2005 September 5 (UTC)

Because Dickens was the editor, nearly everyone assumes he wrote everything in ATYR. William Henry Wills (1810-1880) was assistant editor and part-proprietor of Household Words and of All the Year Round. Henry Morley was on staff at HW & ATYR, and prolific contributor to both. Apparently there is a "key" for HW, but not for ATYR. There are more indications (above) that even for Morley there were not "two irreconcilable views" --JimWae 20:45, 2005 September 5 (UTC)

The "his" is still ambiguous, Jim, as it could be either Dickens or Morley. As the articles are widely attributed to Dickens himself in most publish works on the subject, making a change to Morley based upon on unclear footnote is probably premature. It's certainly a matter worth researching further but it is my understanding that (1) All The Year Round did not name Morley as the author in its original publication and (2) no publication that has dealt with the passage itself has attributed it to anybody other than Dickens. The language used (e.g. "specious humbug") is also distinctly Dickensian. Rangerdude 01:43, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Dickens is talking about Morley's articles on the Civil War - not about his own - it is very clear. The articles were hardly ever attributed to authors. Dickens may have agreed with much of what Morley wrote, but Dickens did not write them (no matter how many Internet sites say o/w). How about providing more of the text now? --JimWae 01:48, 2005 September 6 (UTC)

Morley may well have written about the war, but if that is the case it needs to be shown conclusively which ones were his and when they were published. An ambiguous footnote isn't enough to do that at this point. Using this article to challenge the authorship of the quote in a way that conflicts with its more common attribution to Dickens also sounds suspiciously close to original research. Rangerdude 01:54, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

The onus is on you now to show Dickens wrote it. You can, of course, delete the whole section--JimWae 01:56, 2005 September 6 (UTC)

No Jim. You are the one making the challenge to the conventional attribution of the work to Dickens by suggesting it was written by Morley, thus the onus is yours. But once again, that would be original research on your part. And no, I'm not going to delete a section of pertinent factual material based upon your personal desire to use wikipedia as a place to challenge traditional scholarship. So please review Wikipedia:No original research. In the meantime I'll also note that I find it curious you are using a letter from Dickens dated December 11, 1861 to challenge the authorship of articles that were not published until two and three weeks AFTER that date. Rangerdude 02:03, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I'll give you some time to review what I have presented & to cool off. You might, in the meantime, cite one scholarly work that is not just repeating presumptive hearsay and is available to others that says Dickens authored the quote. It would also be helpful if you made more of the text available. I am in touch with Dickens scholars on this & even they do not have the source of this quote. Any Dickens scholar will tell you Dickens did not write every article, the articles were not attributed, and Dickens wrote only a small number of the articles. Sites that present articles from ATYR written by Dickens list less than a dozen articles. The onus is on you now to demonstrate Dickens authorship - which will not happen. As for the date issue, think about what periodical editors do --JimWae 02:27, 2005 September 6 (UTC)

Please see below for a Dickens scholar analyzing the two articles. He concludes that both articles represented Dickens' views and were certainly reviewed and approved by him before publication. He also quotes Dickens expressing the same view of the war in a private letter to a friend a few months later. At best the Morley authorship of the first article is a theory held by one Dickens scholar who suggested it, but even it is not provable and writing that Morley authored it in this article would accordingly be original research aimed at advancing that theory. Rangerdude 02:47, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] All the Year Round Articles

Arthur Adrian in the Journal of the Modern Language Association Volume 67, No. 4 writes on the subject of the Dickens articles. According to Adrian, the attribution of the "American Disunion" article to Morley was made by Walter Dexter based upon the letter quoted by JimWae above, but Adrian notes that "Unfortunately for All the Year Round there is no record of contributers names." Adrian concludes that it is impossible to attribute its authorship, but as for Dickens "he must have endorsed its thesis for he read, sometimes revised, and always approved all issues of the periodical before they went to press. For our purposes, therefore, the views expressed in this particular essay may be considered his own."

Adrian also gives no reason to even speculate that the second article on the 28th entitled "The Morrill Tariff" was written by Morley and treats it as an accurate representation of Dickens' views:

That this essay reflected Dickens' growing contempt for the continuing hostilities between the North and the South becomes unmistakably evident when the argument is compared with a portion of a letter dated not three months later, 16 March 1862. Writing to William F. DeCerjat, one of his dearest friends, the novelist maintained that slavery had "nothing on earth" to do with the "American quarrel." Neither did he observe "any generous or chivalrous sentiments on the part of the North," which had "gradually got to itself the making of laws and the settlement of the Tariff." Convinced that the South had been taxed "most abominably," was beginning to gain economic independence and recover "its old political power," the free states had "advocated the laying down of a geometrical line beyond which slavery should not extend." This letter afforded Dickens another opportunity to insist that the North despised the Negro and "that it was convenient to make a pretence that sympathy with him was the cause of the war, it hated the abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale." (Adrian, p. 325)

This is the most extensive treatment of the authorship of the two unsigned articles I could find and I believe its conclusions are supported. My view is that it was probably a collaborative editorial, that Dickens certainly signed onto it and probably made some edits or additions (e.g. the humbug phrase), and that it is representative of his views. It seems then that the best way to treat the Dickens matter is not to state it is a quote of him directly but rather to present it exactly as what it was - an editorial appearing in Charles Dickens' All the Year Round. Rangerdude 02:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

The letters are quite clear - even without footnotes

• On Dec 1 Dickens remarks that Morley has the book (American Union...) and hopes Morley will finish writing the article on it soon
• On Dec 11 Dickens notes that Morley scarcely needed the book to write the article

Undoubtedly Dickens read it before it went out & also undoubtedly would have edited it more heavily if he disagreed. Without more of the text that came before it, we cannot tell what Dickens full view is, particulalry when we include [the] "Federalist cry of anti-slavery as a casus belli is not altogether a true issue" --JimWae 03:40, 2005 September 6 (UTC)

