may i also remind you of a favorite saying of one of my grad school profs, "things in history are simple only to simpletons".
TWBTS was MAINLY a REBELLION of the citizens of the southland for FREEDOM from the ELITISTS of the northeast. 90+% of southerners owned NO slaves and were singularly UNWILLING to fight/bleed/die for "some rich guy's right to keep his slaves". (in the case of MY family, EVERY male of "military age" fought for the south; about HALF of them died for THE TRUE CAUSE. further our family was "dirt poor" AmerIndians & could NOT have afforded a single slave, had any of them wanted to buy one!!!)
the VAST majority of southern soldiers/sailors/marines fought for HOME defense,their STATE,for FREEDOM for the south & FOR EACH OTHER. (the reasons that southerners fought were NO different than the reasons that motivated their grandfathers, who fought against the tyranny of George III.)
free dixie,sw
Slavery was the cause of the war: ABSOLUTE TRUTH.
The Republican party was the Party of Abolition, and Abraham Lincoln was their leading abolitionist.
In 1860, the South threatened that if Lincoln were elected, the South would secede, and seven states did, even before Lincoln's inauguration. They seceded for one reason only: to avoid the POSSIBILITY of abolition under President Lincoln.
From Wikipedia
"South Carolina adopted the "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" on December 24, 1860.
"It argued for states' rights for slave owners in the South, but contained a complaint about states' rights in the North in the form of opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act, claiming that Northern states were not fulfilling their federal obligations under the Constitution.
"All of the alleged violations of the rights of Southern states were related to slavery."