COLLEGE STUDENT REACTS | Facts About Slavery Never Mentioned In School | Thomas Sowell

YouTube ^ | May 20, 2023 | LFR Jojo

[grundle]

COLLEGE STUDENT REACTS | Facts About Slavery Never Mentioned In School | Thomas Sowell

[heartwood]

Southern merchants sold raw material in Europe, presumably because the Northern markets couldn’t absorb it all, got money, bought finished goods, took finished goods back to US, used them or sold them, at a profit diminished by tariffs.

The map doesn’t show who was landing finished goods in NYC, how much by Northern merchants or Southern merchants. I would assume there was a demand for European goods in the North beyond what was transported by Southern merchants.

For some reason the South didn’t take the profits and hire engineers, start industry, move away from a purely agrarian economy.

[Rockingham]

Which works of Charles Beard do you find persuasive in forming your views? He is not thought of as a Civil War historian, and in later works Beard modified his Progressive interpretation and put more emphasis on ideas instead of his reading of economic interests as controlling.

In recent decades, a clutch of historians -- most prominently the late conservative Forrest McDonald -- effectively demolished the Beard Progressive interpretation by thorough original research in letters, diaries, and newspapers.

Of course, in any sort of research undertaking, one must guard against the fallacy of confirmation bias in which alternative explanations are ignored. In that vein, just why do you reject the abundant references to the defense of slavery in the Confederate articles of secession as stating the motive for secession?

[linMcHlp]

Black Medic Saved Hundreds on D-Day
https://www.history.com/news/d-day-hero-medal-of-honor-waverly-woodson

Heavy machine-gun fire greeted a nauseous and bloody Waverly B. Woodson, Jr. as he disembarked onto Omaha Beach the morning of June 6, 1944. A German shell had just blasted apart his landing craft, killing the man next to him and peppering him with so much shrapnel that he initially believed he, too, was dying.

Woodson, a medic with the lone African-American combat unit to fight on D-Day, nonetheless managed to set up a medical aid station and for the next 30 hours occupied himself removing bullets, dispensing blood plasma, cleaning wounds, resetting broken bones, and at one point amputating a foot. He also saved four men from drowning, reportedly pulling them from the waves and administering CPR after their guide rope broke on the way ashore.

[FLT-bird]

Southern merchants sold raw material in Europe, presumably because the Northern markets couldn’t absorb it all, got money, bought finished goods, took finished goods back to US, used them or sold them, at a profit diminished by tariffs. The map doesn’t show who was landing finished goods in NYC, how much by Northern merchants or Southern merchants. I would assume there was a demand for European goods in the North beyond what was transported by Southern merchants.

The exporters WERE the importers. Read the various newspaper editorials I posted. Focus especially on the Northern ones where they admit the South is responsible for somewhere between 72% and 75% of all the exports and imports. That's the percentage of the tariff paid by Southerners.

For some reason the South didn’t take the profits and hire engineers, start industry, move away from a purely agrarian economy.

When you have a highly profitable product or products, that tends to draw in the most investment. They were starting to industrialize. The Upper South (Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee) had much higher percentages of Blacks who were freedmen (for example 50% in Maryland, 25% in Virginia) and the number of people who owned slaves was declining. This is the same process that saw slavery steadily die out in the Northern states.

[FLT-bird]

Which works of Charles Beard do you find persuasive in forming your views? He is not thought of as a Civil War historian, and in later works Beard modified his Progressive interpretation and put more emphasis on ideas instead of his reading of economic interests as controlling. In recent decades, a clutch of historians -- most prominently the late conservative Forrest McDonald -- effectively demolished the Beard Progressive interpretation by thorough original research in letters, diaries, and newspapers.

As I've told you:

A) I don't get my views from historians. I look at original sources and form my own opinions based on those sources.

B) I disagree that Beard is not considered a Civil War historian or that anybody "demolished" Beard's interpretation. I grant you that it became less popular during the Cold War which to make a nationalist interpretation of things more fashionable and any questioning of the economics made people think it somehow expressing sympathy for the Commies (it wasn't).

C) You want original research? Look at the newspaper editorials from all sides I posted above. Those would tend to support Beard's economic interpretation.

Of course, in any sort of research undertaking, one must guard against the fallacy of confirmation bias in which alternative explanations are ignored. In that vein, just why do you reject the abundant references to the defense of slavery in the Confederate articles of secession as stating the motive for secession?

