Investigators in movies and television dramas often advise their colleagues to “follow the money.” If you really want to understand the War Between the States, this is sage advice indeed. In Part I, I explained why the abolition of slavery could not have been the principal motivation for the war. So what was? I noted in that post that economic historian Charles Adams specialized in the history of taxation.

Those familiar with U.S. history may recall that one of the most famous acts of nullification (though far from the only one) was South Carolina’s attempt to block enforcement of the “Tariff of Abominations” in 1828.  Throughout the early history of the United States, the tariff system worked hardship on the South, because the Southern economy depended on the export of cotton to Europe. However, the Congress wished to protect “infant industries” in New England, the Mid-Atlantic States, and increasingly, the Midwest, by levying high tariffs on European manufactures. This meant that the South had to pay a higher price (requiring the sale of more cotton) for either Northern or European goods. The South would be forced to sell that cotton with a cash discount to Europe, since the tariff made European manufactures unaffordable. In addition, some 83% of its revenues were distributed in the North, with the same percentage having been collected from the South. *

With this in mind, it is clear that the “Civil War” could have been avoided simply by negotiating a tariff that was fairer to the South.

The Tariff of 1828 is not the only example of Northern repression toward the South. We could talk about the Morrill Tariff of 1861, which triggered the secession of additional Southern states. Charles Dickens, a British author who opposed both slavery and high tariffs, published this comment in his magazine All the Year Round in December 1861:

If it be not slavery, where lies the partition of the interests that has led at last to actual separation of the Southern from the Northern States? …Every year, for some years back, this or that Southern state had declared that it would submit to this extortion only while it had not the strength for resistance. With the election of Lincoln and an exclusive Northern party taking over the federal government, the time for withdrawal had arrived … The conflict is between semi-independent communities [in which] every feeling and interest [in the South] calls for political partition, and every pocket interest [in the North] calls for union … So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle. Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils… [T]he quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.

Since the mortgage collapse of 2008, we have become aware how the decisions of New York bankers – naturally in their own interest — have influenced the economy of the rest of the nation. We are seeing how the Federal Reserve’s “Quantitative Easing” policies have helped businesses “too big to fail,” while failing to reduce unemployment and building the inflation we all suffer at the supermarket and gas pump – facts that few mainstream politicians are willing to acknowledge, let alone remedy. We need to understand, as the critics of the Federal Reserve Bank did a century ago, that the interests of New York financiers have nothing to do with those of Ohio – or the South, Texas, the Great Plains, or the West. New York’s banking interests are more closely tied to Europe, which helps to explain why they favor a European-style welfare state in this country.

In addition, we are rediscovering some deep-seated cultural fissures in the American landscape, gaps that have been patched over for 150 years with a patriotism fueled by a largely false rendering of history. “Red state vs. blue state” is part of it; but that explanation does not account for “purple states” like Ohio, which see no benefit from “progressive” economics, but have little desire to embrace the strictures of religious and social conservatism.

To assert that the “Civil War” settled these issues for the last time is to say that might makes right. And if might did make right, what would that say about the rule of law or maintaining our God-given natural rights?

Far from being praised, Abraham Lincoln deserves our condemnation for systematically destroying Constitutional government, as it was understood prior to his Presidency. Instead, he began the drive to replace the Founders’ federal system with the centralized national government that serves most of us less and less with each passing day.

In writing this, I am not defending the desire by many Confederates to retain slavery, nor am I defending in any way the despicable regime known as “Jim Crow” that prevented Southern blacks from enjoying real freedom for nearly a century. If the South is one day to regain its independence with the culture it desires, its advocates will have to work proactively to ensure that citizens of all races in the new Southern republic enjoy human and political rights to at least the same degree as they do now.

The Confederate government made serious mistakes, both politically and militarily, during the war. However, none of this diminishes the virtue the Confederates had of wanting to preserve the federal system they inherited from the Founders, one that effectively protected the rights of the states and the people from an overbearing “federal” government.

* Violating, at least in spirit, the first clause of Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, which provides that “all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”

The word hagiography literally means “images of the saints,” and is used to describe the study of the lives of holy people. Its second meaning is pejorative – an idolizing biography. I suspect that more hagiography in the second sense has been written about Abraham Lincoln than of anyone else in American history, George Washington included. By contrast, history is a record of significant events. We expect history to contain the truth about the past; but in reading about the causes of the conflict incorrectly referred to as the “Civil War”, we are often disappointed. This issue is important to us today, because critics of state sovereignty like to hide the truth by idolizing Lincoln’s desire to save the union.

The official narrative taught in the North claims that the Southern states seceded from the union to preserve and expand the institution of slavery. It is true that slavery was one of the issues motivating both sides to support the war, and one that Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens unfortunately emphasized in his account after the war ended. However, this explanation leads to several anomalies:

• Why did African-Americans fight for the Confederacy, and why do H.K. Edgerton and some other Southern blacks passionately defend the Confederate cause for which their ancestors fought? Keep in mind that Mr. Edgerton is also passionate about civil rights, and is a former president of the NAACP in Asheville, North Carolina, a fact that even his critics acknowledge.
• Why did the Emancipation Proclamation only free slaves in the South, and why did Lincoln repeatedly make clear that he only cared about the issue as a way to preserve the union?
• If the purpose of the war was to abolish slavery, why did Lincoln, on assuming the Presidency, not even propose to negotiate with the South for legislation or a Constitutional amendment to free the slaves? He could have modeled such a proposal on legislation that worked peacefully for Britain in 1833 or France in 1848.
• Why would the South care about extending slavery to Kansas and Nebraska, when New Mexico (which also included the present State of Arizona) was a “slave” territory with a slave population of … 24?
• If the purpose was to extend freedom, why did Lincoln virtually scrap the Constitution during the war by:
  • Suspending habeas corpus without the consent of Congress? (The Constitution is not explicit about whether the President or Congress has this privilege; but its location in Article I Section 9 – and not Article II – strongly implies that they intended for Congress to have this power. Early commentators on the Constitution, including such strong unionists as Daniel Webster, agree with me on this).
  • Summarily arresting and imprisoning without trial members of the Maryland legislature who were sympathetic to the South, to prevent that body from voting on an ordinance of secession.
  • Failing to call Congress until three months after the war started, to approve the expenses of raising 75,000 troops and sending them into action. By that time, Congress was confronted with an accomplished fact and had only two choices: approve the expenditures or impeach the President. The latter choice clearly did not exist in reality, since most Congressmen were intimidated by what Lincoln had already done to his political opponents.
  • Does it make any sense that Lincoln would destroy the Constitution in order to save it?
  • What accounts for the popular support given in Pennsylvania and the Midwest for the Peace Democrats or “Copperheads,” who wanted to let the South go? Racism is not an explanation – a racist could support either Lincoln or the Copperheads (see second bullet point).

If the purpose of the war was to abolish slavery, why did Great Britain, a power that strongly supported the worldwide abolition of slavery, remain neutral throughout the war, instead of throwing its weight behind the North?

These questions came to mind as I was reading Charles Adams, When in the Course of Human Events (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000).*

In Part II, I explain the real reason the war was fought, why many in the South remain bitter about their loss 150 years later, and why this history is especially relevant to our situation today.

* All of the arguments that do not include links come from this book, which further supports them with contemporary historical evidence. Charles Adams is an economic historian. Most of his work specializes in taxation, which led him to the study that resulted in this book.