On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:33:34 -0500, Tim Daneliuk wrote:

You know, I've heard/read this analysis before, but I don't entirely
buy it. Your facts, as rendered, are correct. But it's kind of
hard to ignore the slavery elephant in the room. *None* of this
would have happened had the slavery issue not existed. The rest is
just window dressing. In the end, the US was built by patriots intent
on preserving individual liberty but who caved the first time a
real issue in that vein showed up. We've been paying for it ever since.

I think we somewhat agree here. It's not news that a great majority of
the public, including a fair number of southeners, found slavery
abhorrent. That was used as a convenient excuse for the war.

But the south was agricultural and favored free trade. The north was
industrial and favored tariffs. The federal government at that time got
most of its revenue from tariffs and was horrified at the thought that
importers would sail into free trade southern ports with their goods
which could then easily be smuggled over the border to the north, and
thus deprive the feds of most of their revenue.

Marx may not have been right about much, but he hit it on the nose when he
said wars were fought for economic reasons.