I didn't "ignore" them. I explained that violation of the Fugitive Slave Clause of the Constitution by the Northern states was used as a PRETEXT for secession by the original 7 seceding states. The facts and evidence....their numerous complaints about the economics despite the tariff and unequal federal expenditures not being unconstitutional AND their rejection of the Corwin Amendment which would have protected slavery effectively forever show that their real concern was not the protection of Slavery. After all, what could make it more clear that the North was not interested in threatening slavery?

In addition to that, secession effectively meant the rapid end of slavery due to the original seceding states losing the benefits and protections of the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution and their complete inability to secure a 1500 mile border from the Atlantic Coast of South Carolina all the way to El Paso, Texas.

Nor could "the expansion of slavery" have been it either given that when those states seceded, they did so with only their own sovereign territory. They made no claim to the Western Territories of the US. Thus, by seceding they gave up any chance to spread slavery. Obviously this wasn't their big concern either.

Thus what's left? THE MONEY. What do people usually fight about? THE MONEY. Its not that difficult to figure out once you look past the propaganda.

[Rockingham]

The "it's all about the money" view of history you have advanced is all too simple and does not settle matters of interpretation because everyone has money interests at stake, not just the people one dislikes. Moreover, ideas also matter, especially in rallying people to put everything at risk to fight a war.

As for the Civil War, the Old South plantation system ran on slaves. The small ongoing exactions of the tariff system on the South were a minor issue compared to the immense capital value of slaves and their central role in the plantation economy.

As for original sources in the era, secessionists largely discussed tariffs as the projected revenue source for the new Confederate government. They did not want to do away with the tariff. They wanted to keep it and use it to finance the Confederacy, thereby preserving slavery and the immense profits of the plantation slave system.

In economic terms, slavery permitted the plantation owners to avoid paying wages, keeping for themselves the value of the slaves' labor. When the slave holders of the Old South defended slavery, complained about fugitive slaves, and provoked secession, they had potent economic motives for doing so.

[DiogenesLamp]

Yes, I’m telling you WHY Texas left the Union. SLAVERY - and expanding it and LOVING it was their goal. By their own words.

But you were claiming that was why they fought an invasion. You deliberately misrepresented their efforts to push back an invader as being entirely about slavery, when any reasonable person would expect every man to fight back against what they see as invading tyranny and oppression.

You simply want to believe the propaganda that has been fed to all of us since the 1860s. You accept the official government narrative and all the acolytes who parrot the same narrative.

I get it. It's comforting to believe a Noble lie rather than an unpleasant truth.

And slavery couldn't expand. I've looked at the economic potential of slavery in the territories and it simply was never going to happen because it could not be economically viable.

That too was a lie that was fed to the public by the special interests in the Northeast for reasons of political advantage.

[DiogenesLamp]

If your opinions are well-grounded, there will be credible historians who agree with you.

That is a supposition.

If you are not already aware, I would like to acquaint you with the "Asch Conformity Experiments."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments

To sum it up, these psychological experiments revealed that 80% of people will claim to believe something simply because they think the majority believe it too.

Historians suffer from the same sort of "group think" as do physicists and other people. My observation of Academia tends to indicate that they are a sort of hive mind where ideas outside the mainstream result in the ostracization and condemnation of heretics.

So no. Being unable to find a "credible" historian to support a view does not necessarily prove your views are wrong.

Especially when the evidence is compelling such as it is in the case of money being the dominant factor in the North's decision to invade the South.

[DiogenesLamp]

How did the tariff money belong to the South? Wasn’t it paid on goods imported from Europe?

The South produced 72% of the total goods shipped to Europe from the United States. Goods shipped from Europe to the United States were in payment for the goods shipped to Europe, 72% of which came from the South.

*MOST* of that money came from the South.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "The problem with this, is that its all lies the way BroJoeK tells it.
The truth is, the Northern was willing to pass a constitutional amendment to expressly protect slavery effectively forever."

100% of Democrats voted for Corwin, the majority of Republicans opposed it.
Northern Democrats were, of course, allies of Southern Democrat secessionists, and were eager to do whatever they could to preserve as many Democratic seats in Congress as possible.
All Republicans opposed expanding slavery, but some -- a minority -- were willing to give Union slaveholders assurances that Congress would not pass laws to abolish slavery nationally.
Under Corwin, states were still free to abolish slavery on their own.

