I’ve long said the Civil War of the 1860’s was not about slavery. At its core, that war was about the North pillaging the wealth of the Southern states. Profits were being secured by having the southern states nearly completely fund the federal government, and those same states were forced by tariffs into captive consumers of union manufactured goods. Protectionism at its most brutal.
The entire war was a way to steal the wealth of less populous states while cloaking the theft in the veneer of freeing the slaves.
The Tariff of 1828, which included very high duties on raw materials, raised the average tariff on imported goods to 45 percent. The Mid-Atlantic states were the biggest supporters of the new tariff. Southerners, who imported all of their industrial products, strongly opposed this tariff.
The tariff was nominally created to repay the debts incurred after the War of 1812. This wasn’t actually the case. By 1832 the national debt was paid and there was no reason for this tariff. What actually happened was that the tariff created a favorable situation for the North, who benefited greatly from such high taxes at the expense of the South. Since the Southern states didn’t produce manufactured goods, they were forced to buy those goods from either Europe or the Northern states. Since the South also needed to sell their agricultural goods in Europe, this created a situation where the Southern states were paying roughly 75% of all American taxes.
The Southern states just didn’t want to pay the tariffs, and began refusing to do so. (This idea of “State nullification” of Federal laws that states didn’t feel were constitutional was first advanced by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.) The states, led by South Carolina, declared the tariff null and void, and simply refused to pay.
So in 1833, the “Force Bill” was passed, allowing the president to use whatever force he deemed necessary, including the military, to collect taxes owed by the Southern states. Along came Lincoln, who campaigned on a platform of putting the tariffs back in place so that his sponsors could again enjoy the profits that the protectionist scheme caused.
Then it came to pass that in 1861, a new tax was passed, the Morrill Tariff. This tariff was the highest tax in American history to that point, and taxed imports at over 45%, with imported iron products taxed at 50%. This forced the South to buy northern iron products from the North at whatever prices the North wanted to charge. Victorious Republicans cheered the heavy taxes that benefitted the Northern industrialists who had backed Lincoln’s campaign.
The South announced that it no longer wanted to be a part of a union where they would be robbed in order to make northern businessmen wealthy. They seceded. The north still enforced the tariffs using military force.
Draw your own parallels as you realize the Union states were nothing more than thieves who were using the power of the Federal government and an Army as a means of stealing the wealth of others. No different from the DSA party movement of today.
15 Comments
Joe Blow · October 12, 2026 at 6:00 am
I moved from WNY to ETN 11 years ago.
I learned about the American Civil War. My kids learned about the War of Northern Aggression.
Riddle · October 12, 2026 at 7:35 am
Wallace was a good boy!
Tom235 · October 12, 2026 at 7:49 am
From several of the sources I’ve studied, conditions in northern factories at the time were in many ways worse than the condition of slaves. Slaves were capital equipment and needed care; factory workers were “free” and didn’t need care – and were more easily replaceable. I don’t advocate slavery but from a business point of view, why would anyone (with exceptions of course) abuse an expensive piece of equipment; healthy male slaves costing upwards of $1200 in a time when a working man maybe made $1 per day if that much.
The “north” wasn’t full of benevolent people itching to free the black man; politicians and PR made it seem so. Nothing’s really changed since, has it?
TRX · October 12, 2026 at 10:08 am
A common saying at the time was, “The North doesn’t need slaves. They have the Irish.”
Slaves cost money. They had to be housed and fed even when not working. They could be dangerous. Some places taxes them. Eventually they got tool old to work.
Irishmen (and other immigrants) simply queued up at your door. You handed them a paper chit, worked them as long as you wanted, and swapped their chit for some money at the end of the day. No overhead, no expenses. Way better than slaves.
Conditions in England weren’t much better, except it was mostly rural Englishmen instead of the Irish. You didn’t need slaves when there was an unlimited supply of even-cheaper labor, which is why Britain became “enlightened” earlier than some other countries.
