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Well... just so we’re clear about this: nobody denies that economics played a role, of course it did, always does.
But economics alone do not usually start or sustain shooting wars, certainly not amongst prosperous countries, there’s simply not enough passion in just economics to sustain orgies of bloodletting and treasure exhaustion.****

Oh I disagree with that. Most wars are ultimately about money. Money is simply what people fight over be it individuals or nations.

Remember, the term “trade war” is just a metaphor, even when hundreds of billions of dollars per year are involved — as, for example with China & several other trading “partners” today — we might expect, in effect, boycotts or even worker strikes, which will cause economic pain, but that’s a far cry from international shootouts at the OK coral.

War requires something much more existential, something closer to home, something more threatening to average citizens.

In 1860 that “something” was slavery and Fire Eaters rode it for all it was worth.*****

I could cite a litany of history’s wars that boiled down in the end, to money - that includes WWII. East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere anyone? Lebensraum?

Henry opposed the new Constitution, voted against ratification. Others didn’t buy Henry’s arguments and voted to ratify. And Henry was suspicious of Northerners, but this particular “quote” seems dubious because:

After serving in the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1775 Henry was never again elected to a national Congress, and yet here is quoted as if familiar with its factions.

Factions in the 1st US Congress were roughly 2/3 Pro & 1/3 Anti-administration, with 2/3 of Anti-Administration legislators being Southern.

However, then as always there were political cross-dressers and trans-party “moderates”.

This particular Patrick Henry “quote” might well refer the 1st Congress’ first tax, the Tariff of 1789.

That was acknowledged at the time as favoring Northerners at Southern expense, but Anti-administration Virginia Congressman James Madison lead the bill’s supporters and it passed with just under 2/3 of the vote.

My point here is, the basic North-South division in US politics was already seen in the 1st Congress, but it was not then, or ever, hard and fixed.

Anti-Administration Virginia Congressman Madison lead the effort for higher tariffs in 1789, just as in 1828 Southerners Calhoun & Jackson originally supported the “Tariff of Abominations” and in 1860 some Southerners supported the Morrill Tariff, while some Northerners opposed all of those.

Indeed, the great success of Jefferson’s Anti-administration party after 1800, now renamed “Democratic Republicans”, came from the fact they received far more Northern support in states like Massachusetts, New York & Pennsylvania than Federalists got in the South.*****

Patrick Henry was an anti federalist. I would say pretty much every single one of his dire predictions about how the federal government would usurp ever more power for itself and eventually become a leviathan were true. I would say his predictions about massive debts (since there was no provision limiting the federal government’s ability to borrow money) were true. I would say his dire predictions about how special interests would abuse the hell out of the “General Welfare” clause in order to seek subsidies, protection and all sorts of special favors for themselves came true exactly as he predicted.

And in 1801 as in most of the next 60 years, Southerners were the majority of their majority Democrat party.

Bottom line: basic North-South differences were there already in 1789, but were never as hard & fast as this alleged quote from Patrick Henry wants us to believe.*****

It is a quote from Patrick Henry and it is accurate. He correctly foresaw the danger - particularly for the Southern states - in entering a union with much more centralized power with those greedy grasping New Englanders. Its unfortunate more of his fellow Southerners did not listen to him. He was proven all too correct over time.

Tariffs were always “politics as usual”, never a casus belli:****

The Colonists’ secession from the British Empire started over taxation. The English Civil War started over taxation. Tax revolts have a very long history in Anglo-Saxon culture.

FRLT-bird: "Oh I disagree with that.
Most wars are ultimately about money.
Money is simply what people fight over be it individuals or nations."

"Ultimately"?
You mean, if there's a list of the top ten reasons for some particular war, "money" will be at the bottom, #10, the "ultimate"?
I could agree with that.

But only Marxists dialectics put "money" and "class warfare" as reasons #1 or #2 in, for example, WWII.
Hitler went to war in 1939 over "lebensraum" for his "master race" and to revenge German losses in the First World War.
Hitler was almost as socialist as Stalin, but he never said: let's conquer Europe for more money.

Sure, Japanese did conquer in the name of their "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere", with primary focus on raw materials like oil & rubber, but that was only tangentially "money" and primarily or "ultimately" about Japanese dominance and use of force to make economics go their way, regardless of who had, or didn't have money.

"The Japanese government directed that local economies be managed strictly for the production of raw war materials for the Japanese; a cabinet member declared,
'There are no restrictions.
They are enemy possessions.
We can take them, do anything we want.'[20] "

Indeed, their "ultimate" reason was to glorify the Japanese emperor.

The same is true of any war -- for example, the US entered the First World War on the Allies' side somewhat over money, but primarily because we like the Brits & French better than arrogant, rude Prussians, and we didn't want to see our friends lose.

"Lafayette, we are here"

No amount of money would pay those troops to shout similar praises of, for example, the German Kaiser.
So, contrary to what your Marxist professors taught you, it's not "all about money", never was, never will be.

FRLT-bird: "I could cite a litany of history’s wars that boiled down in the end, to money - that includes WWII.
East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere anyone?
Lebensraum?"

Again, only if by "money" you mean metaphorically "anything of value", otherwise not so much.
Clearly "lebensraum" was not even firstly or secondly to do with money, but rather with things like "living room", national territory, racial superiority, revenge for 1918 and the Versailles Treaty, Blitz Krieg and German technical prowess.
Like the Japanese Co-prosperity Sphere, Germans were not interested in the voluntary exchanges implied by money, but rather in forced expropriations of conquered nations' resources.
That's not "money", that's brute military power.

FRLT-bird: "Patrick Henry was an anti federalist.
I would say pretty much every single one of his dire predictions about how the federal government would usurp ever more power for itself and eventually become a leviathan were true."

Right, "anti-Federalist" means he opposed ratifying the Constitution and went on to oppose the Federalist administrations of Washington & Adams.
Remember, anti-Federalists were just 1/3 of the First Congress in 1789, but 2/3 of anti-Federalists were Southern, as were nearly 2/3 of Jefferson's majority Democrats in the 1801 7th Congress.
Today Democrats still oppose the Constitution, albeit for quite different reasons, while the descendants of Federalists, Republicans, defend it however weakly.

FRLT-bird: "It is a quote from Patrick Henry and it is accurate."

I doubt that. At best it sounds taken out of context.
At worst it may simply be yet another fake projection of more recent sentiments back to our founding generation.

FRLT-bird: "The Colonists’ secession from the British Empire started over taxation."

Nooooooo… over representation.
"No taxation without representation."
Colonists understood taxes were necessary, but wanted to tax themselves.
And more urgent & personal even than mere representation in Parliament was the Brits' 1774 abrogation of Massachusetts' 1691 Charter of self government.
That was effectively an act of war and Americans responded accordingly.

The Brits 1775 Proclamation of Rebellion sealed Americans' fate leading a year later to our Declaration of Independence.

None of that had anything directly to do with money.

FRLT-bird: "The English Civil War started over taxation.
Tax revolts have a very long history in Anglo-Saxon culture."

Maybe, but it was never only about money, and seldom primarily about money.
Of course, in ancient times, when your army sacked a city, you took the city's treasures and its women & children as slaves.
So even then "money" was only part of the equation, national glory, power, land & raw sex played important roles.
Some Roman conquerors were known to payoff their troops not only with loot & land but also with slaves.

It was never only about money.
Even they fought for Roman glory, for land, for loot & slaves: