No, it wasn't. The sectional crises leading up to the Civil War were about slavery, not tariffs. The secession crisis was about slavery, not tariffs. Without the long-standing disagreement about keeping or abolishing slavery, the Civil War almost certainly would not have happened.
@kevindavis @Sanguine Slavery was a precipitating factor, probably even the single most important precipitating factor. I have never denied this. But I am cautioning TBR posters and lurkers not to overlook the fact that the Southern States hated political tyranny--i.e., hated any Federal exercise of power in violation of the Constitutional
covenant. (
Federal means
covenantal, by the way!) The Southerners saw this political tyranny coming straight at them. And the Federal abuses originating in the North did involve more than matters of
the institution of slavery. The North and South had become pretty bitter economic adversaries, and the Federal government tended to favor the North on most economic matters. (Even Karl Marx was correct in admitting this about the Civil War.)
Lincoln did little or nothing to correct the North-versus-South inequities that Federal laws had facilitated. (As I said in my earlier post, Lincoln really was closely tied to the Northern financiers and businessmen. This came conspicuously to light in the findings mentioned in
Dark Union.) In fact, Lincoln doubled down on Federal policy even when this ultimately proved to be exceedingly ill-advised, in my opinion. (See the link I provided.)
For what it's worth, it is fairly common knowledge (among educated Southerners, at least) that the reason why Fort Sumter was the first target selected by a defiant South Carolina gun crew is the fact that Fort Sumter was a bastion protecting a Federal
tax office. Back to the hottest of the hot-button issues: The South argued that the Constitution itself implicitly if not formally legalized the institution of slavery as a matter of the original
covenant of the
States--irrespective of the matter of whether or not slavery was a righteous institution--and that nothing short of a Constitutional amendment could abolish slavery across the entire nation. Thus, the Civil War was ultimately over the lawful role of the Federal government. The issue of slavery was undoubtedly the centerpiece of that clash. The sectional crises to which you referred ordinarily
did center on slavery--especially the violent (or near-violent) clashes (perpetrated in most cases, I believe, by radical abolitionists from the North).
Having stipulated that the centerpiece of the clash was slavery--and having pointed out that I have never denied this--let me now ask you to go back and re-read my post to
@kevindavis. In that post I submitted that Kevin had oversimplified the struggle between the North and the South.
Ironically, the Southerners were defending slavery but quite literally and honestly and courageously fighting for freedom against pretty overwhelming odds. It is difficult for modern Americans to understand this, but the Southerners were defending their own Sovereign States--which were their homes, of course. In that era, the individual States were far more important to their citizens than was the Federal nation. (As a matter of fact, in the earliest days of our Republic, America's Founders typically referred to the American Republic as
THESE United States, not
THE United States.)
Several of the CSA's military officers had resigned from the US Army so they could defend their home States against an overbearing Federal juggernaut. (Slavery was a secondary [and rather ugly] matter as far as Robert E. Lee was concerned.)
Most of the rank-and-file soldiers of the CSA did not own slaves. The vast majority of CSA soldiers did not deliberately risk, much less give up their lives for slavery. They were fighting as patriots of their sovereign Home States and for the rights of self-determination in those States.
We should respect them for that much even if they were on the wrong side of the knotty moral issue of slavery--
not call them morons.
