re: 154 years ago today.

quote:

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1. The civil war was fought because we didn't want to pay the federal income tax. The south basically made all the money from agriculture and the north was trying to steal it and not give us anything, while they took the money and spent it in the north on railroads, welfare, etc

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Prior to the Civil War the federal government was financed almost 100% by tariff revenues. There was no federal income tax.

Americans were among the lowest taxed of any people on earth.

"The Walker Tariff was a set of tariff rates adopted by the United States in 1846. The Walker Tariff was enacted by the Democrats, and made substantial cuts in the high rates of the "Black Tariff" of 1842, enacted by the Whigs. It was based on a report by Secretary of the Treasury Robert J. Walker. The Walker Tariff reduced tariff rates from 32% to 25%; it coincided with Britain's repeal of the Corn Laws and led to an increase in trade. It was one of the lowest tariffs in American history."

LINK

The south did not make much money on agriculture.

Southern elites were badly in debt to northern interests. It was the North that was the industrial power house. England could do without southern cotton, which could be replaced by cotton from Egypt and elsewhere. Further England needed Northern wheat and corn more than it needed southern cotton.

How southern elites could so fricking stupid is the question.