In almost every discussion or talk of the Confederacy, the issue of slavery is utmost...
Slavery was a small part of the cause of the Civil War and the formation of the Confederate States...
It accepts the shallow but unchallenged premise that the Civil War occurred because slavery was practiced in the South, and that righteous resolve to abolish the institution left the U.S. with no option other than a resort to arms. This is a myopic view
with which many historical facts simply cannot be reconciled.
The war resulted from causes unrelated to slavery and abolition. It was entirely a consequence of the Southern states’ secession, which occurred despite the undeniable fact that the slave states could not have hoped for better protection of slavery than that afforded by the U. S. Constitution — provided they remained in the Union.
Both Lincoln and the slaveholders well knew in 1860 that a constitutional amendment ending slavery would never be mathematically feasible. But Lincoln further understood that the South was gravitating toward secession as the remedy for a different grievance altogether: The egregiously inequitable effects of a U. S. protective tariff that provided 90 percent of federal revenue.
Foreign governments retaliated for it with tariffs of their own, and payment of those overseas levies represented the cost to Americans of their U. S. government. Southerners were generating two-thirds of U. S. exports, and also bearing two-thirds of the retaliatory tariffs abroad.
The result was that that the 18.5 percent of America’s citizens who lived in the South were saddled with three times their proportionate share of the federal government’s costs.
What was the tariff rate on raw cotton imports in Britain and France prior to the war? Just curious.
I understand all that. Thanks.
‘Slavery was a small part of the cause of the Civil War and the formation of the Confederate States...’
sigh, here we go again; please read the Articles of Secession of the states of Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, South Carolina, and Texas...and come back and tell us what you learned...
Slavery was a small part of the cause of the Civil War and the formation of the Confederate States...But Lincoln further understood that the South was gravitating toward secession as the remedy for a different grievance altogether: The egregiously inequitable effects of a U. S. protective tariff that provided 90 percent of federal revenue.
The Great Cotton War. Cotton export prices and availability played a significant role during that period and has been minimized as one of the chief causes for the creation of that conflict. As cottons use expanded so did the areas in the world where cotton was introduced both in Africa and Asia and grown as a commodity. Pricewise the south was forced to compete with those areas.