I believe I have already explained that to you. What northern industrialist is going to say "We have to stop the South to protect my fortune!" What Southern Politician is going to say "We want to leave the Union because it will enable us to transfer a huge amount of money currently going into Northern pockets into Southern pockets! "
People sold what they wanted to do as an idea they thought the public would support, not one they knew would provoke a backlash against them.
But if you think the money people weren't looking at the bottom line, you are crazy.
Several Northern newspapers saw what was going on and wrote about it in their editorials.
"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"..... North American Review (Boston October 1862)
"In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is. Our coastwise trade would pass into other hands. One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, with all of its immense profits. Our manufactories would be in utter ruins. Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue, and these results would likely follow." .... Chicago Daily Times December 1860
"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...." .... Boston Transcript 18 March 1861
“ What northern industrialist is going to say “We have to stop the South to protect my fortune!” What Southern Politician is going to say “We want to leave the Union because it will enable us to transfer a huge amount of money currently going into Northern pockets into Southern pockets! “
People sold what they wanted to do as an idea they thought the public would support, not one they knew would provoke a backlash against them.”
Why wouldn’t Southern politicians promote putting more money into Southern pockets? Are you serious? Really? Johnny Reb was too dumb to understand? Make Dixie Great Again would have been a killer slogan!
“People sold what they wanted to do as an idea they thought the public would support, not one they knew would provoke a backlash against them.”
I just realized the true meaning of the words which you yourself wrote. You are saying that for the vast majority of Southerners, including 99% of all soldiers and civilians, the Confederacy’s reason for fighting in the Civil War was in fact the preservation of slavery. Only a small cabal of Machiavellian politicians knew the true secret of their noble cause.
Not that I believe that of course, but your own words support the interpretation that the Civil War was fought over slavery.