The following is an excerpt from traveler Salomon de Rothschild’s 1861 letters:
“I’ll come back later to the “slavery” question, which was the first pretext for secession, but which was just a pretext and is now secondary. The true reason which impelled the Southern states to secede is the question of tariffs. The South is simply a producer and consumer; the West and the North, and especially the East, are almost entirely manufacturers, but they need strong protection. The South could supply itself with all necessary items in Europe, at prices from twenty-five to forty percent lower than what they have been paying up to now. It contends that these duties do it no good and that the money goes back into the pockets of the Northern manufacturers. Therefore it wants to escape from this tax. The suppression of, or even a strong reduction in, these duties would completely ruin the eastern states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which could not compete with the cheap prices attained by England and even by France. Thousands of men would find themselves unemployed and would therefore threaten the well-being and the very existence not only of their employers, but even of the merchants and the producers in those areas, leading to an imminent danger of social revolution, which the North must avoid at all costs.”