[BroJoeK]

ek_hornbeck: "states have the right to negotiate their own trade agreements with one another and with foreign governments.
Since the south was predominantly agrarian, planters resented the tariff that effectively forced them to purchase goods manufactured in the north instead of cheaper British or European goods."

Your argument has been posted on CW threads many times, and every time refuted based on:

• First of all, tariffs in 1860 (15%) were lower than any time since 1840, and were the same as in 1792, when George Washington was president.
  So they can no-way be considered "too high" in 1860.

• You mention John C. Calhoun, who served in Federal office from 1811 until his death at age 68 in 1850.
  During those 39 years, the peak tariff rates of 35% came in 1830, while South Carolinian Calhoun was Vice President under Southern Democrat President Andrew Jackson.
  So there's something about the claim that "Southerners all hated high tariffs" which doesn't quite ring true.

• Most important, words like "tariff" (never) and "tax" (only once re: slave-tax) don't appear in secessionist documents -- so they were not matters Southerners would secede over.
  Words which do appear, continuously, throughout all those documents are "slavery" and "institution", along with concerns to protect those against possible hostility from "Black Republicans."

[ek_hornbeck]

During those 39 years, the peak tariff rates of 35% came in 1830, while South Carolinian Calhoun was Vice President under Southern Democrat President Andrew Jackson. So there's something about the claim that "Southerners all hated high tariffs" which doesn't quite ring true.

Calhoun started his political career as a supporter of high tariffs, sympathetic to the goals of Federalism and the Union. He later became an advocate of state's rights and free trade, siding with the agrarian south against the industrial north.