[Verginius Rufus]

If not for the battle of San Jacinto, no independent Texas. If no independent Texas, no US annexation of Texas. If no US annexation of Texas, no Mexican War. If no Mexican War, no War between the States. If no WBTS, slavery might still exist. So the battle of San Jacinto led to the abolition of slavery.

Counterfactual history: the sky's the limit.

[Texas Fossil]

One of my ancestors was born in Texas during the Republic of Texas. He fought in the Civil War and finished that war in a prison in NY. He walked home to Texas when he was released.

He never owned slaves.

Yes, history is connected. But remember Sam Houston “refused” to take Texas out of the United States.

Fact.

My family has owned/operated farms in this county since 1889. None of them or their ancestors ever owned slaves.

[IronJack]

If no Mexican War, no War between the States.

A bridge too far there. Aside from the fact that many of the officers on both sides of the Civil War had their first taste of combat (and made their names -- or lost them) during the Mexican War, there was not the slightest causal link between the former and the latter.

Winfield Scott, the early commander of the Union armies, was a hero of Veracruz, where he was assisted by another Civil War commander, one Captain Robert E. Lee. Captain Lee also worked with a scruffy, heavy-drinking quartermaster lieutenant named Hiram Ulysses Grant (later erroneously renamed Ulysses S.). There were many others.

But to assert that the Mexican War somehow spawned the Civil War is patently absurd.