Originally Posted by Armistead
(Post 2098524)
There were about a dozen reason for the CW.
For the Union it was about high tariffs (mostly on the South}, big industry and protectionism. The North wanted the South to buy it's products, not lower priced products from Europe and tax Southern products at a higher level.
For the South it was about low taxes, free trade and economics. The south economics were based off agriculture/farming in which slaves played a major role.
The truth is tariffs had decreased in many aspects to low levels by the 1850's and many were seeking to raise them back up. The bigger issue was how the collected tariffs were spent, mostly to support the northern projects. This is what ticked off many a southern politician.
To say it wasn't about slavery, isn't quite correct. It was about ecomomics based on slavery. Certainly some in the North were against slavery, but not to the point it would interfere with economics. As long as the North got the tariffs from slave labor, it would be business as usual.
Lincoln never thought slavery a good idea, "free labor on free soil" doesn't work well in capitialism. Free labor doesn't create a tax base, you can't tax free labor. Lincoln wasn't radical, but he was against slavery on moral grounds as well. Lincoln worked the politcal climate when he could to support his beliefs against slavery. Certainly Lincoln saw blacks as inferior to whites and we see little of this on TV, but he didn't believe in enslaving man, nor did Robert Lee.
Protective Tariffs "Benefits For The North"
"From the time of the first Congress in 1789 to the outbreak of the Civil War there was dissension between the northern and the southern states over the matter of protective tariffs, or import duties on manufactured goods. Northern industries wanted high tariffs in order to protect their factories and laborers from cheaper European products. Demanding that "American laborers shall be protected against the pauper labor of Europe," tariff proponents argued that the taxes gave "employment to thousands of [American] mechanics, artisans, [and] laborers."
The vast majority of American industry was located in the northern states, whereas the economies of the agricultural southern states were based on the export of raw materials and the importation of manufactured goods. The South held few manufacturing concerns, and southerners had to pay higher prices for goods in order to subsidize northern profits.
The collected tariffs were used to fund public projects in the North such as improvements to roads, harbors and rivers. From 1789 to 1845, the North received five times the amount of money that was spent on southern projects. More than twice as many lighthouses were built in the North as in the South, and northern states received twice the southern appropriations for coastal defense. The sectional friction caused by the tariffs bills eventually led the country to the nullification controversy of 1832, during which South Carolina declared the tariff laws null and void. John C. Calhoun, the father of nullification, developed the theory of secession and detailed the steps by which a state could sever its relationship with the Union and remove itself from the unfair power of the central government. Federal authority prevailed in the nullification crisis of 1832, but the theories developed by Calhoun would be invoked again when the country split apart in 1861. "
The fact remains the majority of "hicks" that fought in the war didn't own slaves. Many of these poor farmers would suffer from higher tariffs, but few truly understood the issue. They mostly heard radical speeches and would not stand for Northern Armies to invade their states. Like most wars, it was "rich men talking, poor men dying."
We should have the right to honor the history and heritage of those that fought and died.
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