The northeast industrialist had gained the upper-hand in congress and were choking the south with their tariffs and import-export regulations, passed to protect northern manufacture at the expense of southern agricultural exports. They did not need slaves, they forced their “free” workers to long hours with low wages, and used immigrants as indentured servants. The industrialist then persuaded the many northern immigrants to fight in their place, once war begun.
Slavery was about to die, as it did throughout most of the world; because the onset of the industrial age made it unprofitable. Slave countries, like Brazil, ended slavery in the late 1800s without a civil war. The same would have likely happened in the US and CSA. if the war either had been stopped or prevented.
The moral issues of slavery were also growing in the south as well. Also, southern states had outlawed the import of slaves from Africa for some time before the civil war. But not Boston, who profited on the African slave trade.
“Southern states had outlawed the import of slaves from Africa for some time before the civil war.”
The Congress of the United States outlawed the importation of slaves into this country in 1808. This action was permitted by the Constitution of the United States. The last slaves brought into this country came in to Mobile Bay in Alabama in 1860.
If a Southerner owned 20 or more slaves, he could enjoy the Civil War from the comfort of his veranda. Safe in the knowledge that his countrymen, that did not own that may slaves, were fighting and dying in places like “the Corn Field, Cemetery Ridge or the Mule Shoe to secure his right to his “property”.
Glad to see someone get to one of the real causes: MONEY. As I understand it, duties and tariffs provided most of the income for the central government at that time, and it wasn’t called “King Cotton” for nothing. Also, there’s always a lot of money to be made for the “connected” during wartime, and this has been true forever. Most things change over time, but human nature isn’t one of them.