FLT-bird: "Voted down were proposals to reopen the Atlantic slave trade . . . and to prohibit the admission of free states to the new Confederacy. . . .
Get it?
States did not have to have slavery to join the CSA and states that were in the CSA were free to abolish slavery. "

That only means you didn't actually read the Confederate constitution.
In fact, it explicitly prohibits any restrictions on slavery.

1. Article I Section 9(4): No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.[13]

2. Article IV Section 2(1) "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired."[31]

3. Article IV Section 3(3) In all such [Confederate] territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states.[32]

4. Article I Section 9(1): "The importation of Negroes of the African race from any foreign country, other than the slave-holding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden..."

In the Confederacy, congress could not abolish slavery in states or territories, nor could states refuse to recognize slavery laws of other states.
So even if a Confederate state tried to abolish slavery, it's state laws would be trumped by the Confederate constitution and effectively rendered meaningless.

The Confederate constitution did allow importing slaves from the United States.

FLT-bird: "They could not deny transit of their territory by citizens of other Confederate States with their slaves, but they could ban it within their own state if they so chose.
This was no different from the law in the United States at the time after the Dred Scott decision.
Similarly, allowing slaves to be traded between states but not allowing the Atlantic slave trade was no different from the law in the US prior to 1860.
The Confederate Constitution simply did not differ from the US Constitution in this regard."

Prior to Dred Scott (1857), slaves who were kept beyond legal limits in a free-state were declared freed.
The hope of overturning Dred Scott was a key reason why anti-slavery Republicans became majorities in most Northern states.

The Confederate constitution did allow imports of slaves from the United States.

FLT-bird quoting Divine: ". . . it was clear from the actions of the Montgomery convention that the goal of the new converts to secessionism was not to establish a slaveholders' reactionary utopia.
What they really wanted was to recreate the Union as it had been before the rise of the new Republican Party, and they opted for secession only when it seemed clear that separation was the only way to achieve their aim.
The decision to allow free states to join the Confederacy reflected a hope that much of the old Union could be reconstituted under southern direction."

The "Old Union" was a "slaveholders' reactionary utopia".
In 1860, Republicans had never been in power nationally when Southern Democrats began declaring secession and their new slaveholders' utopia.

FLT-bird: "The Corwin Amendment was named after Republican Senator Thomas Corwin.
It was not only backed but was in fact orchestrated by Lincoln.
It was also backed by Republican William Seward."

Seward acted on his own, not by Lincoln's direction -- at that time Seward considered Lincoln to be a country bumpkin to be humored, not a national leader to be followed.
Seward's efforts resulted in 100% support from Democrats and a minority of Republicans for Corwin's amendment.
The majority of Republicans opposed Corwin.

Corwin was signed, not by Lincoln, but by Democrat President Buchanan.

Aside from saying he would not oppose it, there's no evidence of Lincoln directing Seward regarding Corwin.

FLT-bird: "Lincoln ensured its passage in 5 Northern states and doubtless it would have been ratified by more had the original 7 seceding states agreed to it.
And yes, it was most certainly intended to lure them back into the US.
They turned it down because slavery was not the Southern states' primary concern."

According to Lincoln, Corwin did not change the Constitution as he understood it.
But, any of the several other proposed amendments, which did offer slavery more protections, those Lincoln and Republicans did oppose.
Nothing in Corwin offered Confederate states the blanket levels of protection for slavery found in the new Confederate constitution.

No Confederate state "turned down" Corwin because it was never "offered" to them, and none ever considered it.
Had they done so, they would have immediately realized that the Confederate constitution provided them much stronger guarantees for slavery than the Union Constitution ever could.

On grounds of protecting slavery alone, Corwin was of no value to Confederate states.
It did, however, reassure some Union slave-states (KY & MD) that Congress would not pass laws abolishing slavery.

Lincoln's letter of transmittal to the states said nothing supporting or opposing the proposed Corwin amendment.

Bottom line: Corwin was strongly supported by 100% of Democrats in Congress and Democrat Pres. Buchanan, obviously hoping to hold onto as many Democrat states as possible.

Corwin was opposed by the majority of Republicans, though not by Pres. Lincoln who said it made no change to the Constitution as he had always understood it.

[DiogenesLamp]

But the map shows that tariffs were greatest in the north east, by far. European goods needed in the south would go to southern ports.

How did the Northern ports pay for the goods when Northern states produced only 28% of the total value?

