On Sep 11, 1:12*pm, Larry Blanchard wrote:
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.

Not an hour's drive from where I type these words there lie in their
graves several tens of thousands of Iowans, Wisconsinsers, Ohioans,
Hoosiers, Nebraskans, Minnesotans, and others from Northern states
that were every bit as agrarian as any Southern state. Though they
stood to benefit as much or more from tariff-free trade, they fought
and died none-the-less for the Union. There were barely enough
copperheads to make them worth mentioning even in passing.

While tariffs were a divisive issue, the expansion of slavery into
the Western territories, which was essential for the survival
of slavery, was the issue the led to secession and the Civil War.

--

FF