The South’s Righteous Cause
Upholding Constitutional Liberty Against Northern Tyranny
Another great column from the Militant Jeffersonian - DD
The oft-repeated claim that the War was driven solely by slavery is a reductive narrative, crafted to obscure the profound Constitutional and economic injustices that compelled the South’s secession in 1861. A truer account reveals that the South’s so-called rebellion was instead a principled stand for State Sovereignty and the Constitution’s sacred Compact, provoked by the North’s predatory economic policies, epitomized by the Morrill Tariff.
These measures systematically plundered the agrarian South to enrich the industrial North, violating the Constitution’s core promise of equal treatment among the States. The South’s defiance was not a rejection of the Union but a fervent defense of its original design, a federal government bound by enumerated powers, respecting the Autonomy of States. This struggle remains a powerful testament to the enduring need to protect Constitutional limits against centralized overreach, a principle as vital today as it was in 1861.
At the heart of the South’s grievance was the federal government’s flagrant misuse of its taxing authority, which mocked the Constitution’s commitment to impartiality. The Tariff of 1832 imposed crippling duties on manufactured goods essential to the South’s agrarian economy, while shielding Northern industries from foreign competition.
This was not a neutral policy but a calculated transfer of wealth from Southern farmers to Northern manufacturers, as the South, heavily reliant on imported goods, shouldered disproportionate costs. South Carolina, in a courageous act of Constitutional fidelity, convened a convention and declared the tariff…