It's nowhere as clear as you claim, Jim, and even if it were it'd still be original research to include it. Dickens' letter refers to an unspecified and non-elaborated article on a book by Spence that Morley was apparently working on, yet the article you claim it refers to entitled "American Disunion" only briefly mentions Spence. You can speculate that he may have been referring to the "American Disunion" article, or perhaps an early draft of it, but you can't prove it. That's why Adrian concluded that it is impossible to know exactly who the author was - indeed it was probably a collaborative work as unsigned editorials almost always are! You also keep tossing in the article from the next week's issue entitled "Morrill Tariff" (from which the quote here comes) as if it were Morley's as well, but even if we assume everything you theorize from the letters is true about the "American Disunion" article there isn't even a shred of evidence that he also wrote "Morrill Tariff"! The journal article by Adrian that I quoted above contains a detailed textual analysis on the "Morrill Tariff" piece and compares it to a private Dickens letter on the same subject that takes the same viewpoints, hence Adrian's conclusion that it is directly representative of Dickens' views. Adrian goes into even further detail throughout his article and documents Dickens letters several years later where he STILL holds the same view. Rangerdude 05:27, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the Morley attribution - this is nothing more than a theory and it is one that I have shown is not held universally among Dickens scholars. It's also a very obscure theory on little direct bearing on the content of this article. It seems to me that including a lengthy paragraph about the Morley theory in this article serves little other purpose than to promote that theory despite the fact that it is recognized as ultimately unprovable in scholarly circles. Remember that this is an encyclopedia article about the Morrill Tariff - not an academic literature review on who holds what theory about articles in All the Year Round. Everything out there in the scholarly literature recognizes that the unsigned article accurately reflected Dickens' views and the private letter he wrote taking the same position a few months later proves this to be so. But since we don't know and cannot prove either way that Morley wrote the first article (to say nothing of the second - the one quoted here, which JimWae has produced not a shred of evidence connecting to Morley even in theory) it's probably best to leave that out. Otherwise we get into the business of promoting one theory over another (which is a POV violation) and applying those theories beyond their original scope (which is original research). Rangerdude 17:37, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

One more thing - if you insist on reverting to the Morley passage, I will insist that you place it in a footnote at the bottom of the article and that the footnote also contain other authors' views that differ with the source you seek to promote - such as the quote from Adrian stating that it is unprovable. As it is right now, sticking that paragraph into the middle of the article is a distraction from the article's content and appears to be aimed at promoting a POV and diverting attention from the thoroughly documented fact that Dickens held the view that the Morrill Tariff, and not slavery, was the cause of the war. Rangerdude 17:41, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

If this quotation is important to the article, then its authorship is probably important too. If we have sources that definitively show it was written by Dickens, then we can include those too. -Willmcw 18:55, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

Please put it in a footnote that includes all sources. That way it doesn't distract from the article's flow. Rangerdude 04:01, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Dickens may have agreed with everything in the 2 articles - but Morely was their author. Take out the quote & find other things Dickens said - he gave a scathing attack on slavery as it was, but he was not in favor of immediate abolition - perhaps not even opposed to "reformed" slavery. Adrian is just speculating - and since when are editorials not marked as such and still called editorials? To suppose that Morley wrote the article on the book and then Dickens wrote the follow-up is to suppose that Dickens took the task away from Morley - an event that would surely be commented upon in letters between CD and his assistant (& Morley) at some point. Anyway, Storey, who has edited over a dozen volumes on CD, has Morley writing both articles - and to not say so is about as misleading as saying "Charles Dickens' ATYR" - which suggests that CD owns not only the magazine but "owns" all the articles in it. At the very least, there was always insufficient grounds to say CD wrote the article - and now there is insufficent grounds to mention Dickens and NOT to note just as prominently the attribution Storey made 8 years ago (or more) --JimWae 06:56, 2005 September 7 (UTC)

[edit] Put it in a footnote

Like it or not, Jim, you cannot conclusively prove that Morley was the author. Nor do Dickens scholars have a consensus that he was - I've already demonstrated above that they clearly do not. That said, the appropriateness of mentioning the information about Morley and doing so in a neutral manner can be easily addressed. As I have asked you to do several times, Jim, please place the information you desire on the Morley _theory_ in a NPOV footnote that also contains the opposing view. This will avoid the problem of causing a distraction to the flow of the article. A paragraph about an obscure academic debate on Morley stuck in the middle of an article on the Morrill Tariff is out of place, but a footnote is not. I've offered this option in good faith as a compromise to properly include and address your material, Jim. Your reluctance to even acknowledge it or consider anything other than your own desire to promote the Morley theory you personally subscribe to is indicative of an anti-consensus attitude that is becoming increasingly disruptive to the content of this article. Rangerdude 16:00, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

One more thing. Dickens DID own ATYR and DID control virtually everything that was printed in it. Per Adrian, "(Dickens) must have endorsed its thesis for he read, sometimes revised, and always approved all issues of the periodical before they went to press." As Adrian also demonstrated, Dickens' private letters are in complete agreement with the unsigned editorials from ATYR. Stating that the magazine was his own is thus entirely appropriate. Rangerdude 16:04, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Footnote text Here's a draft. Somebody who is good at footnote formatting - please insert this:

The December 28th article in All the Year Round was unsigned, as is the case with many articles in this publication. Arthur Adrian summarizes this problem noting that "Unfortunately for All the Year Round there is no record of contributers names." Accordingly exact authorship of the article is subject to several theories among scholars. Charles Adams attributes the work to Dickens himself, citing characteristic language such as the word "humbug" in the text. Graham Storey attributes the article and another a week earlier to Henry Morley, a contributer to the magazine, based upon inferences from a Dickens letter written in early December 1861 referencing Morley's writings on a book by James Spence, which is mentioned in the December 21st article. Adrian concludes that it is ultimately impossible to know the exact author of the article but that Dickens "must have endorsed its thesis for he read, sometimes revised, and always approved all issues of the periodical before they went to press." Upon analyzing Dickens' private letters, which take similar views to those found in All the Year Round, Adrian concludes "the views expressed in this particular essay may be considered his own."

You are grasping at straws - "humbug" does not even appear in the quote - and he certainly has no monopoly on that word anyway, despite Scrooge. Nobody is disagreeing that Dickens generally & substantially agreed with the viewpoint - but we do not know yet - after repeated requests - enough details of what it was Dickens generally agreed with. "... IF it be not slavery... as it now stands..." Meanwhile, you (& others) had built an entire "historiography" around it --JimWae 04:58, 2005 September 8 (UTC)

"Humbug" is a phrasing from the first article, Jim. IIRC it was originally included in a lengthier quote some time ago until either yourself or Willmcw (I do not remember which) removed it. The answer to your question is found in the quote itself. "If it be not slavery" that is the source of the quarrel, then what is it? You need only to continue reading to find out: "[T]he quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel." Also - Please conduct yourself in a manner that is more conducive to Wikipedia's consensus stipulations, Jim. Revert warring to preserve your awkward Morley paragraph in the face of a compromise that was posed to you in a polite and reasonable manner is disruptive. Rangerdude 05:32, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

