>>21481983There were massive economic tensions at the time of the civil war. The North was beginning to industrialize but its factories were behind those in Great Britain. Northern textile factories needed protectionist tariffs for their goods to be competitively priced relative to the British. Otherwise, cheap British textiles would flood the American market, putting American factories out of business and nipping industrialization in the bud. Meanwhile, Southern agricultural states wanted free trade to be able to export their cotton tariff free to the highest, most efficient bidder which was Great Britain.
It is interesting that slavery really picked up after the invention of the cotton gin which alleviated bottlenecks in the refining process. Cotton production needed to increase to fill processing capacity. Cotton was also produced in Egypt and India and was no more or less ethical Southern cotton.
