This is one of many lies by omission. True historians admit that there are many candidates for the title, depending on what is meant by “began the Civil War.”
Here are the biggest three: Northerners often blamed it on the secession of South Carolina, arguing that without the secession, the re-supply of Fort Sumter would not have been an issue.
The Lincoln Administration pushed the CSA firing on Fort Sumter as the beginning of the war.
But the South has a longer memory. It point to the beginning of abuse of the Constitution by what it called the Treaty of Abominations.
Realize that in 1828, the south controlled the majority of imports and exports because they grew crops valued by the world: tobacco and, first and foremost, cotton. The north struggled with imports and exports, especially after the law against the slave trade. Their lands were not optimal for growing those prize crops.
Another factor is the enormous influence of New Englanders with their wealth and their connections socially, industrially, and politically.
So what’s in the 1828 Treaty of Abominations, and why did it upset southerners?
It’s actually called the Treaty of 1828. It was the South that called it the Treaty of Abominations. The new country had imposed tariffs previously to pay down the national debt of the Revolutionary War. But there were three important differences in this treaty:
1. There was no stated common purpose for the tariff.
2. The amount of this tariff went as high as 50% to protect New England’s industries.
3. The tariff did not benefit all of the states. The federal government represented all of the states. Its policies should have been good for all. But this treaty was good for the New England and Mid-Atlantic states at the expense of the Southern economy.
The South had direct economic ties to Great Britain. Tobacco and cotton were extremely popular products. However, as the prices went up with the Tariff of 1828, demand dropped.
Also, the south was trying to increase mechanization. Machines were bought from Britain because New England could not compete in free trade. It was easier for the South to trade tobacco and cotton directly with Britain for machinery and other manufactured goods.
With the tariff, the prices were so high that the South could not purchase the machines it needed, extending the need for slave labor as an economic necessity beyond expectations.
The result of the Treaty of 1828 was an explosion across the South. Although the percentages of the tariffs were lowered in the next tariff act, one following it reintroduced high rates.
Results included South Carolina’s first stab at secession. (She was not the first to do so. Massachusetts and other states had also explored this option for various reasons. No one had been upset about those threats.)
The doctrine of Nullification, propounded by Vice President Calhoun, lit the explosion. The Nullification Doctrine stated that if the federal government could annul state laws that infringed on constitutionally named responsibilities, then states could nullify federal laws that applied to areas not ceded to the federal government by the Constitution.
South Carolina nullified the 1828 treaty and the following one. In 1833, the treaty with lowered tariff rates was passed and also the Force Act empowering the President to collect tariffs by force, if necessary. South Carolina removed the nullification acts on the earlier treaties, since the new rates were now acceptable, then nullified the Force Act.
There is a theory that all wars begin with money, or in a wider sense wealth including land. In the Southern point of view, this was true of the Civil War.