The only quote that included "humbug" was 2 words "specious humbug" - and it was unsourced - or more "private correspondence". Is that what your consensus of one is going to base its argument on? And that does not strike you as grasping at straws? It strikes me as a fraudulent attempt to shape the article. I have already pointed out numerous other problems with your version that are misleading or biased, yet you keep reverting to it. Your objection to mine amounts mostly to style. Funny how your version again seems to "flow better" even where & when it is misleading --JimWae 05:57, 2005 September 8 (UTC)

Exactly what is "misleading" about noting the simple undisputed fact that Charles Dickens owned and operated All the Year Round? Every Dickens biography of any worth out there indicates that the magazine was his personal project. Your style of putting things that can be easily phrased within a sentence into awkward and choppy parenthesis makes, quite simply, for poor writing on an encyclopedia, Jim. Do you always make conspiratorial charges when you don't get your way at POV pushing in an article? Your unnecessarily combative tone and your repeatedly demonstrated refusals to even consider a compromise proposal made in good faith suggest as much. Rangerdude 06:14, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Where is the source for "humbug" appearing in either article? Funny how you repeatedly claim non-responsiveness after all the points you have had not addressed AND after some middle-ground has already been laid out. Don't bother with the amateur pyscho-analysis or ad hominems--JimWae 06:32, 2005 September 8 (UTC)

Please show me where you've offered a good faith response to my suggestion of a footnote as a compromise or to my request that both sides of the authorship debate among Dickens scholars be represented in a NPOV fashion rather than simply reverting to the poorly worded POV paragraph you desire. Seeing as you cannot, I stand by my criticism of your anti-collaborative and unduly combative behavior here. Rangerdude 14:10, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Specious humbug

Make up your mind, is it from the first article or from a letter to someone? Given the repeated changes of position, omissions of relevant data, and convenient overlooking of the authorship issue, we now know that we cannot trust the Internet regarding what Dickens said on this matter. I will be deleting the latest quote -- which notably is split up -- unless the original source from Dickens ( and the connecting text) is provided on this talk page.

It is also disingenuous to put that which everyone agrees on in the mouth of one of the partisans (Adrian) - and again, the word theory is being misused to elevate dissension on the details of a single event.

Actually, as I said from the outset, extended discussion on Marx & Dickens should be removed from the article. Neither originated either position - and if "scholars" have used them as paradigm positions (as previously claimed by RD) they have made a serious error, given that we have very little from Dickens that he clearly authored - except for (perhaps) some private letters --JimWae 18:29, 2005 September 8 (UTC)

The quote is sourced to a well known Dickens biography, Jim - right down to the page number. It is "split up" to accomodate this article's tenses and sentence structures. The full quote reads "The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states." Deleting sourced material for POV reasons, as you seem intent on doing, is a form of disruption. You've been both asked and warned many times to conduct yourself in a more civilized consensus-oriented manner here. Threatening to delete something because you don't like it and on the stipulation that your personal demands are not met when indeed Wikipedia's sourcing requirements have been satisfied with the quote is disruptive at its very nature. Rangerdude 18:38, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

And without the original source, we have no reason to believe it is not another case of conveniently overlooked doubtful authorship. And if it is from a letter to a friend, it does not merit being held up as a paradigm position that shaped "historiography". The article is neither about Dickens private nor his presumed views on the Civil War --JimWae 18:47, 2005 September 8 (UTC)

Dickens' private views are pertinent to this article because they demonstrate, as Adrian shows, that the ATYR editorials were representative of Dickens' opinion on the matter. Please do not delete sourced material on the article's subject. In your edit found here [3], Jim, you completely deleted sourced references to scholarly histories by Adrian, Adams, and Ackroyd that were complete with page numbers and everything. I cannot help but conclude that you did so for the purpose of promoting only Storey's hypothesis about Morley being the author since that is the one you personally endorse and since you have demonstrated hostility to anything other than it. That is censorship and point of view pushing, Jim, and it clearly violates WP:NPOV. Cloaking Storey's hypothesis about Morley in speculative language about its rationales that are not found in Storey's own writings is also a type of original research. Your deletes of this type are a form of POV pushing and are approaching a level of vandalism. Once again you are urged to conduct yourself in a manner that is in compliance with wikipedia's consensus and NPOV mandates. Should you fail to do so I will be forced to seek dispute resolution against your repeated violations. Rangerdude 01:48, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] RfC on content & revert warring

I posted an RfC regarding the revert warring over how to handle the Morley dispute. The disagreement may be summarized as follows:

The article currently contains a quotation from an unsigned article about the Morrill Tariff that appeared in Charles Dickens' opinion magazine All the Year Round in 1861. Dickens scholars widely agree that this article is representative of Dickens' political views on the Morrill Tariff. Since the article was unsigned however, it is unknown who authored it, or alternatively if it was collaborative, and differing theories have emerged among Dickens scholars about this. One theory is supported by Graham Storey and suggests that Henry Morley wrote the article, but other Dickens scholars say that this is impossible to prove.

VIEW 1: Supported by JimWae - This endorses the theory of Graham Storey that the quote from Dickens' All the Year Round was written by Henry Morley. JimWae desires to include a paragraph highlighting the Morley theory in the article's text itself right after the quote and has removed a proposed compromise footnote that presents other conflicting viewpoints among scholars. [4]

VIEW 2: Supported by Rangerdude - Believes that the Morley authorship dispute is too obscure to go in the text of the main article itself and asserts that the paragraph desired by JimWae is distracting to the flow of the other text in the article. An alternative has been proposed as a compromise [5], which moves the discussion of authorship to a footnote and portrays both the Storey theory and competing theories of other scholars who suggest that Dickens wrote it or that authorship is impossible to prove (two of the main competing theories to Morley's authorship).

