[spacecowboynj]

"And what leads you to believe that they're two different things? After land, slaves were the single largest capital item in the south. Their total value, in today's dollars, would have been around $65 billion dollars. So any perceived threat to slavery (like stopping the expansion into the territories) WAS about money, and a lot more money than tariffs represented."

Bubba, thanks for making an attempt, but the tariffs that were on the South eclipse slavery in terms of money. No comparison. The Confederacy actually ILLEGALIZED international slave trading in their own constitution while simultaneously illegalizing tariffs for pork. It's clear that this was their major issue (the tariffs).

Please imagine for moment that your average southerner circa 1850-1860 was not a slave owner. Please also imagine that instead the slave owners were a select few on large plantations (READ: farms with fancy palaces that were more or less equivalent to royalty) and imagine that even owning a slave was an expensive venture. So expensive that it involved insurance on the luxury level and that the mortality rate of the sailors bringing transporting slaves on ships was higher than that of their cargo because the slaves were worth something. Now, you may say "Well, the slave owners were the power brokers in the South yada yada yada..." but why would states, even northern ones(!) decades before come close to secession over tariffs? Also, why would northerners be overwhelmingly against a civil war with their southern brothers and sisters? Why would there be four slave states in the North? Come on!

There was widespred sentiment in the North to allow the Southern states to secede! This is a fact.

Secession was such an important part of the mindset that Lincoln's own words captured it perfectly:

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to raise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right- a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may chose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory they inhabit

Abraham Lincoln, Jan 12, 1848

Unfortuately, the man's ambition and personal vision outweighed his common-sense and basic humanity.

[Ditto]

There was widespred sentiment in the North to allow the Southern states to secede! This is a fact.

There was far more widespread sentiment to not allow it.

As to the Slave Power writers of the Confederate Constitution forbidding the import of slaves, that makes perfect sense. When you already own a valuable resource, you do not want to undermine that value by importing more of that resource. Same philosophy at work here as protective tariffs on British iron.

[Ditto]

Bubba, thanks for making an attempt, but the tariffs that were on the South eclipse slavery in terms of money. No comparison.

Are you serious?

----------------------------------------------

TABLE NO. LVIII.
VALUE OF THE SLAVES AT $400 PER HEAD.--1850.*

States.	Value of the Slaves at $400 per head.	Val. of Real and Per. Estate, less the val. of slaves at $400 p. head.
Alabama	$137,137,600	$81,066,732
Arkansas	18,840,000	21,001,025
Delaware	916,000	17,939,863
Florida	15,724,000	7,474,734
Georgia	152,672,800	182,752,914
Kentucky	84,392,400	217,236,056
Louisiana	97,923,600	136,075,164
Maryland	36,147,200	183,070,164
Mississippi	123,951,200	105,000,000
Missouri	34,968,800	102,278,907
North Carolina	115,419,200	111,381,272
South Carolina	153,993,600	134,264,094
Tennessee	95,783,600	111,671,104
Texas	23,264,400	32,097,940
Virginia	189,011,200	202,634,638
	$1,280,145,600	$1,655,945,137
--------------------------------------------------------- CUSTOM-HOUSE RECEIPTS.--1854.
Free States,	$60,010,489
Slave States,	5,136,969
Balance in favor of the Free States,	$54,873,520

Source: http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/helper/helper.html

-------------------------------------------------------------

By 1860, even Jeff Davis estimated the value of the Confederacy's "special property" at about $2 Trillion! Total Customes Revenue for the entire United States was less than $70 Million!

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

The Confederacy actually ILLEGALIZED international slave trading in their own constitution

No, the CSA constitution protected slave trading with their neighbor, the United States.

while simultaneously illegalizing tariffs for pork.

Well, sorta. What it actually says is that any internal improvements can't be paid for out of the treasury. Instead, they have to be levied directly on the beneficiaries (" in all which cases such duties shall be laid on the navigation facilitated thereby as may be necessary to pay the costs and expenses thereof.")

It's clear that this was their major issue (the tariffs).

If the presence of a clause in their constitution is evidence of an issue's importance, what are we to make of the six different clauses in that document dealing with slavery? (Article 1, Section 9, Clauses 1, 2, & 4; Article 4, Section 2, Clauses 1 & 3, Article 4, Section 3, Clause 3--" In all such 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')

So expensive that it involved insurance on the luxury level and that the mortality rate of the sailors bringing transporting slaves on ships was higher than that of their cargo because the slaves were worth something.

What on earth are you talking about? The international slave trade was dead by 1850, apart from a few smugglers, who I don't think bothered with insurance. The fact is that about a quarter to a third of southern families owned slaves. And didn't you just get down saying that the slaves weren't an important part of the economy, at least compared to tariffs?

but why would states, even northern ones(!) decades before come close to secession over tariffs?

That's easy. They didn't. The Hartford Convention (which I assume you're thinking of), wasn't about tariffs, it was about the trade embargo that Madison had imposed against Britain. And while a few hotheads tossed around the idea of secession, it doesn't appear in the final report of the convention. But that didn't stop the Democrats from seizing on the issue and working it for all it was worth. In the words of historian Samuel Eliot Morison: "Democratic politicians, seeking a foil to their own mismanagement of the war and to discredit the still formidable Federalist party, caressed and fed this infant myth until it became so tough and lusty as to defy both solemn denials and documentary proof."

Also, why would northerners be overwhelmingly against a civil war with their southern brothers and sisters?

I might be going out on a limb here, but maybe it was because they thought war is a bad thing.

Why would there be four slave states in the North? Come on!

Again, I might be going out on a limb here, but maybe they thought secession was a bad idea.

There was widespred sentiment in the North to allow the Southern states to secede! This is a fact.

There was some sentiment to let them go their own way, but once they opened fire on Sumter, that vague sentiment rapidly evaporated and half a million men volunteered for duty.

Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory they inhabit

Ah, Lincoln's Mexican War speech. Have you actually read the whole thing? Despite that Lost Causer favorite out-of-context quote, Lincoln's not talking about unilateral secession. He's talking about using force to take what you can. Here's the context:

If, as is probably true, Texas was exercising jurisdiction along the western bank of the Nueces, and Mexico was exercising it along the eastern bank of the Rio Grande, then neither river was the boundary; but the uninhabited country between the two, was. The extent of our teritory in that region depended, not on any treaty-fixed boundary (for no treaty had attempted it) but on revolution Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable,-- most sacred right--a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of the teritory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movement. Such minority, was precisely the case, of the tories of our own revolution. It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws; but to break up both, and make new ones. As to the country now in question, we bought it of France in 18O3, and sold it to Spain in 1819, according to the President's statements. After this, all Mexico, including Texas, revolutionized against Spain; and still later, Texas revolutionized against Mexico. In my view, just so far as she carried her revolution, by obtaining the actual, willing or unwilling, submission of the people, so far, the country was hers, and no farther.

The south, unfortunately, couldn't carry her revolution anywhere.