It's the same old rhetoric and insults. I noticed the DiLorenzo insults (mostly by those who have not read his work either) and the "neo-reb" comments by the same 'ol hooligans.
l8pilot gave ya'll a headstart by citing a source. Go read it and organize your rebuttal if you disagree with the paper.
From the abstract and Roberts's article McGuire and Van Cott's work seems to be based on a logical fallacy. One can imagine that if the country split apart today, each fragment would draft laws and shape a constitution to reflect particular views on the issues of the day. But that would not prove that those issues had caused the split.
"Cause" is a tricky thing. An issue like the tariff may have contributed to worsening tensions or even swayed some people to take up one side or another. But left alone, the tariff question would never have brought war. Indeed, it could have been easily resolved, had slavery not embittered the situation. A list of differences between societies may not be a list of causes for a conflict between them. "Causes" have to have real explanatory force and power.
Another problem is the vagueness of the provision cited in the Confederate Constitution. If what's been posted here is true, the Confederacy retained the sugar tariff, which was clearly intended "to promote or foster" sugar growing. Therefore, a lot depends on how one reads, "any branch of industry." Does "industry" mean "production" of any kind, or does it refer to manufacturing, as opposed to agriculture?
In any event, there's a problem with the view of the Confederacy as idealistically free trade or committed to lower taxes. It may merely be that an agrarian region was opposed to taxes that would benefit industry, rather than to high taxes in general.