Replies

The issue is much as it is today with liberals; they continually try to spin every issue to make it something that it is not. BTW, if slavery was the issue, why did Lincoln wait two years to sign the Emancipation Proclamation (which did not free a single slave)?

Correct, the war was not fought to free the slaves, but to maintain the Union. Nevertheless, slavery was the single overarching issue seperating north from south. It dominated the decision on states coming into the union and the issue over which side, slave or free, would have dominance. If you look at virtually every conflict between north and south 40 years prior to the war it is slavery which is at the heart of the conflict. Fact is, without slavery there would never have been a civil war. As to the Emancipation Proclamation. That old "it didn't free a single slave" is worn out and totally irrelevant. Lincoln declared slavery forever illegal in all States as a political move. He knew fully well it wouldn't free a single slave until the war was over and it took the issue of returning the South to it's former role off the table with the peace Democrats who were screaming for "peace talks." He didn't do it earlier because he had border states to contend with. It also forced the British to decide if they were willing to side with the South and thereby defend slavery.

Slavery was not the issue for the war--but it was THE issue behind secession.

Incidentally, before 1860, Wisconsin made some noises about seceding over their disagreement with the Fugitive Slave Laws.

Southron politicians made it clear that the Union was inviolable, that talk of secession was treason, and that any attempt to secede would be resisted with the utmost violence.

IMHO, it was Lincoln's election and his dedication to protectionist tarrifs and the Morril Tarrif that were the final nail in the coffin that caused the seccessation of the Southern states. Lincoln promised that he would send in troops and FORCE states to pay the tariff if they refused. It was extremely unfair to force the south to pay these taxes that were used for public works projects in the north.

Nevertheless, slavery was the single overarching issue seperating north from south.

Not quite correct. Slavery was the wedge issue, a moral issue used by Northern Whig and Republican politicians to split the Democratic Party on sectional lines and to split off the agrarian Midwest from the agrarian South.

It dominated the decision on states coming into the union and the issue over which side, slave or free, would have dominance.

Partly true -- whether a new State permitted slavery was a pretty good indicator of which bloc in Congress it would adhere to. John Quincy Adams and the Federalist/Whig bloc kept Texas out of the Union for 10 years for that very reason.

If you look at virtually every conflict between north and south 40 years prior to the war it is slavery which is at the heart of the conflict.

That's incorrect. The Nullification Crisis of the 1830's was precipitated by regional bad feeling over the Tariff of Abominations of 1828. That crisis was all about money.

Fact is, without slavery there would never have been a civil war.

Without the Big Bang, there would never have been a Civil War, either. Slavery was a factor in the Civil War, which was nevertheless a leadership struggle and a battle among proud and ruthless men over political power and which States got to stick it to which other States. The triumph of Republicanism put the whole country on a timeclock and made its people thralls, in one way or another, to the private interests of the few, and the political power that rested on those interests.