Understanding the Civil War

One of the most prevalent historical debates is why the Civil War happened. Some people maintain that slavery was the primary issue that caused the South to secede. Others claim that slavery was only one of many factors or was totally insignificant to causing the Civil War. The opinion of some Southerners is that “states ’ rights ” was the true cause of the Civil War. There is incontrovertible evidence that the Southern states seceded primarily to protect slavery and that this attempted secession would never have taken place had slavery never existed. The Civil War still has significance in the twenty-first century due to its role in political issues of civil rights. The myth that the Civil War was not about slavery can be broken into multiple parts. The first argument, sometimes referred to as the “States ’ Rights ” argument, is that the South seceded at least partly because the North was forcing them to pay unfair taxes on imported goods.1 Why did some Southern secessionists, such as newspaper-owner Robert Rhett, claim that the tariff issue was a reason to leave the union?2 First of all, the tariff was an economic blow to slavery. Because of its agricultural, slave-based economy, the South traded cotton with Europe in exchange for industrial goods. If imported goods were heavily taxed, the South could be forced to abandon slavery in favor of industrialization, in order to produce it’s own affordable industrial goods. Thus, the tariff wa