Economic Rape of the South Led to Secession

When Union troops tried to resupply Fort Sumter, South
Carolina fired on the fort. The only casualty was a donkey,
but it gave Lincoln an excuse to call up 75,000 troops to stop
secession and force Southern states to remain in the Union.
Some critics believe he deliberately provoked the battle to
justify the war against the Southern states.

It's important to understand the major role economic issues played in the South's decision to secede. The states of the South represented about one fifth of the U.S. population, but they were paying over 80% of the tariffs levied by a Congress controlled by the Northern states. The actual amount involved according to Charles Adams writing in his book When in the Course of Human Events was about $107.5 million being charged at federal ports on goods coming into the country. The South, more dependent on imports than the mercantile North ended up paying about $90 million of this total compared to $17.5 million from the Northern states. That was a disparity of 83% of tariff taxation being picked up by the South and only about 17% from the North.

Do You Want to Understand the Past? Examine the Witnesses!

Investigators know that if they interview ten witnesses to an event they are likely to get ten different reports. Figuring out what really happened requires sifting through the data and finding the agreements, determining who are the most credible witnesses, etc. To arrive at an accurate picture of an event is not so easy as evaluating one testimony or one photograph and extrapolating from that to the big picture. That's how dishonest historians evaluate the past. Honest historians study the big picture.

And that's how it is with understanding the Civil War, or as one book is titled, The War Between the States: America's Uncivil War by John J. Dwyer and other contributors. A broad and deep study is necessary. I've just begun the book, but I'm already impressed by the author's approach and common sense. He speaks of the war as a "Fifty Years' War" that involved numerous factors: economic, religious, regional. Slavery was one issue among many, a factor yes, but not necessarily the most fundamental.

I found this in the introduction particularly interesting: