the TRUTH is that ANYONE who believes that the WBTS was mostly/mainly/solely about anything BUT:
a. (from the northern view) keeping the south/southerners IN the union against their will AND permanently subservient to the northern business/social/intellectual/financial elites
OR
b. (from the southern view) winning our freedom from the north/elites
is NAIVE,a "useful idiot"/FOOL and/or a south-HATING BIGOT, who "knows NOT & knows NOT that he knows NOT'.
there were FEW persons north OR south in 1860 who cared about "the plight of the slaves". they SHOULD have cared;they did NOT care. that, too, is the UNcomfortable FACT. thus "chattel slavery" as the sole/main/most important "cause of the war" is , in one word, a LIE.
free dixie,sw
I see. I agree that disunion/secession/war was a result of many complex factors, among them those you mention. Although I believe, in common with just about every single person alive at the time, that slavery was at the root of the conflict.
But if I don’t agree 100% with you that secession was ONLY about “freedom,” then I am “NAIVE,a “useful idiot”/FOOL and/or a south-HATING BIGOT.”
I think a reasonable person would conclude that your position is the one that is simplistic and naive.
Kentucky Senator Crittenden proposed a series of compromises in 1860 that some think came close to ending the crisis. Every single part of this compromise dealt with slavery, fugitive slaves, slavery in the territories, slavery in DC, etc.
It made no attempt whatsoever to address tariffs, internal improvements, or any of the the other issues dredged up as “root causes” after the war by the losers to justify their rebellion as “not about slavery.”
Was the Senator stupid? Why did he bring up this irrelevant issue to defuse the secession crisis?