[Aurelius]

Would even you deny that the Union's story of the so-called Civil War is a myth written to justify the wanton killing and destruction that the Union armies performed to maintain the federal government's ability to extort taxes from the profits of Southern labour?

[andy_card]

That might make sense if the US were dependent on revenues from the slave states. But they weren't. As has been pointed out time and time again on this thread, 75% of government revenues came from the North, whereas 50% of expenditures went to the South. Hmm. If my math is correct, that indicates one hell of a subsidy of the most backward part of the country by Northern taxpayers.

[Ditto]

to maintain the federal government's ability to extort taxes from the profits of Southern labour?

Tell us exactly how the Federal government was "extorting taxes" from the profits of southern labor? Was not southern "labor" devoted almost exclusively to the production and export of cash crops? There was no tax on exports, only imports.

See post #30. Even your Vice President admitted that while Southerners (slave states) made up 40% of the population, they only paid 25% of the taxes while consuming 50% of the federal budget! (And in 1860, the Federal budget was economically inconsequential --- less than 2% of GDP)

If you think any federal tax is extortion, it was the south extorting the north!

There is a very good reason you can't find any reference to tariffs being an issue in the 1860 debates. It's because the Democrat Party propaganda machine did not invent that myth until the 1890s!