It wasn't about slavery, it was about money. The South had it, the North wanted it. Sound familiar?
New York Evening Post, March 2, 1861 edition:
“That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the port must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe. There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of public officers; the present order of things must come to a dead stop.
“What, then, is left for our government? Shall we let the seceding states repeal the revenue laws for the whole Union in this manner? Or will the government choose to consider all foreign commerce destined for those ports where we have no custom-houses and no collectors as contraband, and stop it, when offering to enter the collection districts from which our authorities have been expelled?”
“The war between the North and the South is a tariff war. The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for sovereignty.” Karl Marx
“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. The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.” Charles Dickens
“I can’t let them go. Who would pay for the government?” Abraham Lincoln
How many of you remember this being taught in history class? How many of our children even have a clue? The principle of slavery (and who of us aren't currently slaves of government) was secondary, if that high up on the list. It was about money and power.
The North couldn't afford to allow the South to peacefully secede.
3 comments:
Hmmm. I dare say that you are correct, and that I was not given that information in school - and that was back in the seventies! I can only imagine the bs the public system is feeding the kids of today, today.
Had it really been about slavery, I could have supported the union. People cannot be owned.
It was not. As always, it was about centralized power. Skin color makes no difference. Those who would own claim ownership of all. I claim ownership only of myself. Conflict between these very different basic views cannot be avoided.
Things are going to get ugly before this is settled. :(
As are all wars are about money. Nothing new.
History keeps repeating because the young refuse to believe the old and must screw up on their own.
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