RE: Events that Led to the Civil War: Slavery as an Economic Engine Not a Moal Isssue
June 23, 2015 at 2:27 pm
(June 22, 2015 at 8:26 pm)Jenny A Wrote: You forgot the biggest economic ringer, tariffs. The Southern economy depended on shipping cotton abroad, primarily to England and purchasing foreign manufactured goods primarily from England. Tariffs on foreign manufactured goods forced Southerns to buy what were then shoddy and overpriced Northern manufactured goods, while selling to the British who were bent on retaliation for the high tariff.
Ironically the Civil War boosted the North's manufacturing capabilities, and not having factories of their own was one of the many reasons the South lost.
For anyone who wants to read more about it, here is a little more about tariffs during that period.
http://www.theihs.org/academic/2011/01/2...ct-at-150/
The article about tariffs is a little confusing but interesting. Tariffs played a part in the war. Interestingly enough, the southern representatives could have probably defeated the Morrill Tariff if their states hadn't seceded from the union.
