If you say so, I can agree to that. It is my main point of contention with McPherson's article.
But this fact precisely undercuts the argument that the tariff was a major cause. For if it were, what would be easier than for Southerners to cooperate with Northern Democrats to keep tariffs low forever.
Pro-Tariff numerical strengths in Congress and a pro-tariff president. The House had already passed the Morrill bill in May of 1860. When Lincoln was elected, everyone knew the new president would sign it AND push heavily for it...that is if it didn't pass the Senate before his inauguration, where Buchanan would sign it just the same. The latter is what happened. When it did pass the Senate, Lincoln had already publicly pledged to make the tariff bill his top legislative priority in the next session if it were not law already.
Had the South stayed in the union, their only block on tariffs would have been a shaky sectionally divided majority in the senate under constant pressure from the white house and their representative counterparts to enact a new tax. Add projected budget shortfalls into the mix and a natural, albeit economically fallacious, call to raise taxes begins to resonate with the public - especially those who gain some benefit from it (the north) over those who actually incur its wrath (the south).
You are working with different vocabularies and ambiguous words.
No, not really. McPherson could not have been more direct in his statement. Only by torturing his wording could one conclude that, by saying "The Civil War was not fought over the issue of tariff or of industrialization or of land grants," McPherson intended anything other than to exclude arguments for their presence among the reasons why the war was fought. His statement was one of exclusion and a blanket dismissal, not one of prioritization or hidden meanings to suggest that he didn't really exclude what his statement directly excludes.
McPherson's article is only a popular sketch.
That is true, but it is also not an excuse for the mistakes and historically dishonest assertions made throughout that article - especially by someone of McPherson's alleged stature.
It's a bit akin to an explanation of difficult science for a popular audience.
If the article was properly written with correct consideration of history it potentially could be. McPherson's article is not that though. It's closer to the popularized grade school story of Columbus as the explorer who stood up to the scientists of his day and declared that the world was round. McPherson's article is little more than a "flat earth" account of the civil war.
I'd say it certainly isn't the best history.
And that is part of the problem - according to many, McPherson represents the "best of the best" in the field of civil war history.
It's certainly apt to be disputed by Southern partisans, but McPherson's not saying that the antebellum South and it's culture are to be reduced to slavery
His article seems to suggest otherwise. He says point blank that slavery defined the entirity of the south and nothing more. I don't believe one could assert in more direct terms that which you claim he did not assert.
It would be curious to submit McPherson's essay to history professors and see how they would grade it as history.
That would be an interesting experiment. I predict much of it would depend upon whether or not his name were attached to it. In cases that the essay was signed "James McPherson" I have little doubt he would recieve an A almost every time except among those who know McPherson as a rabidly pro-north historian. Submitted anonymously, the grades would probably vary more. I firmly believe there is a group of otherwise accredited historians out there who have convinced themselves that Lincoln can do little if any wrong. This seems to be the case within the Claremonster cult, who without doubt would give the thing an A. Elsewhere grades would be mixed. Those who would have failed McPherson knowing his name would probably do the same without. Those historians with less of an interest in the war or any side in it would also be inclined to give McPherson lower marks, absent his name, strictly on issues of factual content. But those are just my predictions.
I'm certainly no expert on this question, and I defer to those who have more authoritative knowledge, but the evidence I've seen is that tariffs were not the major factor in leading to secession and war. Indeed, according to one source, there was no effort to get Buchanan to commit himself to vetoing the tariff, and Robert Toombs voted for the tariff, either because it wasn't regarded as harmful, or because it could be used as a pretext for secession and a provocation to Britain to condemn the unionists. Had all Southern Senators remained in Washington, the measure probably could have been tabled, since the Senate rules of the day required a 2/3 vote to cut off debate and bring a bill to a vote. The free trade press made much of the tariff as a provocation to both the Southern states and Britain, but sorting out truth from opinion, predictions and partisan analyses from realities, is a difficult business.
McPherson finds slavery the primary difference between Northern and Southern civilization. But much of what was valuable about North and South had little to do with slavery. To the degree that North and South participated in American or Western culture, there will be much of value in each region that can't be related to slavery or free labor.
McPherson's "slavery defined the South" does look quite reductive. It's not the language that other historians would use. But if you disagree with his view, what does account for the differences between the two regions? There is a little to be said for Puritan/Cavalier analyses, but if you think of two twin Huguenots or Ulstermen, one heading for New York or Pennsylvania and the other heading for South Carolina or Georgia, you'll find them and their descendants growing quite different, without any of them encountering Cavaliers or Puritans. Anglicans in Virginia and New York, Congregationalists in Connecticut and Georgia came to diverge radically in their ways of life. Climate may also help explain things but it's not enough either. McPherson may be unfair to the upper South and the border states, but when you consider societies like South Carolina or Mississippi where over half the population was enslaved, and half the white families owned slaves, the difference to other social orders is so striking that it's not easy to reject his argument.
There's nothing more that I can do about your quarrel with McPherson. I recommend you right him nicely and politely with some of your criticisms of his article. If he responds you could have an interesting discussion on your hands. Or if you know any professional historians or graduate students you could take it up with them. I do not recommend calling McPherson a communist or a Marxist or a "rabidly pro-North historian" though.