[Pastor Billy-Reuben]

Dodger's ignorance probably isn't his own fault. The public school system teaches kids that the so-called civil war was about slavery rather than about economics.

Dodger, the south grew cotton, and the north processed the cotton into fabric. However, the English cotton mills were much more efficient -- so much more efficient that they could pay the southern cotton growers more for cotton than the northern mills could, and they could sell the finished fabric back cheaper than the northern mills could.

The southern cotton farmers naturally preferred to deal with the English mills, so the northern mills were having a hard time. Lincoln wanted to put an export duty on raw cotton and an import duty on cotton fabric so the southern cotton farmers would have to deal with the northern cotton mills. THAT'S why the south seceded.

Pastor Billy-Reuben