[dudeinjapan]

> cigarettes never threatened democracy

"Democracy" itself was not at stake in the American Civil War because both sides practiced it. The Confederacy was/would have been a democracy analogous to ancient Athens--one where slaves (and women) were excluded from political participation. The vast majority of Confederate politicians, including Jefferson Davis, came from the "Democratic Party"--which, true to its name, championed enfranchisement for the "common (white) man" as opposed to control by elites.

Perhaps a better example is the "Tobacco War" of 1780 in the American Revolution, where Cornwallis and Benedict Arnold destroyed massive quantities of cured tobacco to try to cripple the war financing of the colonies.

Control of tobacco in Latin/South America since the 1700s (Spain's second-largest source of imperial revenue after precious metals) also had a directly stifling effect on democratic self-governance.

[NeutralCrane]

I think the point is a significant number of human beings were not participating in democracy at the time because their forced labor was critical to propping up the tobacco (and other) industries.

It’s hard to claim it’s actually democracy when it only exists after stripping the rights from a large section of people who would disagree with you, if they had the power to do so.