This is another lie that was implied rather than told: the southern states were considerably poorer than northern states with the exception of plantation owners.
This is an extremely skewed statement.
First, “wealth” must be defined in the terms of pre-Civil War years, not by today’s standards. That’s a basic historical rule.
Slaves were legally defined as a kind of property and therefore valuable and easily turned into cash. Both north and south had slaves. The Northwest Territory states were created slave-free and there were several northern states in the process of emancipation with each state determining its own path. Overall, however, there was greater wealth due to slaves in the south, centered in the plantations.
Farming, in general, was more efficient in the south, despite that after initial outlay, farming machinery was more efficient than slaves, because slaves required continued expenditure until dead or sold—unlike factory workers of the north. Machines didn’t. Also, slaves, like horses used in most farming, reproduced and contributed to further wealth.
Manufacturing wealth was decidedly in the north’s favor. There was some manufacturing in the south, but not nearly to the extent of the north. However, the northern manufacturing was often not self-sufficient. The buyers were limited because Europe had its own Industrial Revolution and the southern states were interested but not frequent buyers of manufacturing.
States with more plantations were more self-sufficient. Beside the cash crops of tobacco and cotton, plantations grew their own food and livestock feed. Extra food and feed were sold to local people. This meant that the general public was eating more healthily than in the northern cities, where there were shortages of fresh, healthy foods.
Considering all of this, the average per capita income of the southern states was double that of northern states.
Another source of wealth that I have not seen in the data was the first gold rush. It was in Virginia! Although discovered earlier, commercial extraction of gold began in 1804 at a rate of $500,000 per year! That is not usually figured into the per capita income.
Please recall that before the Civil War, the United States followed the constitution, which included that “state” meant a separate political entity. That’s still the dictionary definition. I looked.
Therefore, all of the gold belonged not to the United States, but to the state of Virginia.
No, the southern states were not poor. They were comparatively wealthy. And avarice bloomed in the northern states. They wanted that wealth!
According to southern historians, that greed was the root cause of the Civil War.
Follow the money!