Unfortunately this has devolved into revert warring aimed at restoring/preserving the same paragraph on the Morley theory into the article text [6] This also unfortunately includes several refusals by proponents of the Morley theory to respond to compromise offers and other objections to this paragraph.[7][8][9] Comments on what to do about this content, anyone? Rangerdude 05:54, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

VIEW 3: Supported by user:Willmcw - The approach "two irreconciliable views", Dickens versus Marx, appears to me to be an original theory. If this were an established perspective on history then the sourcing of this all-important quotation would be well-known. I propose we cut out any quotes that do not mention the Morrill Tariff by name. -Willmcw 06:30, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Note on the above - the topic of the British reactions to the Morrill tariff, of which Marx and Dickens were well known participants, has been the subject of dozens of scholarly articles, books, and other publications contrary to the claims of the so-called "View 3" proponent. The very same subject occupies several chapters in one of the books cited among the article sources (Adams) and parts of at least two other books by him as well as the cited journal article by Adrian on Dickens specifically - and that is just a small list of the discussion of participants. All of these texts address the Morrill Tariff by name and at length, and all discuss one or more British authors in the context of their reactions to the Morrill Tariff. It should be noted for the record that the proponent of "View 3" has been informed of these and other similar facts repeatedly throughout the course of this article's development, yet persists in ignoring that which conflicts with his attempts to dismiss the matter as "original research" - a pattern of behavior that I believe to constitute disruption to wikipedia itself on his part, which is among the reasons I have initiated arbitration proceedings against this individual for his similar behavior both on this and other articles. Rangerdude 14:06, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

The proponent of View 3 has always been concerned about this quotation, which is an assemblage of excerpts from an article of unknown authorship. The proponent of View 1 has never provded the full quotation. This section contains a number of assertions which have not been referenced, such as " most British newspapers opposed it... contending that the tariff was the major reason why the Southern states wanted to secede". The proponent of View 3 believes that this article should be substantially trimmed. Finally, regarding edit warning, the proponent of View 1 appears to have reverted the article seven times in the last three days, while the proponent of View 3 has done so three times. -Willmcw 17:04, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the above it should also be noted that the proponent of View 3 has repeatedly purported that the article from which the pertinent quote comes does not specifically mention the Morrill Tariff by name and subsequently asserted that to be a basis for deleting the quote entirely.[10] [11] As a matter of factual accuracy, this claim by the proponent of View 3 is a falsehood. Indeed, the quote in the current versions comes from an article that is entitled "The Morrill Tariff" dated December 28, 1861 in All the Year Round. Furthermore, the proponent of "View 3" has been informed of this circumstance of the article, including its title, several different times - the earliest being February 14, 2005 [12] - yet he persists in claiming otherwise in spite of this knowledge. The proponent of View 3 curiously also complains that I have similarly reverted content in this article yet fails to mention that, while I have accompanied such changes with attempts at a compromise, the addition of sources and citations, improvements to existing citations, and other changes aimed at generally improving the article and seeking a resolution to the dispute, [13][14] his reversions, without exception, have been made for the purpose of restoring the same disputed paragraph advocated by the proponent of the Morley theory and deleting any proposed alternative to it [15] [16] [17] despite unanswered standing objections to that paragraph on the talk page and multiple requests for a more neutral compromise. With this evidence in mind, I have little choice but to conclude that his editing activities are being conducted for the purpose of disruption rather than any legitimate or genuine attempt to better this article. Rangerdude 17:33, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Title of ATY article

• The next week in All The Year Round Dickens also did a followup article specifically entitled "The Morrill Tariff". Rangerdude 05:02, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A) So the magazine ran articles with the same title two weeks in a row? B) Do we know that the second week's article was written by Dickens, instead of Morley, or someone else? -Willmcw 17:50, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

• • The first article was entitled "The American Disunion" and ran on the 21st. It is NOT the article that is excerpted in the block quote here. This is the article to which the Morley _theory_ most directly applies, however as Adrian notes it is impossible to know conclusively who wrote it - only that it accurately reflected Dickens' position. The second article was entitled "The Morrill Tariff" as you were informed in February and have been informed of repeatedly since then, up to and including over the past week. It was published on December 28th. It is the article that is excerpted in the block quote here. Again, it is an unsigned article so we can't know exactly who wrote it. I will note for the record that the Morley evidence, which is speculative at best for the 12/21 article and contingent upon interpreting a Dickens letter, appears to be nonexistant for the 12/28 article. The most substantive analysis of both articles' authorship that I can find is the one by Adrian, which is quoted above. As noted Adrian shows that (1) it is impossible to know exactly the authorship for either, (2) it is possible to know that Dickens screened both articles and that he probably contributed in some for or another to editing them, (3) they are both representative of Dickens' personal opinions on the subject, and (4) they are consistent with known private letters of Dickens stating the same opinions about the Morrill tariff and the war. On another note, it should be self evident that this entire discussion is arcane and complex - which is why I consider it distracting to put it in the middle of the article itself. It is also something about which Dickens scholars differ, so promoting the Morley theory - which not all scholars accept - would be pushing that POV if other views are not also included.Rangerdude 18:22, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dickens meager quotes - upon which Adams has based a historiography

From Adrian we have "nothing on earth" and "gradually got to itself the making of laws and the settlement of the Tariff."

We've seen selective quoting & doubtful authorship before - let's have more of the quote and less editorial "filling in" --JimWae 07:25, 2005 September 11 (UTC)

Actually, this whole Marx/Dickens issue is ludicrous. It should be part of an article on Adams' book. Neither Marx nor Dickens originated the two proposed causes of the war - and it seems Dickens had extremely little to say on the topic. Upon Adams' apparent belief that Dickens wrote just about everything in ATYR he & others would build a whole "historiography" --JimWae 07:25, 2005 September 11 (UTC)

There is no clear document produced so far in which Dickens even uses the word Morrill - though our selected (& again with-little-context) quote above (from a private letter to "a friend") does use the word tariff. Private letters shaping the writing of history, while published articles do not?--JimWae 07:30, 2005 September 11 (UTC)

Adrian is a well known Dickens scholar and his article where those quotes appear is in a top-tier peer reviewed academic journal. That is more than sufficient. Furthermore, "Morrill Tariff" was not only used by name in Dickens related materials - it was even the title of the second All the Year Round article itself. Adrian uses the private letters to demonstrate that it is a sound conclusion to interpret the All the Year Round article as Dickens' own viewpoint, so I'd appreciate it if you would quit attacking the straw man argument that purports those private letters absent the accompanying editorial in All the Year Round to be the focus of the matter. We've been over this many times BTW. As to whether the inclusion of Marx & Dickens material is "ludicrous" or not, that's a personal POV issue and thus not your call to make. Encyclopedias are for information purposes and more than enough scholars have written about the views of Dickens, Marx, and/or both on the Morrill Tariff to merit their inclusion here. Rangerdude 06:24, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

To be clear - it is Adams' building a historiography upon Marx & Dickens that I contend is ludicrous. Of course Wikipedia can report on what Adams wrote & his influence - most appropriately, however, in an article on Adams. But letting Adams' historiography shape most of this article was/is too much of an appeal to authority --JimWae 21:09, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fairness and Sympathetic Tone

Dear Rjenson and Will Beback - Please take a moment to read WP:NPOV, which says "If we're going to characterize disputes fairly, we should present competing views with a consistently positive, sympathetic tone." Some of your edits did not do this. Thank You. - Justin Morrill