What many people do not know is that the Northern states *CONTROLLED* almost all trade with Europe. The Navigation Act of 1817 made northern shipping companies into a near monopoly, and as a consequence, an entire host of Northern industries *CONTROLLED* all Southern trade with Europe.

I am trying to tell people that *THIS* is why the South wanted out of the Union. Between the Northern industries and Washington DC, they were sucking out about 60% of the total value of everything the South produced.

If someone was taking 60 cents for every dollar you made would you want that to continue?

Would you look for some excuse to get out of the deal?

[FLT-bird]

The "it's all about the money" view of history you have advanced is all too simple and does not settle matters of interpretation because everyone has money interests at stake, not just the people one dislikes. Moreover, ideas also matter, especially in rallying people to put everything at risk to fight a war.

It was mostly about the money - as it usually is. BOTH sides were motivated by their financial interests primarily. The Northern states wanted high tariffs so they could raise prices and still gain market share and so they could continue to gorge on government subsidies. The South wanted low tariffs so they could export the maximum possible and pay the lowest prices possible for manufactured goods.

As for the Civil War, the Old South plantation system ran on slaves. The small ongoing exactions of the tariff system on the South were a minor issue compared to the immense capital value of slaves and their central role in the plantation economy.

Only 5.63% of the total free population in the South owned slaves. Of those, half of them owned 5 or fewer. The large plantation owners were a tiny minority of the population and contrary to the PC Revisionist propaganda, no they did not control everything. To most Southerners, a massive hike in the tariff would be economically devastating - as indeed it was during the Tariff of Abominations 30 years earlier. In any event, slavery was not threatened in the US.

As for original sources in the era, secessionists largely discussed tariffs as the projected revenue source for the new Confederate government. They did not want to do away with the tariff. They wanted to keep it and use it to finance the Confederacy, thereby preserving slavery and the immense profits of the plantation slave system.

The Confederate constitution allows a revenue tariff (Maximum 10%) but not a protective tariff. The CSA was going to have low tariffs. Slavery was going to end sooner rather than later and it was especially going to collapse quickly without the benefits and protections of the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution. Just about everybody understood that.

In economic terms, slavery permitted the plantation owners to avoid paying wages, keeping for themselves the value of the slaves' labor. When the slave holders of the Old South defended slavery, complained about fugitive slaves, and provoked secession, they had potent economic motives for doing so.

That would only be true IF

1. Slavery were being threatened in the US which it was not

2. secession would preserve slavery when in reality it would have the exact opposite effect.

"But secession, Lincoln argued, would actually make it harder for the South to preserve slavery. If the Southern states tried to leave the Union, they would lose all their constitutional guarantees, and Northerners would no longer be obliged to return fugitive slaves to disloyal owners. In other words, the South was safer inside the Union than without, and to prove his point Lincoln confirmed his willingness to support a recently proposed thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, which would specifically prohibit the federal government from interfering with slavery in states where it already existed." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 32-33)

[DiogenesLamp]

I would assume there was a demand for European goods in the North beyond what was transported by Southern merchants.

But you very much need to understand that the North could only pay for 28% of the total value. They could buy no more without taking money away from the South. (Which they did.)

[DiogenesLamp]

For some reason the South didn’t take the profits and hire engineers, start industry, move away from a purely agrarian economy.

Some years back I read an excerpt from what I believe was the Charleston Mercury detailing the massive economic boom that was occurring just after South Carolina declared Independence from the Union.

FLT-Bird, I see that you have articles from various newspapers at the ready, but would you recall this excerpt I mentioned or similar such?

Charleston was booming massively just after secession. All hotels were filled, construction workers were building new warehouses, the docks were being upgraded and additional docks were being built.

Northern craftsmen had moved into Charleston and industries were starting up.

To address heartwoods' point, Charleston was hiring engineers and starting industry.

Getting 60% more of your own money back capitalizes you to invest in your own industries.

[FLT-bird]

100% of Democrats voted for Corwin, the majority of Republicans opposed it. Northern Democrats were, of course, allies of Southern Democrat secessionists, and were eager to do whatever they could to preserve as many Democratic seats in Congress as possible. All Republicans opposed expanding slavery, but some -- a minority -- were willing to give Union slaveholders assurances that Congress would not pass laws to abolish slavery nationally. Under Corwin, states were still free to abolish slavery on their own.

