They did have tariffs... as high as 25%.
Yup. Tried to read them. I like the stuff HT writes about, but he’s just not a very good writer, and I usually give up.
One of the things I find most bizarre about the CSA apologists is that they assume that if the CSA had won, all would have gone on just as it did in reality, only without the bad parts.
A far more likely result would have been ongoing conflict over trade, borders, territories, fugitive slaves, subversion, etc. This would force both countries to arm in self-defense and the South, which had resented paying excessive taxes (in their minds) to the USA, would quickly have been paying MUCH higher taxes to the CSA.
The CSA would also have found a way to subsidize “infant industries” necessary for war, despite the prohibition on protective tariffs. No country can afford to leave its armaments vulnerable to blockade in the event of war.
One of the things they harp on is that the South would have been a free trade country. Which is, BTW, odd, since most of them are in favor of protection for US industries today. If the CSA didn’t have import tariffs, how would it have financed its government, much less a military?
Should also have noted that to survive in a long-term standoff with the USA, the CSA would have been forced to become more centralized. Decentralized nations fall apart when contesting with centralized ones. See: Poland.
There are historians who ascribe much of the credit for the collapse of the CSA to its resistance to centralization. See: NC and GA, among others.
I’m not a fan of centralized governments. The only thing they are good at is waging and winning wars. But they are good at that, which means those who resist them must centralize in self-defense.
Just as I’m not a fan of war, but a pacifist people better get warlike real quick if they live adjacent to a militaristic one. See: Moriori.
They did have tariffs... as high as 25%.