Thanks for the reminder. NPOV means that we need to handle the criticisms as sympathetically as the praise. If there is something specific that needs addressing, please let me know. -Will Beback 22:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questia

Questia is an online publisher and official Wiki policy recommends listing publishers. It NEVER has recommended against Questia or sources like JSTOR that are subscribed to by many libraries. More important, Questia gives FREE access to the first page of every chapter. That is invaluable if you are deciding if you need the book. So let's not delete information of value to users. Rjensen 02:42, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

The standard for giving book references is to list the ISBN. That way wikipedia isn't seen as supporting certain pay services over others. Linking to Questia is like linking to Amazon pages where they have a preview option. Sure - it can help you decide if you want the book but it still is a service you pay for to get the full thing. ISBN is more neutral because it shows you what you need to find the book but doesn't favor one pay service over the others. For now I made the questia links into numerical links, but they should be replaced by ISBN in the end. Thanks for your help on this article. - Justin Morrill

Questia has valuable information for users that is very hard to find. Amazon--by contrast is VERY well known and does not need referencing. JSTOR is another very valuable source that many users need to know about. Both Questia and JSTOR are free at many libraries. It is unfair to users, and a violation of Wiki policy, to blank out useful information that is NPOV. Nobody has to pay a penny for that info. If you want to buy a book from QQuestia or from Macmillan, you of course pay $$. Wiki users I suggest already know about paying for access to WWW -- I pay about $40 a month myself and I bet most of our users also pay to get Wiki. Ayway, please do not blank out Questia links. (No I have no connection with them--but I search their huge database all the time.) Rjensen 04:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

• Agree with Justin. Questia links should not be used. You should use ISBN. --JW1805 (Talk) 03:13, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Historians and economists

I see you have a major bias against economists. And large ignorance as to how they reach their conclusions. Milton Friedman, along with Hayek are well known as qualititative economists who use history as empirical evidence. I disagree with your assertion that you must take into account "sociology" or "pyschology" when examining history. I believe those are completly irrelevant. Historians look at facts not other bogus information or taking individuals fallacious reasoning as evidence for an outcome (at least they are supposed to in theory).

THere is no evidence that suggests that tariffs are good beyond the fallacious and ill reasoned arguements you have given. For example the rise of Germany against England. I hate to break it to you but England was still very much a protectionist society up until they eliminated their last tariff. Trade was largely restricted to the empire, goods in india were raw materials only rather than finished products etc etc etc.

Furthermore, protectionism, as these economists argue, gives you very short term benefits as money is pumped into industries but over the long run they are not sustainable as the industries require more and more money as their innovation effeciency slips further and further behind their competition. Those are the proven facts, mathematically and historically.

Furthermore, the belief that tariffs must have worked because UK "shrunk" in their global production while the US and Germany grew is a fallacious conclusion. Take this as an example. You own the worlds only factory and produce 100% of the worlds goods. Now lets say you increase production by 100% as the worlds population grows, but not you have competition. 2 Competitors each take 10% of the production of consumable goods. Your factor now, despite doubling production, has been reduced to manufactoring only 80% of the worlds goods. Are you losing? Falling apart? Failing? No. (Gibby 16:36, 10 January 2006 (UTC))

Don't be so arrogant. Actually I have a PhD minor in economics theory and have known Friedman for decades (I for example compiled the bibliography in the Wiki article on him). This is a history article so put the theorizing in economics or mathematics. Friedman write at length on 19c US economic history and did not say the tariff was bad. (I just did a search using Google.books [18]

Before you write history you really need to read history. So find some people who agree with you who have done some research on the 1850-1900 period. Let's go over which American industries 1850-1900 slipped further and further behind? Steel? Railroads? textiles? machinery? where? answer is nowhere. The "short run" seems to have lasted over 100 years! If you disagree Please give some numbers. Rjensen 16:56, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Gentlemen - Please remember to stay on track with this article. It is not the place for a debate about Milton Friedman or the long term effects of protection vs. free trade in the U.S. history. It is not the place to post a section about whether the economists or the historians are right on free trade. Keep this article on track and about the Morrill Tariff just as the Underwood Tariff article should be about the Underwood Tariff. Thank you. - Justin Morrill

Thats nice you have a PhD minoring in economic theory, whoopty do. I know plenty of PhD in political economy who don't know squat about economics and take every chance they can get to muck it up to argue socialist outcomes...and they teach at top research institutions!!!!

In Free to Choose and Capitalism and Freedom, Friedan does tell you that tariffs are bad...and that they exist for no good reason for the general welfare of America. Justin, my counteropints against Rji were if he was to include the baseless revisionism that tariffs were good then I was to include the counterarguement that they were not.

If economies grow protected they grow despite the tariffs. Tariffs cause consumers to pay higher prices for goods. They protect industry from competition thus end up directing resources to places where society, given a free market, is not willing to actually send resources. Resources are thus wasted, extra money is exploited from consumers, innovation of product is deminished, and effeciency of industry decreases.

- American railroads had to be ripped up, and reset. Later they had to be protected against competition from trucking. - American steel today is innefeciently produced and requires higher and higher tariffs to produce. It lost the incentive to build new factories thanks to the tarrifs and as a result can only build steel in massive batches, which society no longer desires. They are becoming more and more unprofitable. - American cars...a great example of how protection eliminates innovation. American cars have been behind imports for 30 years now with no signs of catching up. For 30 years GM has argued for more protection because they can't compete against Japanese cars...and the ceo's have admited that these are better cars than GM makes!!!

