Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight

"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."
---------- Abraham Lincoln -- first inaugural address March 4, 1861 ¹

Most explanations for the war examine why the South seceded.  Contradictions leave room for disagreement. But it is not necessary to explain secession as the war did not start when the South seceded.  War resulted because the North did not acquiesce to secession. The question that should be asked: what did secession take from the North that the North wanted badly enough to fight for? A popular view is that the war was over slavery, but the North did not oppose secession because of slavery and freeing slaves was not the purpose of the North's military forces that entered the South. Four slave states remained in the Union and were not part of the Confederacy.  But the North did not enjoy the anticipated quick victory so Lincoln resorted to emancipation as a war measure. His emancipation proclamation, ² which came in the second year of the war only applied to slaves behind confederate lines.  Ralph J. Bunche said that the freeing of the slaves was "only an incident in the violent clash of interests between the industrial North and the agricultural South - a conflict that was resolved in favor of the industrial North. In this struggle the Negro was an innocent pawn." ³

The North had actually offered to amend the Constitution to protect slavery if that would coax the seceding states back into the Union. On Mar 2, 1861; the U. S. Congress approved and sent to the states for ratification this amendment to the Constitution: ⁴
"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."

Many reasons are given for the North's opposition to secession but most are of a speculative nature about consequences that did not actually materialize and perhaps would not have. An immediate consequence was opposing policies on tariffs. The North raised protective tariffs which were undermined by the Confederacy's free trade policy (the Confederate Constitution prohibited protective tariffs. ^5,6.) The first seven states to secede were coastal so all customs revenue from Texas to South Carolina was interrupted in an era when the U. S. Government was funded almost entirely by customs. ⁷

Northeastern merchants, especially in New York, panicked when they realized that the Gulf States would do all their own importing and drive Northern importers out of the Western market also. Cheap European imports from New Orleans could be smuggled into the Western states and territories. This threatened the economic ties between East and West. Lincoln began to give serious consideration to collecting the revenue via warships stationed offshore. ⁸

------------Boston Transcript, March 18,1861:
It does not require extraordinary sagacity to perceive that trade is perhaps the controlling motive operating to prevent the return of the seceding states to the Union which they have abandoned. Alleged grievances in regard to slavery were originally the causes for the separation of the cotton states; but the mask has been thrown off, and it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding states are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centres of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports. The merchants of New Orleans, Charleston and Savannah are possessed with the idea that New York, Boston, and Philadelphia may be shorn, in the future, of their mercantile greatness, by a revenue system verging on free trade. If the Southern Confederation is allowed to carry out a policy by which only a nominal duty is laid upon imports, no doubt the business of the chief Northern cities will be seriously injured thereby.
The difference is so great between the tariff of the Union and the Confederate States that the entire Northwest must find it to their advantage to purchase their imported goods at New Orleans rather than New York. In addition to this, the manufacturing interests of the country will suffer from the increased importation resulting from low duties....
The [government] would be false to its obligations if this state of things were not provided against. ⁹

By 1820 North and South had divided over tariffs. The North favored import tariffs to protect manufacturing from foreign competition. The South opposed protectionism and favored free trade. Large scale cotton exports had begun and it was feared England might retaliate by taxing or excluding American cotton. Tariff rates were greatly increased in 1828 over nearly unanimous opposition from the South. The 1832 tariff moderated somewhat the 1828 tariff but not to the satisfaction of South Carolina. South Carolina threatened to secede if the federal government attempted to collect those duties. The crisis ended when the tariff of 1833 provided for the gradual reduction of the tariff over 10 years down to the level which had existed in 1816. A gradual reduction in duties then followed until 1842. Duties were raised for protectionism until 1846 when they were lowered again and lowered more in 1857 to the free-est trade since 1816. ^10,11

A stronger application of protectionism began in 1861 with the Morrill tariff act. It was introduced to attract Pennsylvania and other states with protectionist leanings to the Republican party in the 1860 presidential election. It was passed in the House before the election of President Lincoln but did not pass the Senate until 1861. ¹²