Lincoln biographer Thomas DiLorenzo on the real cause of the Late Unpleasantness

The Greatest Presidential Reflection Since Lincoln? by Thomas DiLorenzo:
"The neocons have spun into fits of Lincolnite hysteria over President Bush’s inaugural speech, in which he promised to rid the planet of tyranny."

After a paragraph citing examples of neocon praise for George W. Bush's second inaugural address, DiLorenzo segues into the short version of the real reason behind Southern secession and Mr. Lincoln's War. Hint: it wasn't slavery.

Reviewing, in a longish column on LewRockwell.com, material that occupies whole chapters in his books, DiLorenzo reminds us of facts that are almost never cited in American history textbooks.

The history books typically discuss, in a rather unenlightening way, the recurrent controversies over the extension of slavery in the west as territories were organized and new states admitted to the union, disputes over enforcement of the fugitive slave laws, and the Dred Scott decision. Occasionally, one sees mention of tariffs in passing, but the moment of high drama is usually Bloody Kansas and John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry which puts the focus squarely back on slavery.

DiLorenzo reminds us that not only had Lincoln and the 1860 Republican platform promised to leave slavery undisturbed, but the new Congress in 1861, under Republican leadership and after the departure of Senators and Representatives of seven Southern states, had proposed a constitutional amendment specifically authorizing the continuance of slavery.

On the other hand, the same Congress had passed, and lame-duck president James Buchanan had signed, the Morrill tariff which, at a single stroke, had doubled rates across the board. Moreover, Lincoln and his party were committed to further tariff hikes to finance subsidies for their favored railroad and construction industry constituencies.

Lincoln was proposing nothing less than to bleed the South dry to pay for public works and railroad subsidies which would mostly benefit the North. And he threatened armed invasion to collect the tariff. The South was back where it had been during the Nullification controversy of the early 1830s under President Jackson, except that now the Northern interest had a much larger share of the votes in the national legislature. Secession was, reluctantly, the only choice available to the South.