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Although slavery was one of several primary causes of Southern secession it was not their primary issue and was not the cause over which either side fought the war.

By 1860, through high export tariffs on Southern raw goods and high import duties on European finished goods the Southern States were paying 60%-70% of the Federal budget with only 10% being reinvested in the South. The majority of the Federal budget was being spent to develop the infrastructure (ports, harbors, roads, bridges, canals and railroads) necessary to support growing Northern industrialism.

"What were the causes of the Southern independence movement in 1860? . . . Northern commercial and manufacturing interests had forced through Congress taxes that oppressed Southern planters and made Northern manufacturers rich . . . the South paid about three-quarters of all federal taxes, most of which were spent in the North."

Charles Adams, "For Good and Evil. The impact of taxes on the course of civilization," 1993, Madison Books, Lanham, USA, pp. 325-327

"The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole...we have a tariff that protects our manufacturers from thirty to fifty percent, and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe . This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually."

Daily Chicago Times, December 10, 1860

"They (the South) know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interest.... These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union . They (the North) are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto. They are as mad as hornets because the prize slips them just as they are ready to grasp it."

New Orleans Daily Crescent, January 21, 1861

The U.S. House of Representatives had passed the Morrill tariff in the 1859-1860 session, and the Senate passed it on March 2, 1861, two days before Lincoln ’s inauguration. President James Buchanan, a Pennsylvanian who owed much of his own political success to Pennsylvania protectionists, signed it into law. The bill immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent (according to Frank Taussig in Tariff History of the United States ) to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items. The tax burden would about triple. Soon thereafter, a second tariff increase would increase the average rate to 47.06 percent, Taussig writes.

So, Lincoln owed everything--his nomination and election--to Northern protectionists, especially the ones in Pennsylvania and New Jersey . He was expected to be the enforcer of the Morrill tariff. Understanding all too well that the South Carolina tariff nullifiers had foiled the last attempt to impose a draconian protectionist tariff on the nation by voting in political convention not to collect the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations," Lincoln literally promised in his first inaugural address a military invasion if the new, tripled tariff rate was not collected.

At the time, Taussig says, the import-dependent South was paying as much as 80 percent of the tariff, while complaining bitterly that most of the revenues were being spent in the North. The South was being plundered by the tax system and wanted no more of it. Then along comes Lincoln and the Republicans, tripling (!) the rate of tariff taxation (before the war was an issue). Lincoln then threw down the gauntlet in his first inaugural: "The power confided in me," he said, "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--no using force against, or among the people anywhere"

Lincoln's Tariff War by Thomas DiLorenzo

Thomas DiLorenzo is a professor of economics in the Sellinger School of Business and Management at Loyola College in Baltimore

Prior to the war about 75% of the money to operate the Federal Government was derived from the Southern States via an unfair sectional tariff on imported goods and 50% of the total 75% was from just 4 Southern states--Virginia-North Carolina--South Carolina and Georgia. Only 10%--20% of this tax money was being returned to the South. The Southern states were being treated as an agricultural colony of the North and bled dry. John Randolph of Virginia's remarks in opposition to the tariff of 1820 demonstrates that fact. The North claimed that they fought the war to preserve the Union but the New England Industrialists who were in control of the North were actually supporting preservation of the Union to maintain and increase revenue from the tariff. The industrialists wanted the South to pay for the industrialization of America at no expense to themselves. Revenue bills introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives prior to the War Between the States were biased, unfair and inflammatory to the South. Abraham Lincoln had promised the Northern industrialists that he would increase the tariff rate if he was elected president of the United States. Lincoln increased the rate to a level that exceeded even the "Tariff of Abominations" 40% rate that had so infuriated the South during the 1828-1832 era (between 50 and 51% on iron goods). The election of a president that was Anti-Southern on all issues and politically associated with the New England industrialists, fanatics, and zealots brought about the Southern secession movement.

The Ten Causes Of The War Between The States by James W. King and LtCol Thomas M. Nelson

In an article titled "What is the Issue?" appearing on page 290 in the May 11,1861 issue of Harper's Weekly we find

"A RECENT number of Once a Week has a summary of foreign news, and it remarks: "There is a revolution in America, involving impracticable tariffs and a menace of a dearth of cotton." The article goes on to state "Impracticable tariffs have as much to do with the struggle as they have with Garibaldi"s war in Italy."

“And although many people today ardently believe that slavery was the main cause of war, a careful consideration of the facts would reveal mercantilism as its true cause”

Tariffs, Wars, and the Economics of Protection: Page 22, Lessons from the History of American Textile By Leo Adrianus

The political struggles of 19th century America , which culminated in Southern secession and the War Between the States, were principally centered on one controversial issue: the protective tariff. The tariff question had incited Southern hostility since the first Congress met to discuss the first ever tariff act in 1789, long before slavery became a hot political issue.

Tariffs, Wars, and the Economics of Protection: Page 29, Lessons from the History of American Textile By Leo Adrianus

"What were the causes of the Southern independence movement in 1860?" "Northern commercial and manufacturing interests had forced through Congress taxes that oppressed Southern planters and made Northern manufacturers rich."..."... the South paid about three-quarters of all federal taxes, most of which were spent in the North."

Charles Adams, "For Good and Evil. The impact of taxes on the course of civilization," 1993, Madison Books, Lanham , USA , pp. 325-327