[FLT-bird]

Probably no Civil War had there been no slavery, but there’s always the possibility it might’ve arose over another issue, perhaps economics or other issues where there were vehement factional disagreements. I disagree with this. Had there been no slavery. Had the slaves been instead working under a sharecropping system as they were after the war or had they been wage laborers, the conflict still would have happened. The Southern states' had economies geared toward producing cash crops for export. The Northeast in particular had an economy based on servicing those exports in the form of insurance, banking, shipping, etc and as time went on a growing manufacturing sector. The two regions needed completely different economic policies. The Southern states wanted low tariffs and a lot of export-import trade. The Northern states wanted high protective tariffs to build up their industries which were competing against British and French manufacturers who having gotten established first, already had economies of scale by the time the Northern manufacturers were getting started. Then there is the age old temptation to vote yourselves other people's money. The Northern states had more people and thus more votes in Congress. They used those votes to pass much higher tariffs than were in the Southern States' interest to have and to use the money raised by those tariffs to pay for critical infrastructure in the North needed to fuel industrialization. This dynamic was always destined to lead to the Southern states wanting out and the Northern states not wanting their cash cow/captive market to leave. That and not anything else was the driving force behind secession and war to prevent secession despite the fact that the country was founded on......secession.

[DiogenesLamp]

Excellent synopsis of the real economics which created the war. Yes, the Tax and Spend North Eastern power block wanted other people's money then, the same as they still want other people's money now, and control of the government through their larger, and heavily propagandized population is how they continue to get it.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Oh, when I made my initial statement, it was more predicated on the presumption that minus slavery, there would’ve been so few Africans brought in to the point that it wouldn’t have been an issue. The only reason they were imported in the numbers they were was almost exclusively due to slavery.

It would’ve been curious to see the development of the South had we (White folk) “picked our own (proverbial) cotton.”