Tarrifs are nothing more than a perverse wealth transfer from the poor (consumers) to the rich (capital owners). Period. Milton Friedman discusses this at length. Tarrifs are exploitation, they hurt the general welfare of society, and reduce the effectivness of the economy. They are anchors not means to growth. You subscribe to pure historical revisionism and fallacious economic reasoning. You're just wrong! (Gibby 06:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC))

You are arguing that Morrill impoverished America, from a great powerful nation with robust economy in 1860 to a has-been poor, falling-behind place in 1900. Let's look at the data set again, please. Numbers, numbers, numbers! Wiki must not have a POV that is detached from all the events of 19th century history. When we talk about 1865 we do not use 1965 examples. As for Friedman, he has written a LOT on economics (I'm the one who cataloged it for Wiki) and to my knowledge he has never criticized the 19th century tariffs. He has praised the civil war financial system--which is what the article is about--and he has dismissed the "utopians" who pretend top apply mathematics to real history. Rjensen 08:25, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm you arent listening to a word I say are you? No, the microeconomist arguement is that tarrifs do the things I described. The United States has grown despite the tarrifs. TARRIFS ARE HARMFUL are Milton Friedman has always held that position! What kinda numbers are you looking for? THe problem is people like you have gotten the wrong answer from the numbers available. You simply think that economic growth under a period of tarrifs means that tarrifs lead to growth. This is a fallaciously sophmoric conclusion to make as the grounds are a bit shakey to draw this conclusion. Tarrifs behave exactly as I described, exactly as Milton Friedman described. Despite our protectionism, we still had a solid private property system, and just enough liberalism to grow. If we eliminate all tarrifs we'll be even better off, if we never had the tarrifs to begin with we'd be even better off. (Gibby 15:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC))

Are tariffs harmful? That is an important question if we talk about steel tariffs in 2006. It is utterly irrelevant for the historian of 1861. NOTHING we say can change what the people did then. If you think tariffs were bad, --couldn't have been as bad as 600,000 deaths in the war! Historians may WANT to change what happened in 1861 but we CANNOT and therefore we do not try. Let's try this approach: the US Government needed $$$$$$ to fight a war. What funding policies would you recommend? what mix of tariff, income tax, excise tax, greenbacks and bonds? As I mentioned Friedman thought the mix that was chosen at the time was fairly good, but if you think people made a mistke you have to come up with a better plan. What's your better plan? Rjensen 15:57, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I can see where your historical revisionism comes from...or your short term memory, you added a sentence at the top of the morrill tarrif page stating that the tarrif helped boost our economic growth over the next several decades. This required either a deleition, or a counter point to the contrary (of which there are many!)

Hows this for fighting wars of aggression...free trade provides the necessary preventive measures to keep nations from engaging in such wars. Raising tarrifs and centralizing economic authority into the hands of the government are sure ways to make war. Friedman would never say the tarrif was good, he would say the what the tarrif was used for, and that was to raise an army and attack teh south. If he said it was good, he would only have admited such taxes and government intervention are good for really only one thing and that is making war.

My better plan is simple. Eliminate cenralized authority of economics, promote free trade, unilateraly eliminate tarrifs, simplify the tax code. We won't be fighting aggressive wars, period.

Tarrifs and economic control give governments perverse incentives for making war, they cause war. It can be said that as the cause of war they are worse than the destruction of war.

(Gibby 17:10, 11 January 2006 (UTC))

Please let's avoid getting into abstract discussions of tariff policy. We're only here to discuss the contents of this article. Cheers, -Will Beback 17:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Friedman and Underwood

The high Morrill rates stayed in effect to 1913 (with a brief interlude 1894-97), and were lowered seriously by the Underwood 1913 tariff. In a history article it's essential to say how the thing ended. As for Milton Friedman, he and Schwartz wrote one of the most influential economic histories, and he dealt in depth with finance of the 1860s, which is what this all about. Users need to know what he said. Likewise it's important to explain why historians reject Beard--it's because Beard used one state (Pennsylvania) and wrongly assumed the rest of the northeast was similar. He picked Pennsy because it churned out lots of tariff pamphlets (that man Carey's friends) and Boston and New York did not. so Beard missed the 3/4 of the picture, which Hofstadter fills in. New York and Boston business opposed the high tariff, so BEard's model of Northeast versus South is not true. . Rjensen 08:31, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

When you have two of the foremost historians (Hofstadter and Friedman) weighing in with a position that most historians agree with, they have to be heard. If someone want to add other historians, why go right ahead. But don't hide information. The topic, please remember, is Civil War finance. Rjensen 08:43, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Rjensen - I appreciate your enthusiasm here, but you are mistaken on some issues of fact and seem to be getting way off track by going to Friedman. Friedman belongs in an article about the general history of United States tariffs. Unless he said something specifically about the Morrill Tariff though, he does not belong here any more than any randomly picked economist who said similar things about trade in general. Second, the Beard hypothesis is very much so a debated issue - but it is not a settled issue, and Hofstadter certainly did not settle it. Hofstadter wrote in 1938 and his article was a few brief pages on the issue raised by Beard. There have been dozens of books and articles written between then and now though, so please quit treating Hofstadter as if he were a final authoritative word (saying things like "Hofstadter shows..." or "Hofstadter proves..." and "Hofstadter disproves..." are not kosher on wikipedia b/c they endorse Hofstadter over everything else written since then). Michael F. Holt's book comes highly recommended to me. He is probably the foremost historian presently living whose expertise is in the years between the Mexican and Civil Wars, and he says (contradicting Hofstadter) that there was tariff agitation in several northern states as early as 1858 in response to the 1857 depression. Holt even specifically names Massachusetts and New York as high tariff loci in addition to Penn and NJ. It is also true that almost all of New Yorks and Mass's delegations in congress voted for the Morrill Tariff. Since voting is the only measure that officially counts it is probably more important as measure of whether those states actually supported it or not than is a business pamphleteer from one of those states. - Justin Morrill, 2.14.06

two points: The Morrill tariff is about finances in 1860s, and Friedman is a leading expert on that subject. 2) I just looked over Beard. He mentions the Morrill act only in passsing (v 2 pa 106 -- 10 words that says tariffs were raised during the war) and in his lengthy discussion of causes of CW does NOT list tariffs as an issue. He AGREES w Hofstadter that New England did not want high tariffs and that POennyslvania and NJ were the main sponsors in 1860. You have a half sentence from Holt on 1858--a different year--what does he say on 1860? Rjensen 08:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

As for relevance: I suggest we drop the Dickens business. Put it in Dickins bio. Rjensen 08:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Rjensen - in response to your two points, you are overly generalizing that the Morrill Tariff was about finances. As you know there were three major tariff bills sponsored by Rep. Morrill. The first and largest is the most famous one from 1861, and according to Henry Carey - the man who designed it - its main purpose was to restore protection, not to raise revenue. The second two were to add revenue because of the war along with the income tax and other taxes. Unless Friedman specifically identifies the Morrill Tariff by name though, his comments probably are not appropriate. Holt states that the push for tariffs began in 1858 in response to the 1857 Depression. This is to distinguish it from 1846-1857, when the tariff folks truly were more silent. His point is that the Depression caused them to renew their program for higher tariffs and that seems to be the current consensus among historians. The result was the Morrill Tariff, which was drawn up in 1859, proposed in 1860, and signed into law in 1861. - JM, 2.15.06