I said "the North". You try to obfuscate by talking about Republicans and Democrats. The North included Democrats. It also included prominent Republicans like Thomas Corwin who sponsored the Corwin amendment, William Seward who supported it and Abe Lincoln who supported it and pushed it as hard as he could. The North was willing to expressly protect slavery effectively forever.

States did not have to have slavery to join the CSA and states that were in the CSA were free to abolish slavery. " That only means you didn't actually read the Confederate constitution. In fact, it explicitly prohibits any restrictions on slavery. Article I Section 9(4): No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.[13]

This shows you do not understand the Confederate Constitution. This applied to the Confederate government. ie IT could not pass laws to abolish slavery. Sovereign states in the CSA certainly could. They were not bound by limitations placed on the Confederate government.

Article IV Section 2(1) "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired."[31]

Exactly as the law was under the US Constitution in the wake of the Dred Scott decision.

Article IV Section 3(3) In all such [Confederate] territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states.[32]

That was the status quo ante in the US after the Dred Scott decision.

Article I Section 9(1): "The importation of Negroes of the African race from any foreign country, other than the slave-holding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden..."

See above, That was the same as the law that existed in the US at the time.

In the Confederacy, congress could not abolish slavery in states or territories, nor could states refuse to recognize slavery laws of other states. So even if a Confederate state tried to abolish slavery, it's state laws would be trumped by the Confederate constitution and effectively rendered meaningless.

FALSE! Individual states were not bound by the restrictions placed on the Confederate government. States in the CSA could not prevent citizens of other Confederate states from transiting through their territory with their slaves - but that was the situation in the US at the time too after Dred Scott.

The Confederate constitution did allow importing slaves from the United States.

They kept the situation the same as it was prior to secession.

Prior to Dred Scott (1857), slaves who were kept beyond legal limits in a free-state were declared freed. The hope of overturning Dred Scott was a key reason why anti-slavery Republicans became majorities in most Northern states.

So we agree then that the laws in the CSA regarding slavery were the same as the laws in the US regarding slavery at that time.

The Confederate constitution did allow imports of slaves from the United States.,/p>

Which was no different than what the law was in the US prior to secession.

The "Old Union" was a "slaveholders' reactionary utopia". In 1860, Republicans had never been in power nationally when Southern Democrats began declaring secession and their new slaveholders' utopia.

The laws in the CSA regarding slavery were not different from the laws in the USA regarding slavery at the time of secession.

Seward acted on his own, not by Lincoln's direction -- at that time Seward considered Lincoln to be a country bumpkin to be humored, not a national leader to be followed. Seward's efforts resulted in 100% support from Democrats and a minority of Republicans for Corwin's amendment. The majority of Republicans opposed Corwin. Corwin was signed, not by Lincoln, but by Democrat President Buchanan. Aside from saying he would not oppose it, there's no evidence of Lincoln directing Seward regarding Corwin.

So as I said, the North was willing to protect slavery effectively forever by express constitutional amendment. If you doubt that Lincoln orchestrated it you need to do some more reading. Try Team of Rivals by admitted plagiarist Doris Kearns-Goodwin. She praises him to the heavens for orchestrating the passage of the Corwin Amendment.

According to Lincoln, Corwin did not change the Constitution as he understood it. But, any of the several other proposed amendments, which did offer slavery more protections, those Lincoln and Republicans did oppose. Nothing in Corwin offered Confederate states the blanket levels of protection for slavery found in the new Confederate constitution.

The only protection for slavery in the Confederate Constitution that was different from the US Constitution was a guarantee that the Confederate government itself would not ban slavery.

No Confederate state "turned down" Corwin because it was never "offered" to them, and none ever considered it. Had they done so, they would have immediately realized that the Confederate constitution provided them much stronger guarantees for slavery than the Union Constitution ever could.

All 7 seceding states turned down the offer of the Corwin Amendment because they refused to return to the US after it was expressly offered to them by Lincoln in his first inaugural address.

On grounds of protecting slavery alone, Corwin was of no value to Confederate states. It did, however, reassure some Union slave-states (KY & MD) that Congress would not pass laws abolishing slavery.

Not True. It made it clear to everybody that the US could never abolish slavery without the consent of the slaveholding states. That was certainly of value to those states.

Lincoln's letter of transmittal to the states said nothing supporting or opposing the proposed Corwin amendment.

his first inaugural address sure did.

Bottom line: Corwin was strongly supported by 100% of Democrats in Congress and Democrat Pres. Buchanan, obviously hoping to hold onto as many Democrat states as possible. Corwin was opposed by the majority of Republicans, though not by Pres. Lincoln who said it made no change to the Constitution as he had always understood it.

