Contrary to your thought, CC, the war didn’t occur because ‘we went down yonder.’ It occurred because yall entered a Contract with other American states wherein us and yall paid revenue to create mutually owned resources like Fort Sumter, then yall decided one day to take those resources for yallselves. Yall decided this because yall began to lose the Political Power Game in America – a game ,yall yallselves had designed and that for the longest time yall had fixed in yall’s favor.
The thing is admittedly complex, as history often is, and that is why so many neo-confederates are confused by it. I will try to simplify it here.
From 1781-1787, under the Articles of Confederation, states were required to meet revenue quotas to fund the national government. The initial basis for assessing these quotas was property value. Under this system Southern states would have had quite a hefty tax liability due to their considerable amount of slave property. To circumvent the requirements of this assessment formulation, Southerners fashioned the law so that slave property was not factored into property assessments. Northerners hated the arrangement and petitioned bitterly against it because it meant Northern wealth resources would be taxed while Southern slave resources would be ignored. Unfortunately for the North, the lion’s share of political power rested in the South at the time, and so Northerners were unable to effect more equitable law.
By 1783 it had become obvious that the wealth assessment formula was unwieldy because of the difficulties of appraising property. So the basis for assessing state revenue quotas was changed from property value to population count. Like the initial wealth assessment basis, this latter basis would have presented a severe problem to Southern slaveowners due to their considerable numbers of slaves. But Southerners once again were successful in forcing the nation to disregard slaves as part of the Southern population. From 1783 to 1787 Northerners were assessed revenue quotas based upon their full populations while Southern assessments were based only upon part of their true population. Northerners continued to protest, but were powerless.
In 1787 American leaders entered the Constitutional Convention. At that Convention a plan emerged in which states with larger populations would send more representatives to Congress than states with smaller populations. Moreover, the Electoral College would be linked to Congressional representation so that larger states would have much more influence over the Presidency than smaller states. Since political power was now being tied directly to population, the issue of counting slaves became much more politically significant and contentious than it had ever been. Indeed the issue became so controversial it threatened to derail the Convention.
Though direct taxes were by this time rarely enacted (tariffs and excise taxes being the government’s revenue sources), Southerners demanded protection against paying taxes on slaves and also that slaves be counted as full citizens. The debate raged until a provision was crafted in which a slave would be counted as 3/5ths of a citizen instead of as a full citizen. Southerners effectively won the debate here because they did not have to pay taxes on the slave numbers since direct taxes were not enacted, and they yet could count slaves nearly as full citizens for political purposes though the slaves were not citizens at all. Northern bitterness against the South continued of course, but the North had little choice but to accept the Southern position.
To garner additional protections, Southerners forced through Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which specified that all taxes levied in the states be levied "uniformly." In other words, taxes should be levied in such a way as not to disproportionately affect one geographic province over another. This would triply ensure protection of the South against a tax burden due to its abundance of slaves. And since slaves could be counted almost as full citizens while the electoral college and Congressional power was tied to population, Southerners virtually guaranteed themselves political power over the North. Indeed, as noted by historian Eric Foner, with only four exceptions, “every president elected between 1788 and 1848 was a southern slaveholder.”
Having acquired the abovementioned Constitutional protections, Southerners then began a concerted push to acquire Constitutional protections against export duties against southern products. They feared the growing anti-slavery forces of that time would one day employ stiff tariffs against the South in order to assault slavery. But Northern politicians hated the idea of giving up this source of revenue and so they began a most bitter protest. To calm Southern fears, a compromise on the issue was manifested in Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution. In that Article duties and excise taxes were severely limited on slave goods. Also a ban of the ‘migration or importation of persons’ was prohibited until 1808. Southerners had fought tooth and nail to acquire an explicit Constitutional endorsement of Negro slavery, but James Madison fought particularly against such wording. That is why the provision is worded so peculiarly. The wording was nevertheless sufficient to calm the Southerners as long as excise taxes were Constitutionally limited and the “importation of persons” was protected.