Grumpy51 · October 13, 2026 at 1:24 pm
TRX is right. Check out The New Basin Canal built in New Orleans (1832-1838). It was initially built with slaves from neighboring plantations but too many died, so the Irish were brought in at $0.50 a day. Rumor/myth/tradition says there are many Irish bodies (8k-30k) buried in the banks of the canal.
Tennessee Budd · October 12, 2026 at 5:24 pm
Tom235, thank you. I’ve been making this point for years. I’m in farming country. Farmers don’t attack a million-dollar tractor with an axe, or starve it of oil and fuel, out of meanness. Slavery was and is a horrible life, and I don’t doubt that some were mistreated, but they were an investment. You try to keep investments in good working condition.
JimmyPx · October 12, 2026 at 8:05 am
Great article and totally true.
The “slavery, slavery ONLY slavery” cause of the Civil War is a vile lie and has always ticked me off.
For example New Jersey actually discussed joining the Confederacy but I notice that now that information has mostly been scrubbed from the Internet. That fact alone blows big holes into the “slavery only slavery” argument.
Only a small wealthy group of Southerners actually owned slaves, the vast majority did not. Yet they were overwhelmingly for the war —WHY ?
If you asked them they’d ALL say “States Rights” because they did not want a powerful Federal government dictating policy to them. The truth is that the States Rights vs all powerful Federal government argument was fought in the Civil War and lost.
After the war the Federal government ruled supreme and then totally 50 years later after the 17th amendment where Senators rather than chosen by the State Legislators and representing the State, they were directly elected and became uber Congressmen.
TRX · October 12, 2026 at 10:11 am
Watch heads explode when you tell them not all blacks were slaves, some blacks were slave owners, and there were blacks in the Confederate armies.
TRX · October 12, 2026 at 10:14 am
The 17th Amendment always looked questionable to me. “We can’t interfere with how states run their elections. That’s a state matter. Except for senators, we can dictate that.”
lynn · October 12, 2026 at 2:40 pm
My great^18? Irish grandfather was brought to the USA in a sailing ship in 1680 at the age of 15. He was sold on the Philadelphia docks as an indentured servant by the ship’s captain to a Pennsylvania farm family. 30 years later they all died of Cholera and he inherited the farm.
Tell me that he was not a slave.
John in Indy · October 12, 2026 at 3:14 pm
My (unpopular) view is that there were actually three sides in the Civil War, and that only the Federal Government actually needed to have a war and defeat the South.
Without the tariffs, the Northern manufacturers would have had to become more efficient, but that would be possible.
The Federal Government couldn’t replace the money from the Southern Tariffs without a war, and the Greenback inflation the .gov caused.
The Greenbacks didn’t reach parity for 10+ years after the War.
Steady Steve · October 12, 2026 at 3:30 pm
It was just two groups of rich guys sending their proxies to fight it out. Of course they and theirs never had to get their hands dirty. I would have only considered Lincoln to be a hero if he had shipped all the obsoleted farm equipment back to it’s point of origin immediately after the war and enshrined that policy in law.
Phil B · October 12, 2026 at 3:59 pm
Three words : The Corwin Amendment.
Wikipedia gives a good description of the amendment which, if ratified, would have become the 13th Amendment. Basically, it would have enshrined slavery as a permanent institution in the US. A bit odd that those thick as two short planks southerners would have said “Hell, no! We won’t ratify an amendment that will perpetuate slavery. Instead we’ll go to war to defend the right to own slaves”.
Our web host is 100% correct that it was because of economics and trade tariffs that the south chafed against the north.
Divemedic · October 12, 2026 at 4:10 pm
I posted about the Corwin Amendment five years ago
https://areaocho.com/the-corwin-amendment/
JaimeInTexas · October 13, 2026 at 7:10 am
A. Lincoln, 1st inaugural address.
…
The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion — no using of force against or among the people anywhere.
..
I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution, which amendment, however, I have not seen, has passed Congress, to the effect that the federal government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.
…
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