The tariff was negotiated by dozens of members of Congress, and discussed by hundreds of newspapers. Carey was articulate but to make his views the ONLY interpretation is of course not how historians work. There was a war on and tariff = $$$. Let's keep Friedman in--you kept Beard in even though he never mnentions the M tariff by name. Why keep Dickens in when we don't even have DICKENS name--just an anon editorial in a magazine. If you want to add Holt on 1858 then please do so, but he never mentions the M tariff by name either. Rjensen 09:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Rjensen - your history is very mistaken in this matter. The law bears the great Justin Morrill's name because Justin Morrill controlled what was in it, and he used Carey as his chief adviser. Other congressmen certainly went to him with suggestions on thingds that mattered to their districts but in the end it was Morrill and Carey's child. The newspapers reported on what got passed - they did not design the law though. You are also being overly general that "there was a war on and tariff = $$$" - there was no war on in 1860 though before the presidential election. That is when Morrill sponsored the bill and it passed the House in May. They certainly didn't do that because of a war that hadn't happened yet. But as Carey and Morrill indicated, they did want protection at the time. Also Beard and Holt both write much more directly about the Morrill Tariff than Friedman does. They both talk about the tariff politics of the late 1850's and early 60's and what they meant, whereas Friedman does not. You only state in general that he doesn't talk about tariffs from the ENTIRE 19th century. That's 100 years. And Dickens? I don't know, but what is there looks to be very well researched and exhaustively footnoted - almost scholarly in detail. It is about the Morrill Tariff and more information is better than less, so I guess I don't see any real need to change it. - JM

The law bears Morrill's name because he chaired the Ways and Means committee and it has always been the practice to name it after the chairman. Carey was an advisor but no more than that. Lots of people had an interest (esp Sen Cameron of PA who handled the Senate version). Over 100 members of Congress debated the issue and there were dozens of amendments. The law was not passed until the war was 4 weeks in the offing. Everyone knew a war was a very likely possibility in Feb 1861. Neither Beard nor Holt mention the MT (Beard has one sentence on p 106). Ypu only seem interested in the protectionist motivations of some people (Carey,. Morrill). But in fact the tariff was much bigger than either of them, and did last 50 years without them. Until I added it today the article never even mentioned how much customs revenue it raised.

As for protection: the article still does not say exactly who was protected from what. As for Dickens -- or whoever-- that excerpt never mentions the tariff (unless you read it as saying southerners for many years have complained about the high tariff--in which case it's totally misinformed) so why is he there at all? Rjensen 10:21, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Rjensen - Your history about this era is very flawed. Justin Morrill did not become the chairman of the Ways and Means committee until after the Civil War. Thaddeus Stevens was the chairman of it in 1861 and Morrill was the sponsor - a committee member but not the chairman. Also most early tariff bills were NOT named after the Chairman of the Ways and Means. When named at all they were always after the person in the government who designed them. Alexander Hamilton and Robert Walker had bills named after them when they were Secretary of the Treasury. You are also very wrong about there being dozens of amendments to Mr. Morrill's bill. Almost every attempt to amend it lost the vote and there were essentially no major changes to the Morrill Tariff between May when the House passed it and the next February when the Senate passed it. The Conference Committee on the bill was so inconsequential that it was signed into law about 48 hours later. It is certainly true that they knew a war was coming in Feb. 1861, but the point is that the bill predates that by over a year. When congress debates a major bill it takes several months or years even today. I am interested in showing the protectionist aspect of the Morrill Tariff because that is accurately what it was. It is only due justice to Mr. Morrill's legacy to acurately portray the most detailed explanation of what he was doing. Morrill was a very smart man and he knew in his mind that the tariff had important revenue AND protection aspects that could be made into policy. Protection was his goal in the first and main Morrill Tariff bill. Revenue was his goal in the two wartime revisions. But even the revenue aspects you keep listing were not a part of the best known Morrill Tariff law - they were part of the two revisions to it made in 1861 and 1862 after the war started. It is accurate to say that they were made because of the war but you keep lumping them all together and obscuring this important distinction with broad generalizations of the three bills as if they were only one. A last point on Dickens is that it is useful to read what has already been written about him. Read through the exhaustive conversations about him as I have and it is not true that his newspaper "never mentions the tariff." If you look above at the references the name of the entire article was called "The Morrill Tariff" and, regardless of whether he or one of his writers did most of the writing of it the major Dickens scholars all agree that it was his opinion. Dickens is certainly as notable as Lord Palmerston or Marx so I simply don't see reason in your case to delete him and not the others. - JM 2.15

I agree with points both have made above. The most important thing is to present the truth regarding the Morrill Tariff(s) and not to make this more than an encyclopedia article. My reverts earlier were to ensure accuracy and flow of information. Both of you have put much work into this, so I applaud that. The fact is, the Morrill Tariff was the plan of the Republican Party, many of whom were former Whigs, to institute a protectionist tariff as a part of the American System of Clay that was the root of the Whig Party efforts so thwarted because of mistakes on their part in previous elections (ie. choosing Harrison over Clay, when they were sure to win in 1840, then ending up with Tyler). Lincoln was a original Whig man and supported high tariffs, national banking, and internal improvements. Thus, the Morrill Tariff I(passed by newly elected Republican majority two days prior to Lincoln's nomination, which should be in this article as fact) whcih established rates around 38%, then further increases to pay for the war and to achieve true protection (48% levels). This was in addition to the National Banking Act of 1863, and the Pacific Railways Act of 1862; hallmarks of the Lincoln and the Republican Party's plan to industrialize the country. The South opposed this of course, and they passed a low 10% tariff to raise revenue. This stuff is all fact. When discussing Morrill, it not important what this person says or that, but the facts of the situation as they really existed then...and here we have Dickins, who doesn't matter to the debate as he wasn't involved in the politics in the Congress over the passage of this bill. --Northmeister 15:30, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alfred Marshall quote

Question - Is Marshall actually talking about the U.S. Morrill Tariff policy of the 1860's? The quote you added is general. It just talks about Britain protecting its own industries - not America. Could you give some more of it to show why it belongs here? - JM

