I doubt you'll find it in any history books because the truth didn't serve the political agenda at the time nor does it now. The conflict between North and South was pure economics. The north had the established ports and had forced the south to do their trade through the North. The only way the south could conduct import/export trade without the north as a middleman was to undermine the tariffs established by the north. The north stepping in to stop the trade the south had established in its ports is what led to the south splitting off.baldeagle wrote:They were doing that to force the South to end slavery. When the South skirted the restrictions, the North didn't react because they were losing money. They reacted because 1) the South attacked them (Fort Sumter) and because they were dead set on ending slavery. Is there ANY documentation that shows the leadership of the Union (Congressional or Executive) were upset about the loss of revenues from the South?jmra wrote:Does the Democratic Party say they want to keep Black people impoverished and a financial slave to the state? No, but does that make it less true?
The federal government was heavily taxing the South and through import taxes kept most of the imports coming to Nothern ports. This required the South to buy goods from the North and pay companies from the North to ship the goods. The North was sticking it to the South every which way but loose. When the South lowered or even waived import fees to bring trade to Southern ports is when things got real nasty. The South was a gravy train for the North pure and simple. Money was the one and only reason the North was not going to let the South go.
What you posit is a theory. You need evidence to back up a theory.
This seems to be the best evidence that I've been able to find - https://www.lewrockwell.com/2006/01/joh ... the-south/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. At best I would say it's as likely to be incorrect as it is to be correct. First of all, the Hampton Roads Conference was not recorded, so we only have the word of the participants as to what was said. Given that people perceive things differently and that their own biases influence their "record", it's hard to say if what is described is what actually took place. The only real evidence he adduces as proof of the revenue claims is an oped in the Chicago Daily Times, which is hardly evidence of anything except someone's opinion.
I will grant you that the theory has been proposed, but I have yet to see any hard evidence that it was the deciding factor that started the war.
I think this is probably as accurate a portrayal of the causes of the war as I have found - http://millercenter.org/academic/americ ... iography/4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;I think it's pretty clear that the Confederate states had four basic disagreements with the North; states' sovereignty, slavery, protective tariffs and the power of the Executive. Whether one or more of those was more important than the others is hard to say, but it cannot be said that slavery and its abolition was not an issue.Abraham Lincoln's presidential campaign victory lit the fuse that would explode into the Civil War. Between the time of his election in November and his inauguration in March of 1861, seven states from the lower South seceded from the Union. Delegates from these states met in Montgomery, Alabama, and formed the Confederate States of America. They drafted and passed a constitution that was similar to the U.S. Constitution, except in four areas. The Confederate constitution supported states' sovereignty, guaranteed the perpetual existence of slavery in the states and territories, prohibited Congress from enacting a protective tariff and giving government aid to internal improvements, and limited the presidential term to six-years.
While it is true that Lincoln stated he did not want to interfere with slavery in the South, his true intentions were different.So he was unwilling to allow slavery where it did not already exist, unwilling to cease interference with interstate slave trade and unwilling to stop the harboring of fugitive slaves.However, Lincoln drew the line at supporting a package of compromises sponsored by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, known as the Crittenden Compromise. This proposal included a series of constitutional amendments to guarantee slavery in the states. Furthermore, the compromise sought to prohibit Congress from abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia and deny Congress the power to interfere with the interstate slave trade. Crittenden's legislation also empowered Congress to compensate slaveholders who lost runaway slaves to the North and protected slavery south of latitude 36'30' in all territories "now held or hereafter acquired." Lincoln understood that to accept the amendments would be to overturn the Republican platform, and he instructed party leaders to make no concessions whatsoever on the slavery expansion issue.
His "support" for slavery in the South seems to have been a practical one - he felt abolishing it would be too disruptive, and it would die of natural causes anyway. IOW, he wanted to avoid war, not continue slavery.
This became a major economic problem for the north because they were not only losing taxes but also were no longer able to charge to south marked up prices for foreign imports, not to mention the lost revenue of exporting goods from the south. If the south was allowed to continue this trade, industrial development of the south would ensue making much of the north economically irrelevant. You see, the north needed the south much more than the south needed the North. This is why had the south agreed to return to the union under the economic thumb of the north slavery would have been allowed to continue indefinitely. Of course with the influx of cheap Asian labor (actually cheaper than slave upkeep), slavery would have become a thing of the past eventually anyway.
So, why didn't either side cite economics as a reason for war? Because the general public wasn't willing to go to war with their brother over money. Both sides needed an ideal in order to garner support for their positions. For the north the rally call was the end of slavery, for the south it was states rights. But ultimately, it was all about the mighty dollar.