[iowamark]

The conversation began promisingly. “I will be very happy to serve a country for which I have so much affection,” Garibaldi replied to preliminary inquiries. He had lived in exile in New York and considered himself a citizen of what he fondly referred to as his “second country.” But what he wanted to hear, and what Sanford could not tell him, was that this would be a war against slavery.

In Garibaldi’s mind, victory over the Southern slaveholders would come swiftly; “the enemy is weakened by his vices and disarmed by his conscience,” he told his comrades. From there they would go on to vanquish the slaveholders of the Caribbean and Brazil, where millions of “miserable slaves will lift their heads and be free citizens.”...

It was much more than that, for Garibaldi’s question anticipated a fundamental problem the Union confronted in trying to explain its cause to a puzzled world. Was this only a civil war, a purely domestic conflict in a quarrelsome democracy? Was the Union’s goal nothing more than to put down rebellion and protect its sovereignty? Or was there something of real consequence to the world at large? The Union would have to find answers before other powers of the world decided to include the South among the family of nations.

Secession and the Confederacy were entirely about slavery. Read the secession statements if you doubt this. However, for Unionists, the war was initially about preserving the Union. US opinion was very divided on slavery and race.

[Texas Fossil]

“Secession and the Confederacy were entirely about slavery.”

Nope.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Secession and the Confederacy were entirely about slavery. Read the secession statements if you doubt this. However, for Unionists, the war was initially about preserving the Union."

I would also add that one thing both of them quarreled over the question of allowing the extension of slavery to the western territories. While the North at the beginning of the war did not believe in going to war over this issue. Over time, many abolitionist politicians felt that it could be resolved by having more states with no slaves (i.e. the new western states that would eventually come). The general political positions of most in the north was they were willing to settle this issue politically while the South was willing to fight for it.

[camle]

slavery was the symptom, seccession the disease. nothing happened abotu slavery until the seccession started.

[mikeus_maximus]

The “states rights” mantra came about as former confederates searched for something noble to justify their failed struggle to preserve slavery. Slavery was the driving issue. The federal tariff that had earlier had severely impacted the market for southern cotton was clearly a state rights issue. Yet no one was going to war over a tariff, not even a hint of it. The South went to war over the later perceived threat to slavery on which the South depended for its economy and the southern self-fashioned nobility depended for their lifestyle. That’s why the secession declarations highlighted slavery. Face it and move on.

[mikeus_maximus]

“the enemy is weakened by his vices and disarmed by his conscience"

I dunno about that. Liberals seem to be doing just fine in the cultural war.