I’ve read first hand accounts from the militia my ancestors fought and died with. While slavery wasn’t the reason to start, they just needed one look at it and it became their cause.
Every individual has their own reason. By 1863 or so, I imagine everyone in the country knew someone killed or maimed in the war. That type of personal involvement supersedes any of the “learned” debate you read on FR. You fight to stop the other guy who killed your cousin/friend/brother.
I laugh when the “civil war perfessers” on FR spout their grand reasons.
No doubt, slavery was the ‘reason’ many Northerners fought … they were fighting so all men could be free.
My point is that Southerns were merely fighting to be left alone. A chance to make their own choices and their own destiny.
There is a great line from the John Wayne / Rock Hudson movie, “The Undefeated:”
This is our land, and you’re on it.
Did they go tackle slavery in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Kentucky and West Virginia?
Should have been real easy, because those were all Union slave states and the army had to march through them to get to the other slave states.
Because they passed those slave states by, i'm thinking it was something other than slavery that was compelling them to fight.
I laugh when the “civil war perfessers” on FR spout their grand reasons.
I assume you can do simple math. The North - 200 million per year = The South +200 million per year.
I guess money is a "grand reason". It is the real one in any case.
The war lasted a little over 4 years. It has been refought here on FR for almost 3 decades now.