Was the Civil War About Slavery or Economics?

[RS Davis]

I've just run across some really interesting quotes about the Civil War. In light of these, it seems that the Civil War was really a trade war, with the south mad because there were, on average, 47% tariffs (the highest in our nation's history) on them, and most of those revenues were used to prop up the mercantilist "American System," as it was called, in the North. In 1840, the South paid 84% of the tariffs, rising to 87% in 1860. I think these slices of history give a unique perspective on this war, and they lead me to believe that the main cause the South was fighting for was self-determination and economic independence, much in the same way as the founders. What do you think?

"The effect of a provision to pass commercial laws by a simple majority would be to deliver the south bound hand and foot to the eastern states."
- George Mason

"Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many other evils....The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel."
- Charles Dickens, December 1861

"You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue law, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay you to build up your great cities, your railroads, your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of northern capitalists. You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights and institutions."
- Texas Congressman Reagan, January 1861

"The contest is really for empire on the side of the North and for independence on that of the South...."
- London Times, November 1861

"The real causes of dissatisfaction in the South with the North, are in the unjust taxation and expenditure of the taxes by the Government of the United States, and in the revolution the North has effected in this government from a confederated republic, to a national sectional despotism."
- Charleston Mercury (newspaper), November 1860

"They [the South] know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interests....These are the reasons why these people [the North] do not wish the South to secede from the Union."
- New Orleans Daily Crescent, January 1861

"The mask has been thrown off and it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding states are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centres of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports....by a revenue system verging on free trade...."
- the Boston Transcript, March 1861

"The war between the North and the South is a tariff war. The war is, further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for sovereignty."
- Karl Marx, 1861

So, what do you think?

- Rick

[RS Davis]

What I especially don't understand is why they would secede after Lincoln was elected when he said he had no interest in abolishing slavery and fully intended to enforce the fugitive slave laws. Granted, many Northern juries rightly nullified those laws, but not enough that the underground railroad ended in the North - it went all the way to Canada. Lincoln even promised to support an amendment that would forever guarantee slavery where it then existed.

What Lincoln did promise to do was collect the "duties and imposts," that the South paid (to the tune of 87% of Federal revenues). The free trade that the South advocated was likened to industrial suicide by pro-Lincoln newspapers, as the tariffs had the effect of lowering the prices the South could charge for their exports and raised the price they had to pay for their imports, and also raided and destroyed their wealth. Ironically, many Southerners rightly considered themselves slaves to Northern interests.

I don't think it was any coincidence that the first shots fired in the Civil War were at Fort Sumter, which was a customs house. The South knew very well that the strengthening of that position was an attempt to enforce the confiscatory taxes.

There are many historians who believe the cause of slavery was propoganda used by both the North and the South to bolster their positions in favor of, in the North's case, and aggressive invasion, and in the South's case, seccession.

But looking at the popular press at the time can maybe give us a more accurate representation of the sentiments at the time. From the March 2, 1861 edition of The New York Evening Post:

"That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the port must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe. There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of public officers; the present order of things must come to a dead stop.

"What, then, is left for our government? Shall we let the seceding states repeal the revenue laws for the whole Union in this manner? Or will the government choose to consider all foreign commerce destined for those ports where we have no custom-houses and no collectors as contraband, and stop it, when offering to enter the collection districts from which our authorities have been expelled?"

In October 1862, Boston's North American Review wrote:

"Slavery is not the cause of the rebellion ....Slavery is the pretext on which the leaders of the rebellion rely, 'to fire the Southern Heart' and through which the greatest degree of unanimity can be produced....Mr. Calhoun, after finding that the South could not be brought into sufficient unanimity by a clamor about the tariff, selected slavery as the better subject for agitation."

Further, two days before the November 1860 election, the Charleston Mercury wrote:

"The real causes of dissatisfaction in the South with the North, are in the unjust taxation and expenditure of the taxes by the Government of the United States, and in the revolution the North has effected in this government from a confederated republic, to a national sectional despotism."

- Rick

[dr snootch]

The cause of the secession was economic. The cause of the 'Civil' War was to prove a point. The point being that, if you disagree with the government that currently holds power in the United States, you will be dealt with accordingly.

The cause of the war was property rights. The government belief being that all land comprising the United States belongs to the United States and not to any individual. The war just showed what lengths the government was willing to pursue (murder, tyranny, etc.) to retain it's 'property rights'.

We live in a country of, by and for the Government of the United States of America, the people be damned.

[RS Davis]

dr said:

The cause of the secession was economic. The cause of the 'Civil' War was to prove a point. The point being that, if you disagree with the government that currently holds power in the United States, you will be dealt with accordingly.

The cause of the war was property rights. The government belief being that all land comprising the United States belongs to the United States and not to any individual. The war just showed what lengths the government was willing to pursue (murder, tyranny, etc.) to retain it's 'property rights'.

We live in a country of, by and for the Government of the United States of America, the people be damned.

That started to sound a little paranoid and crazy - [glow=red,2,300]I liked it![/glow] ;D

- Rick

[dr snootch]

RS said:

That started to sound a little paranoid and crazy - [glow=red,2,300]I liked it![/glow] ;D

- Rick

The voices in my head tell me what to say, I just type it. ;D

[RS Davis]

dr said:

The voices in my head tell me what to say, I just type it. ;D

How many voices? Maybe we have a conspiracy, too...

- Rick

[dr snootch]

RS said:

How many voices? Maybe we have a conspiracy, too...

- Rick

There's always a conspiracy when the government is involved. I'm only half-joking when I tell people I don't get flu shots because I believe it's a government mind-control experiment

Not saying I truly believe that, but I would have a hard time discounting it, too. They did, after all, experiment with LSD in the 'behavior-modification' arena.

I would put absolutely nothing past our government. They are as ruthless as it gets.

[RS Davis]

dr said:

There's always a conspiracy when the government is involved. I'm only half-joking when I tell people I don't get flu shots because I believe it's a government mind-control experiment

Not saying I truly believe that, but I would have a hard time discounting it, too. They did, after all, experiment with LSD in the 'behavior-modification' arena.

I would put absolutely nothing past our government. They are as ruthless as it gets.

The government thought LSD might be a truth syrum, actually. They tried it, and found that frying people are no more likely to be honest than anyone else. So, they started dosing people and not telling them. Then they would say without the truth, they wouldn't give them the "antidote," and they'd be like that forever. That, on the other hand, was pretty effective.

- Rick