In my last article (which you may read by clicking here), I presented a story about a group of sovereign nations who joined to create a union of perpetual peace and cooperation with one another. This union, now known as the United States of America, bears an uncanny resemblance in form and function to the European Union.
Today, I will continue my analysis of the similarities between the US and the EU with a brief discussion (intended for a British audience, of course) of some economic tension that erupted between the states and the federal government in the decades prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War. To this day, Civil War history remains an incredibly sensitive and divisive issue in the United States, mainly because there is little consensus in the academic community regarding a single, specific cause of the conflict. But contrary to popular belief, it is generally agreed that most of the main underlying tensions were instigated by unpopular economic policies in the decades prior to the war, and not necessarily by the institution of slavery.
My hope in writing this article is that the European reader see many similarities between economic regulations that have been imposed on member states by unelected EU bureaucrats, and the unpopular economic regulations that were imposed by the US Congress on the states prior to the outbreak of the Civil War.
On May 19, 1828, a mere 52 years after the American states declared their independence from British rule, Congress passed a trade tariff aimed at protecting northern industry from British imports. Because of the French blockade of continental Europe, British manufacturers had increased their exports of goods to the United States and greatly cut their prices to make them competitive with American goods. American manufacturers in the north were unable to compete with the cheaper British goods and were subsequently forced out of business.
The so-called “Tariff of Abominations” was hailed as a solution to the problem of cheap British goods and imposed one of the highest import taxes in the history of the United States. Unfortunately, the tariff was clearly intended to favor the northern states at the expense of southern farmers. The southern states had economies based not on the production of manufactured goods, but on production of raw agricultural goods such as tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton. As predicted, the tariff resulted in an exponential increase in the cost of manufactured products, which the southern states had to import regardless of the increases in asking prices. Furthermore, British manufacturers responded to the tariff by greatly slashing their imports of American cotton, which greatly harmed southern farmers, but not northern manufacturers.
Farmers in South Carolina were the first to respond to this tariff by forming the Nullifier Party and the States Rights and Free Trade Association, both of which successfully lobbied for a bill of nullification in the statewide constituent assembly. The 1832 Act of Nullifcation was based on the legal defenses of compact theory as proposed by Presidents James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. South Carolina argued that since the federal government was created by independent and sovereign states, each individual state had the power to review and “nullify” (or ignore) laws that it deemed to be unconstitutional reaches of the federal government’s authority.
In December, with federal troops awaiting the invasion orders, President Andrew Jackson responded to the act with a threatening Proclamation to the People of South Carolina:
“Disunion by armed force is treason. Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are, on the heads of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences; on their heads be the dishonor, but on yours will fall the punishment. On your unhappy state will inevitably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon this. It cannot accede to the mad project of disunion, of which you will be the first victims.”
Now, if I may break from the history, take a look at President Herman Van Rompuy’s comments from November of last year:
“We have together to fight the danger of a new Euroscepticism. This is no longer the monopoly of a few countries. In every member state, there are people who believe their country can survive alone in the globalised world. It is more than an illusion: it is a lie.”
The President continued:
“The biggest enemy of Europe today is fear. Fear leads to egoism, egoism leads to nationalism, and nationalism leads to war. Today’s nationalism is often not a positive feeling of pride of one’s own identity, but a negative feeling of apprehension of the others. Our Union is born out of a will to co-operate, to reconcile and to act in solidarity.”
While Herman Van Rompuy certainly does not have the testicular fortitude to be nearly as aggressive as President Jackson was, the message is quite similar. There is no place for the sovereignty of the European states in a unified European community.
Robert Hayne, who was elected Governor of South Carolina as candidate of the short-lived Nullifier Party, implored the people of South Carolina to stand strong against the oppression of the federal government:
“If the sacred soil of South Carolina should be polluted by the footsteps of an invader, or be stained with the blood of her citizens, I trust in Almighty God, that even should she stand alone in this great struggle for constitutional liberty, there will not be found, in the wider limits of the state, one recreant son who will not fly to the rescue, and be ready to lay down his life in her defense.”
Unfortunately, South Carolina conceded and the inevitable Civil War was forestalled for another thirty years until 1861. Some of the tariff restrictions were eased as a part of a compromise, although the “Nullification Crisis” and the disproportionate use of federal military forces would later be used to justify secession.
Just as Governor Hayne encouraged the people of South Carolina to stand strong against tyranny, I would encourage the people of the United Kingdom to do likewise and stand against the tyranny of unfair economic regulations and unelected bureaucrats.
Здравствуй! Спасибо за подаренные хорошие эмоции…