Secession will save the expenses of War
with the North, and leave a surplus.
Among the most frightful evils which the advocates of submission depict as following in the train of secession, are those of free trade and heavy taxes — free trade, as throwing the burden of the
General Government of the
South upon direct taxation for its support; and increased taxes, as resulting from this additional burden, and from the expenses of war with the
North, or of maintaining the
Government on a war footing.
Even now they represent the taxes of the
Confederate States as crushing in weight, and it has been extensively circulated in some parts of
Virginia, that the capitation tax on the negro in
South Carolina is $16. This statement is but a specimen of a class of misrepresentations put afloat among the people.
The real fact is that the expenses of
South Carolina are, upon her present war footing, less than those of
Virginia.
Even during the present year of extraordinary outlay, they will not exceed those of ordinary years much more than half a million of dollars; and those of ordinary years are but six hundred thousand; so that all told for 1861 will not be $1,250,000. But the alleged tax of $16 a head on her 402,000 slaves would produce $6,432,000 on one species of property; which proves the monstrous character of the allegation.
The real fact is, that her tax on slaves is one dollar twenty-six cents a head.
The expenses of
South Carolina will not reach $1,250,000 under all the charges of secession and war; and that, we repeat, does not require a rate of taxation equal to the rate paid in
Virginia.
The
county of Halifax, in our State, with 26,000 people,
white and
black, pays $51,600 into the
State Treasury; at which rate
South Carolina, with her 70,000 inhabitants,
white and
black, would pay $1,400,000; which is more than she actually pays in this year of her heavy war outlays; and one hundred and thirty per cent, more than in ordinary times.
The expenses of secession in all the other seceding States, payable from their State Treasuries, will not reach $500,000 for the year; and this will not produce an amount for the whole of them much exceeding the taxes paid by
Virginia alone.
In real truth, the Southern Confederacy will be the richest country on the globe, abounding in precisely those resources which lighten the burden of taxation upon the people.
Her single export of cotton last year was $191,000,000, and will never hereafter be less than $200,000,000. It is not the mere amount of this production that makes it so admirable a resource to the
South, as that it is an export — a surplus export --which commands its price in money paid down in cash, and brought into the country.
It thus fills the
South with money, thereby giving activity to all trade, furnishing ready sales to all property, putting an end to barter, and filling the people's purses.--With money always at hand, or at command, even a heavy tax can be borne with ease; whereas, without money in circulation, even a light tax becomes onerous to rich and poor.
It is for this reason that taxation is treated as so small an affair in the cotton States; no one has ever heard a complaint of the taxes from those States, and would not, though they were double what they are, for their heavy foreign export of a cash article brings coin into free circulation.
Their taxes are really, however, very light.
The State taxes of all the seceding States do not equal in amount those of
Virginia and
Maryland alone.
As a subject of interest, in this connection, we append a statement of the disbursements of all the fifteen slaveholding States in 1859, showing that, altogether, they are but $15,000,000 per annum:
Disbursements in 1859 of slaveholding States.
| Delaware | $41,927 |
| Maryland | 1,129,368 |
| Virginia | 4,222,530 |
| North Carolina | 510,000 |
| Tennessee | 1,704,000 |
| Arkansas | 184,210 |
| Kentucky | 1,159,309 |
| Missouri | 911,672 |
| Total, non-seceding States | $9,863,017 |
| South Carolina | 591,145 |
| Georgia | 875,465 |
| Florida | 58,150 |
| Alabama | 885,556 |
| Mississippi | 614,659 |
| Louisiana | 1,872,053 |
| Texas | 314,678 |
| Total, seceding States | 5,008,706 |
| Total fifteen States | $14,871,723 |
An export duty of ten per cent. upon the single article of cotton would produce twenty millions of dollars; counting only that cotton which goes across the ocean, and not counting at all that which goes to the
foreign States at the
North.
Including e cotton which goes to the
Northern States, this duty would bring twenty- five millions a year, which would give ten millions for the expenses of the
General Government of the
South, and leave fifteen millions to pay the local expenses of the
State Governments, relieving their people of the whole burden of direct taxation for State disbursements.
It is hardly probable, however, that the system of export duties would be resorted to; for the Southern Confederacy has already indicated its preference for import duties, by the tariff it has actually adopted.
The exports of the whole
South, including those sent to the
North, are about four hundred and fifty millions of dollars; and thus imports, of course, the same.
A tariff of fifteen per cent. on this importation would give $57, 600, 000 per annum.
Allowing for losses, the revenue from a fifteen per cent. duty would be $50,000,000; which would pay the expenses of the
State Governments, and leave $35,000,000 for those of several Administrations.
Does this look like increased taxation, unto destruction, upon the
Southern people ? As to Southern manufactures, the chief competitors of these are the manufactures of the
North, from whom the
South buys three hundred millions a year, while she buys only one hundred millions from foreign countries.
The duty of fifteen per cent. will protect Southern manufactures in great part from this heavy Northern competition, which now comes in
fres.
Was even therefore, a plainer case than the one now presented to
Virginia and the
Border States?
Indeed, the
South can support, through all time, the expenses of a costly war with the
North, and have millions to spare, out of the savings she will make by severing her exhausting and impoverishing connection with that section.
