I’m not moving any goalposts. The one and only topicwas and remains what caused the Civil War. The answer was Southern seccesion. The reason for that was slavery.
Now, your twisted, inane logic means that the North spent over $5 billion dollars on a war to maintain profits from Southern cotton (which was not a majority of the entire economy) only to see that profit evaporate after the war, since abolition wiped out the huge labor cost advantage of the plantation system.
Okie dokie.
No, that is simply the constant propaganda from the winners. It does not even resemble the truth. The truth is in the money. Look at the money and stop repeating propaganda that the winners want everyone to believe.
You are afraid. You are terrified that the money tells the truth, and it makes the North look horrible, because they launched a war to protect robber barons that killed 750,000 people.
People don't *WANT* to believe their ancestors have been manipulated, and gulled into doing something horrible, and for a lie.
Now, your twisted, inane logic means that the North spent over $5 billion dollars on a war to maintain profits from Southern cotton
I said nothing even resembling that. If you are going to criticize my position, at least make sure you understand it.
The South was going to take virtually all the European trade away from New York. In the subsequent years, it would have been worth many billions of dollars. New York shipping and manufacturing would have been severely hurt.
But apart from that, why would the Plutocrats who controlled Washington DC in those days, give a crap that the entire nation spent 5 billion dollars protecting their assets and revenue streams? Do you think they would feel bad about making everyone else pay to keep them in power? (And they've been running the nation ever since.)
How much did we spend on the various gulf wars, and how much of that got paid by those who benefited from them?
Getting the government to keep money flowing into their pockets has long been a practice with those who have the influence to accomplish it.
Don't fear the truth. Look at who would have gained money, and who would have lost money.
It wasn't just cotton. It was other stuff too, but the total demonstrates that the 1/4th of the population in the South was producing nearly 73% of all revenue (on which taxes were paid) while the 3/4ths of the population in the North was only producing about 27% of the total.
Run the numbers, and it shows the South was paying nearly 12 times the taxes of the North per capita. (Which was the original point to which you objected.)