[DiogenesLamp]

But it's precisely the "bigger picture" that DiogenesLamp shuts his eyes to and refuses to see, preferring your own vivid historical fantasies to mundane historical fact.

The "mundane historical fact" is that had the South been left alone, the North was going to lose a whole lot of money and power.

Easily sufficient motive to start a war to prevent it.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The "mundane historical fact" is that had the South been left alone, the North was going to lose a whole lot of money and power.
Easily sufficient motive to start a war to prevent it."

But not near as much loss as you fantasize.
More important, if wars were truly started of just economic issues, then WWII would have begun for us with the Great Depression in, say, 1930.