Following Lincoln’s election and the secession of seven Southern states, there was initially little outcry for war. Most northern newspapers editorialized that the states should be allowed to leave in peace. They would still be trading partners of the United States and many preferred their departure to continued sectional rancor.

Then within days of each other in early March, 1861 two events occurred, usually overlooked in chronicles of the War, but destined to exert colossal influence on world history. The U. S. Congress passed the Morrill Tariff, the highest in the history of the Republic. This had been the plank in Lincoln’s platform that had caused the seceding states to realize they had no hope of relief from the grossly unfair tax burden that they had borne for years.

The primary source of revenue for the Federal government was the tax on imports. Because the South exported agricultural products and imported manufactured goods, the states that would comprise the Confederacy were paying over 80% of the Federal taxes. And to rub salt in the wound, Southern  tax revenues were being appropriated for internal improvements, primarily railroads, in the North. To give one example: an analysis of the 1840s tariff revenues showed total revenue of $107.5 million, with the South paying $90 million (83%) and the North paying $17.5 million (17%).

The Morrill Tariff featured an average duty of 40% on most imports. The tariff on iron products was past 50%, thus protecting iron producers in the North.

The new Confederate Congress adopted its Constitution, which included a low tariff in Southern ports, averaging around 10%. Overnight, the Northern press, much of it owned by industrial barons whose pocketbooks the tariff directly affected, metamorphosed into ravenous war hawks. Before the month was out, hundreds of leading commercial importers in New York City and Boston, confirmed the worst fears of Northern leaders. They told the collector of customs they would no longer pay the tariff on foreign products unless the same duty was charged at Southern ports.

All those ambitious plans for growth in the North that had grown accustomed to financing largely with Southern tariff revenue disappeared in the face of free-trading, rival Southern ports. It was “now a question of national existence and commercial prosperity,” prominent New York banker August Belmont, an associate of the European Rothschild banking establishment, wrote.

On March 2, the New York Evening Post stated:
“That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the port must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done…the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up…”

The northern business community made the situation crystal-clear to Lincoln. He must continue to collect Federal tariffs in the seceded states. In his inaugural address on March 4, Lincoln said he would use Federal power to hold the property (forts) “to collect the duties and impost.” Southerners immediately saw the meaning of Lincoln’s words.

Charleston was a big money cow for the Federal government and all eyes focused on Fort Sumter. Although the majority of Lincoln’s cabinet advised him not to provision Fort Sumter as it would “induce an attack,” Lincoln agreed with Treasury secretary, Salmon Chase, who favored holding the fort as “tax revenues were at stake.”

Peace delegations from the seceded states and border states like Virginia were rebuffed by the Lincoln administration, and in one case Lincoln ended the discussion by saying,  “What, then, would become of my tariff?”

On March 29, Lincoln made the fateful decision to secretly reinforce Fort Sumter and thus ignite the first shots of the war, although there were no casualties. The tariff question was now a question of war.