What we see here is the use of Southern might to turn the Constitution into a document of Southern legal protectionism. For decades on end Southerners used their political might over the North to protect slavery, and since slavery was also linked to Southern ability to maintain political supremacy, Southerners were using the Constitution to protect their own power.
This legal protectionism established a paradigm in American fiscal policy and political behavior. Since duties and excise taxes were so severely weakened by the Southern political effort, these revenue methods eventually succumbed to revenue by tariff. And since political power became tied to population, a negative change in demographics would allow fewer Southerners the opportunity to make law-- including tariff law.
That demographic shift occurred between 1810 and 1820. The South grew only 28 percent during that period, as opposed to 38 percent for the rest of America. Southern total population representation actually decreased by 2 percent and the trend continued even after the decade. Growth was found in the Northern, Mid-Atlantic and Western regions, the same regions where there existed budding manufacturing interests and strong support for protectionist tariffs on behalf of those interests. Correspondingly, Congress became populated with pro-tariff leaders. When they voted, they voted to protect their manufacturing interests just as Southerners had done previously with their slave interests.
By the mid 1800’s Northerners were working in concert to protect their interests much as southerners had done previously. The Tariff Act of 1816 was passed to protect manufacturing, as were tariffs in 1824 and 1828. The South protested just as the North once had done, but by that time it had not enough power in government to stop these pieces of legislation.
Southerners were nevertheless incensed. But unlike the Northerners a generation earlier, Southerners decided to break the law and ignore the 1828 tariff on the basis of a perceived right of states to nullify laws with which they disagreed. Promoters of this theory were not only interested in ending the tariff. The anti-slavery movement had become a real threat to the Peculiar Institution. These Southerners claimed that if states could nullify tariffs laws, they could also nullify any law against slavery that might arise in the future. This Nullification Controversy prompted the federal government to threaten armed assault. The conflict was diffused by a compromise in 1833.
By 1850 the anti-slavery movement, extant as far back as the 1700s (and present even during the Constitutional Convention), was in full bloom. America was amidst prosperity and so tariffs were not as much an issue as they had been previously. It was slavery that had taken center stage. Indeed, the platform of the Republican Party stated in clear terms that party's undying hostility toward slavery and especially toward slavery's expansion. Southerners were additionally scorned by Northern morality (often false, often not) informed by abolitionist sentiment, and both sides became increasingly entrenched.
Slavery so consumed the nation by 1850 as to cause then Georgia Judge Henry Benning, who would later become a Confederate General, to claim "…it is apparent, horribly apparent, that the slavery question rides insolently over every other everywhere -- in fact that is the only question which in the least affects the result of elections. It is not less manifest that the whole North is becoming ultra anti-slavery and the whole South ultra pro-slavery. Hence very small acts of deviation from the prevailing course of conduct of either section, being so conspicuous from their rarity, will attract immense animadversion." (Letter to Howell Cobb, 1 July, 1849 – found in The Toombs, Stephens, Cobb Correspondence, 1913: the American Historical Association)
The hard stances between northerners and southerners were no doubt supported by the bad blood that had developed as a result of trade politics. This is why I certainly agree with Ish that the Civil War was not 100% about slavery with no other influences at all. But the fact is, the slavery debate ruled the times on its own. It ruled amidst and between all of the sectional disputes. It was in fact at the very heart of them. It ruled all during the Constitutional Convention and even several times threatened to end the Convention. It was over slavery that George Mason protested at the Convention, claiming that slavery made slaveowners into “tyrants.” It was over slavery that the Governor of Pennsylvania declared at the Convention that slavery was a “curse” upon all who engaged in it. The issue of slavery was the dominant political issue within the power centers of the country all during the 1850s.
By 1860 slavery was such a contentious issue that when the moderately anti-slavery Republican presidential candidate, Abraham Lincoln, ran for the Presidency, Southerners broke the Union (or tried, rather) simply because he won office.
It is because of the clear ubiquity of slavery within the pre and even post Civil War conflict, in addition to the incontrovertible statements of the 19th century American leaders themselves, that the vast majority of reputable historians agree that slavery was the chief and immediate cause of war.
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