B. U. G. S.

By Bob Whitaker:

And BUGSERS punch me with their elbows and whisper, “Bob, your senility is showing. You mean the Federal DEFICIT.”

But this time I’m right for a change.

Yes, Virginia, there was once a Federal SURPLUS.

Briefly.

To understand this, you have to know where Federal revenue came from back then.

About eighty percent of Federal revenue came from tariffs. (You’ll look it up)

And unlike any taxes today, tariffs were dearly loved in major parts of the United States. That is why they once collected too many of them.

Once.

Why was that tax popular? Tariffs were BELOVED in New England because they meant that all the tariffs were paid by Southerners.

Southerners had a choice: They paid the tariffs or they paid more for industrial goods produced in New England.

Tariffs were supposed “to protect American industry” by raising the prices of imported industrial goods.

It was a “very patriotic” tax.

But by 1833 the giant industries in New England didn’t need any “protection.” So a tariff hike just meant higher prices paid by the South to the East or Northeast for goods.

Instead of being a good Democrat and opposing tariff increases, Jackson backed a tariff that was out of sight.

It was supposed to be a Shrewd Move. It would get even New Englanders into opposing this incredible tariff rise.

Every time a politician decides to be Shrewd, it causes a disaster.

Jackson’s Shrewd Move in 1833 very nearly brought on civil war.

Jackson thought that “the Tariff of Abominations” was so high even New Englanders would go to the negotiating table.   He didn’t realize that tariffs were so popular in New England that a congressman who voted against ANY tariff increase would have lost the next election.

The tariffs that were popular in New England were paid in Southern ports. They were an increase to the price of European goods arriving in Southern ports. That allowed New England goods to charge higher prices.

Faced with paying a Federal surplus AND payng more for industrial goods, the South did exactly what many American cities do today about immigration laws: They refused to allow them to be paid in Southern ports.

This was called Nullification, when the port at Charleston refused to enforce Federal law.

We have exactly the same policy today where cities that don’t like immigration laws simply refuse to enforce them.

The difference was that a President today doesn’t dare force local enforcement, while Jackson felt that the Union would fall apart if he allowed South Carolina not to collect the tariffs.

It came very close to a civil war, which we could have won in 1833.

Southern “leaders,” like all respectable conservatives backed down and New England magnanimously gave them all slightly lower increase in tariffs in 1834.

As in America today, the respectable approach destroyed those who allowed it.  To repeat, had we fought in 1833 when the issues was clearly unfair tariffs, we would have won.

But moderates did not fight when the issue was clearly the robbery of one part of America by another.

The South waited, led by Moderation, until the issue was slavery.

The Trump win shows, as Anne Coulter said, that some Americans are finally throwing out the suicidal “moderates.”

The question today, just as it was with the South back then, will we have gone down the road of weakness until it is just plain too late.