Bottom line: the North was willing to expressly protect slavery effectively forever in the US Constitution. The 7 seceding states turned that offer down.

[FLT-bird]

FLT-Bird, I see that you have articles from various newspapers at the ready, but would you recall this excerpt I mentioned or similar such? Charleston was booming massively just after secession. All hotels were filled, construction workers were building new warehouses, the docks were being upgraded and additional docks were being built. Northern craftsmen had moved into Charleston and industries were starting up. To address heartwoods' point, Charleston was hiring engineers and starting industry. Getting 60% more of your own money back capitalizes you to invest in your own industries.

Hmmm I have the address of Robert Barnwell Rhett which was attached to South Carolina's Declaration of Causes saying this is what would happen if the Southern states were to secede.

John H Reagan, the US representative from Texas basically said the same thing in the quote I posted earlier. I left out the 2nd paragraph but will include it now.

[to a Northern congressman] "You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue laws, 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....

"We do not intend that you shall reduce us to such a condition. But I can tell you what your folly and injustice will compel us to do. It will compel us to be free from your domination, and more self-reliant than we have been. It will compel us to assert and maintain our separate independence. It will compel us to manufacture for ourselves, to build up our own commerce, our own great cities, our own railroads and canals; and to use the tribute money we now pay you for these things for the support of a government which will be friendly to all our interests, hostile to none of them."

[Rockingham]

Yet it was the South that seceded, citing the preservation of slavery, not tariffs as the reason for secession.

[Mr Rogers]

Even when Texas tells you why they did it, you reject it. They left BECAUSE THEY LOVED SLAVERY.

[BroJoeK]

FLT-bird: "Do a thought experiment.
Suppose for sake of argument, that the slaves had been freed and were instead sharecroppers or wage laborers as they were after the war....

...So now that the slaves are all free in our thought experiment, do the Southern states not still need low tariffs?
Do the Northern states not still want high protective tariffs to fatten their profit margins as they get to raise prices and increase sales?..."

Here's what's wrong with your thought experiment: if there was no slavery, there would be no Republicans, period.
Republicans were the anti-slavery party, so, no slavery, no Republicans.

Instead, the Old Whigs would have remained the opposition party, and the key fact about Whigs is: they were a national party.
In good years for Whigs -- 1840 and 1848 -- they won as many Southern states as Northern.

Whig Southern Election Percents of Victory (or % loss) in 1840 and 1848

Southern State	1840 Whig % Victory	1848 Whig % Victory
Alabama	(-9%)	(-1%)
Arkansas	(-8%)	(-10%)
Florida	none	14%
Georgia	12%	3%
Louisiana	19%	9%
Mississippi	7%	(-1%)
North Carolina	15%	10%
South Carolina	N/A	N/A
Tennessee	11%	5%
Texas	none	(-40%)
Virginia	(-1%)	(-2%)

There was no practical difference between Whigs and Republicans except for slavery, and when slavery was not an issue, then at least as many Southerners voted for Whigs as for Democrats.

Take away slavery, and the South in 1860 is no longer "solid", but rather is as split politically as other regions.
That means there were as many Southerners supporting relatively higher protective tariffs as were opposed, and of course Southern Whigs would always insist their region gets a "fair share" of Federal spending.

Absent slavery, secession would never be threatened because matters of tariff rates or Federal spending were always subject to negotiation and reasonable compromises.

That's where your thought experiment should have taken you.

[Rockingham]

You seem unaware of the details of US tariffs in the antebellum era. James K. Polk, a Southerner, was elected President in 1844 based in part on his promise to lower tariff rates. In 1846, Polk secured the lowering of the tariff to a rate of 25 per cent, which was further reduced in 1857 to rates of 16 to 24 per cent, making American tariffs some of the lowest in the world. Not until 1861 and the election of Lincoln were tariffs raised.

Again, the South's articles of secession cited slavery as the reason for secession, not tariff rates. In a era of substantial property requirements to vote, slave owners had the upper hand politically. In effect, non-slave holders were mostly disenfranchised.

As established, the Confederate central government began with a tariff rate of 12.5 per cent, but trade and revenue soon collapsed due to the Union blockade. The Confederate national and state governments then tried to finance themselves and the war effort through debt and currency printing, which resulted in catastrophic inflation.