This is CBS, Eye on the World. I'm John Batchel.

David Hebert is here to help me with a question that has been with us for 160 years,

the cause of the American Civil War.

It is not settled.

It was not settled then. And I learned from David, writing most recently

at The Daily Spectator, that what we're looking at right now is a relevant argument about tariffs.

David, a very good evening to you. The cause of the civil war, the simple version is it was a breakdown in comity between the

north and the south having to do with slavery, with enslaved people and the right of half the

nation to dream of imposing its will, its cruelty on the new states out west. Driving it all, of course, were some very loud voices.

However, you come to an explanation that was current then and has been used by apologists

for the Confederacy ever since. Tariffs. How so? What was the case made that tariffs caused the civil war? Good evening to you,

David. Well, good evening to you too, John. Thanks so much for having me on tonight. So the argument

about tariffs causing the civil war is kind of a simple one. The idea is that the high tariffs that

the union essentially imposed on the nation writ large

disproportionately hurt the south the south did not like this and wanted to basically

fight for their freedom from these oppressive tariffs now there's some truth that the

tariffs did hurt the south more than the north, but to think that this is the,

you know, sort of cause of the Civil War is a bit of a revisionist history.

And we can look at the letters of secession, which we have access to, and we can look to,

and I link to in the article itself.

And all of them reference the state's desire to enslave people, to continue enslaving people.

And so to deny that slavery was the main force behind the civil war, right, is just to deny fact.

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