I don't know about Southerners' purchasing 87% of the goods imported into the USA. But there's no difference between the situation of a Minnesota farmer and a non-slaveowning farmer in Georgia. Both were subsistence farmers insulated from the market, mainly growing what they had to survive on. I saw a copy of the will of my great great grandfather in Georgia and there's no possessions there that would have been imported from any farther than the iron works in Richmond.
To admit that tariffs were a factor in secession is to admit that the slave owning minority who grew almost all the export cash crops had an influence beyond their numbers. The question then becomes whether the poor southern masses fought for the rich man's slavery or for the rich man's personal prosperity. In either case, the idea of the poor masses fighting for the rich class's narrow well-being is a grotesque violation of both common sense and American ideals. This contradiction is why the Confederacy folded up so quickly under duress where a legitimate revolution of the people would have persevered.
Hmmm. You a student of Hegel?
Tariffs were a major factor in causing the civil war.
In fact, the “Tarrifs of Abomination” passed in 1828, itself almost caused a civil war between north and south. As the article linked below explains, tariffs hurt the south more, “because the higher tariffs meant higher prices for the manufactured products they didn’t produce themselves, while southerners also felt Great Britain and France would retaliate on items like cotton, forcing the region into poverty.”
So on the one hand, the tariffs would be disproportionately paid by the south because the north could supply themselves of the products that the south had to import from abroad. On the other hand, the south feared that Great Britain would respond with cotton tariffs that would kill their export business.
The article goes on to say, “The tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were seen as symbols of Southern oppression.”
Tariffs were most definitely among the reasons for secession by the southern states, along with slavery (the #1 reason for the war), and a feeling of oppression that their State’s rights were being trampled on by a power-hungry federal government, a fact proved true long ago as rampant federal power has been destroying state’s rights ever since.
http://www.buyandhold.com/bh/en/education/history/2003/tariff_of_abominations.html
As for “whether the poor southern masses fought for the rich man’s slavery or for the rich man’s personal prosperity. In either case, the idea of the poor masses fighting for the rich class’s narrow well-being is a grotesque violation of both common sense and American ideals”, I would say many poor minority Americans have fought in many wars caused by or for rich American industrialists, bankers or power-brokers. That is no so uncommon, or are you that naive?
The poor southern masses fought for their freedom and rights, which was co-incident with the financial interests of the rich plantation owners of the south. Modern Americans are still fighting for freedom and patriotism, and still fueling huge profits for the modern bankers and power-brokers and other profiteers in wartime.