Similarly, protectionism also led to the Civil War. During the Civil War era, the industrial North was goading the agricultural South through the highly disputed Tariff of Abominations of 1828 and 1832. This high tariff protected the northern manufactures while the South demanded a low tariff in order to trade its cotton for cheap foreign goods. Eventually, these conflicts led to issues of secession, which thus led to the Civil War. Through these examples, Peterson argued that protectionist movements have never succeeded in the past, which means that they will not succeed in today's economy. Peterson seems to have forgotten several factors in his analysis. Even though it is correct to use mistakes of the past economies as examples, he has forgotten the fact that the international economic climate is continually changing and is blatantly different from how it was during the times of the American Revolution and the Civil War. Peterson is using positive analysis by looking at "what will happen" to the US economy and the international economy, rather than looking at the issue using normative analysis and seeing "what should happen." What should happen should be seen in respect to the conditions of the modern American economy and the international market. What may have happened with past protectionist measures does not necessarily mean that similar conflicts will repeat in the present. By tightening the laxity of the American free trade policy, wars should not occur. Quite the opposite, wars will be prevented by eliminating the tenacious competition between the United States and the other nations. One major strategy used to manage trade differences between countries is regular economic summits among leading industrial nations to create economic policies. These economic summits were born in 1975 from the ideas of French President Valery Giscard d"Estaing who was looking for a solution after the demise of the Bretton Woods system and saw the need for international economic stability.
