I read this about Rhode Island:
Rhode Island had not as yet joined the new Union and it was now proposed to make her suffer for her delay. On April 28, 1790, a committee was formed to consider what was to be done about Rhode Island. This was considered by Maclay and his friends as “only to furnish a pretext to raise more troops…” According to Robert Morris, this is the gist of the bill: “to prevent bringing goods, wares and merchandise from the State of Rhode Island… into the United States, and to authorize a demand for money from the said State.” The bill passed on May 18, and Rhode Island Voluntarily joined the Voluntary Union.
I bring this up because it seemed to be a threat to starve them into “submission” since RI could not trade with another state and no state could trade with her. (However, she was still responsible for paying her Fair Share of Taxes.)
Could not Lincoln have done the same thing? I mean he did do the same thing, blockading Southern ports before the war even started, and ending trade with the Voluntary Union. So why the war? By the end of this four-year slaughter, only the dead were not starving.
BTW, has this threat to punish Rhode Island disappeared down the Memory Hole? I can hardly find any reference to it.
Yossarian
From Free North Carolina
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