[edit] The version now is the best I've seen so Far

Gentlemen, we are getting to a version of this page that looks good, is accurate, represents the debate and has square references to enlist the curiosity of the reader and to back what is said. The British debate to me is of little importance. This is a tariff in American History. The British were at that time still one of leading competitors and many during that time did not trust them. Marx said it was slavery, so what. So have many mainstream historians over the years (by mainstream, the mass of historians attribute the leading cause of the Civil War to Slavery). Marx, also said there would be an workers revolt in Germany and that nation would be one of the first to go Communist. He was wrong. Just like when Smith stated in the Wealth of Nations that the new US Republic would not become a manufacturing power because it had a natural propensity for agriculture. He was wrong, we proved him wrong after 1861 (starting with this Tariff). My contention is that it was both, as per the references on this page. The South disliked protective tariffs because it refused to industrialize and was to reliant on export. It's plantation culture kept them backwards. Their Constitution was modeled on the US Constitution with two notable exceptions...they eliminate 'to promote the General Welfare' out of their preamble, and restricted the use of protective tariffs to revenue only per their Congressional powers; thus this and the slave system reliant on this were causes. Historic fact is important. The opinions of historians vary, as with any topic. What do the facts say, that's important. --Northmeister 18:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the best way to view this article is being separated into two parts. The first part is by far the most important - it tells the basic facts of what the Morrill Tariff was and what it did like Northmister recommends. This is the history of the Morrill Tariff as it happened. This is the emphasis of sections 1, 2, and 3. Section 4 can be viewed as the second part of this article. It has little to do with the way the Morrill Tariff was passed but should be viewed as a discussion of how people reacted to it and all the various views. These are less important and shouldn't be the article's main thrust. There function in there though is to give the reader a glimpse of some of the stuff that has been written about the Morrill Tariff though so he can pursue it if he wants. It is important to know that the Morrill Tariff pissed off Great Britain, but it is more important to know what the Morrill Tariff was first. That's why the first half of this article is before it. I am confident now that any reader who was interested in the British response could now go research Dickens or Lord Palmerston on his own given the introductions we have here. But he'd already have sufficient background on what the Morrill Tariff is and does since the first part of the article takes care of that. - JM

The article is getting better. As for Dickens, he adds zero to the debate (his letter shows he thought the Morrill tariff had been in effect long before the war.) The article is weakest still on the long-term impact of the MT. Did in fact it make much difference anywhere? How much difference did it make? That's why Marshall's 1903 analysis is so important. Rjensen 20:11, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Keep Dickens and Marshall...I agree about Dickerns with Rjensen...but I agree with JM about organization. I don't see why it is important to take Dicken's out. You both know my opinion on the whole British inclusion, but as a matter of compromise keep both as relevant to the discussion in their proper place. --Northmeister 20:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Rjensen - I just read the Dickens section again and I don't see where his letter says he thought the Morrill Tariff had been in effect long before the war. Where are you getting this from? - JM

Start fresh: WHY is so much attention paid to novelist Mr Dickens? He wrote one sentence about the Morrill Tariff in 1862, and might have written or approved an editorial that never mentions the MT. We already have excellent coverage of the British public opinion in the article.

Dickens says (1862): "But the North having gradually got to itself the making of laws and the settlement of the Tariffs, and having taxed the South most abominably for its own advantage..." That is simply false -- he assumes the high tariff had long been in place. NO: It was passed in Feb 1861 AFTER the South seceeded. So he's badly informed. This is the ONE sentence of his that mentions the MT. So he made a passing comment--so what?? How does that help inform a Wiki user? How does that explain the MT tariff? On the other hand when the leading British economist makes a considered judgment in 1903 about the long-term impact of the MT rates, then that is worthy of telling our users. Rjensen 21:03, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I took out ending statement on Dickens as not helpful. Added the word's 'weighed in' to the Marshall section. --Northmeister 21:22, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

OK how's this. Keep the editorial and attribute to Dickens, but drop the long footnote and the long list of cites to Dickens scholarship. People interested in Morrill Tariff will not want to be misled into looking into those books on Dickens.Rjensen 21:39, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that is reasonable right in line with presenting the facts without distracting from the article. What do you say JM? --Northmeister 22:21, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

R Jensen - I think you are seriously mistaking or misrepresenting that quote as an error of Dickens. Nothing there appears to assume that the Morrill Tariff had been in place and Dickens sure doesn't say that. He was probably complaining about the "Tariff of Abominations" of 1828 ("having taxed the South most abominably") and thus can be interpreted as likening that law to the Morrill Tariff. You also keep repeating the lie that Dickens' editorial "never mentions the Morrill Tariff" but go read above and you'll see it is right there - the article's TITLE was "The Morrill Tariff."

About its authorship - I agree that all those footnote things were probably too long. So what you and Northmeister suggest is fine. What should be said is that the editorial represented Dickens' views since it was in his newspaper where he had control of the editorial. This is like saying the unsigned editorials in any newspaper today represent the views of their editorial boards. When the New York Times runs an unsigned editorial criticizing Justice Alito it means that the New York Times' editorial board believes that about Alito. - JM

• Tax "historian" Charles Adams seems to have started this whole Marx vs Dickens "debate". He uses the scary Marx & the popular Dickens not because they were especially relevant or qualified, but seemingly because the very mention of their names arouse emotions. Back when I first came here, the quote was assertively attributed to Dickens, while Marx was heavily criticized. Problem is Dickens almost certainly did NOT write it - though no doubt he approved it. I went to considerable effort to research this issue, but would still be willing to see it disappear - EXCEPT
  • the "M-D debate" is now part of the literature that many people who come here will have already read,
  • We can expect others to come here & try to re-insert a direct attribution of the quote to Dickens if his name still appears in the article.
  • If Dickens is mentioned at all, the footnote should stay - otherwise the reader is being either mislead or left wondering why he is there at all. Footnotes are not part of the main text and anyone who does not want to read that detail can easily skip over it. - perhaps it belongs better in a Charles Adams article, with a link here & NO mention of Dickens --JimWae 03:29, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Dickens now is shown as a representative of British public opinion. To that extent it's not controversial--or revealing, and does not need a footnote at all. If people want the history of the Wiki article, it's all here at a click. The article is about the Morrill tariff and people who are interested in Dickens are likely to go to the Dickens article, or the many sub-articles on his books, rather than to an article on American economic policy. Rjensen 03:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

• The "british debate" section is incoherent - 2 views emerged - but two views are not presented yet. There were 2 views on the causes of the war, and there may have been 2 views on the appropriateness of the tariff. The section gives one view on the tariff and 1.5 views on the causes of the war. -- but mostly there were 2 views on which side to support. --JimWae 04:51, 16 February 2006 (UTC) --- and which of these 2 sides does a 1903 commentary relate to--JimWae 04:54, 16 February 2006 (UTC) -- For Dickens, the choice of quotes is between something he published but did not write, or something he wrote but did not publish --JimWae 05:03, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Good point about the incoherence--I tried to fix it. Rjensen 05:04, 16 February 2006 (UTC)