FR posters like DiogenesLamp and others have regaled us endlessly with their economic theories of why the North refused to accept Cotton State secessions.
They say proposals for Southern "Free Trade" had Northerners quaking in their economic boots.
Anything, even the bloodiest war, was preferable to Southern "Free Trade" DiogenesLamp tells us.
So Southern "Free Trade" was the real reason for Civil War, they say.
But in this article, in December 1860, we see the question of Southern "Free Trade" discussed in very reasonable terms and exposed as the fraud & deception it truly was.
I recommend the article, a key point of which is that for six-sevenths of South Carolina's population, everything they lived on was already "free trade" and only luxury goods of the wealthiest one-seventh were taxed, and in amounts that could not be enough to support an independent South Carolina government.
For this article at least, the whole idea of Southern "Free Trade" was bogus.
60% of all their export profits ended up in the pockets of New York and Washington DC connected people. If you think increasing their take by 60% is a trivial thing, then you are nuts.