There are the occasional disagreements about whether slavery was the cause or was it purely economic.
My standard go to (I admit a futile attempt most times) is to ask if there would have been a Civil War if there had been no slavery from the beginning of America.
This will start an argument every time.
On another note, we are seeing the influx of a culture and religion that has engaged in slavery for more that a thousand years; even to this day in Africa. I shudder to think what will happen in the future if this ideology wins out here. We may yet see the results in Europe first.
Probably no Civil War had there been no slavery, but there’s always the possibility it might’ve arose over another issue, perhaps economics or other issues where there were vehement factional disagreements.
We’re bound to have another (long overdue) with respect to the forces of good vs. evil that are readily apparent today (with the substantial difference that it isn’t entirely geographically factional, but more urban vs. rural with the suburbs caught in the middle, some sadly trending towards urban depravity).
There have been a lot of wars. Most of them, I'm guessing, were not about slavery.
Tensions in this country, right now, are near the breaking point. And it's not about slavery today - although liberals say it is.
Saying the War Between the States was “all about slavery” is just another unspoken claim of virtue by the victors. It kind-of freights the murder with meaning.
The better question would be: if there was no slavery in the U.S. would there be a Democrat Party in the U.S.?
The highest priority of the Democrat Party was to promote and expand the slave system.
The Civil War was not caused by slavery, it was caused by secession.
Americans, including Lincoln, did not want a war over slavery.
Democrats wanted to create a slave based economy in the Midwest and the West. This led to the creation of the Republican Party in Wisconsin in 1854.
The plan for secession was in place since about 1850.
Since the war was fought over the money and trade that was produced through slavery, then no, without the slavery, there would have been no money for Northern powers to fight over, but then also, the Northern powers would have never gotten so strong without that same slavery.
Slavery was funneling 200-230 million dollars per year through the port of New York in 1860 dollars. It created about 73% of all US Trade with Europe, and it was by far the number one employer of North Eastern based shipping companies, and it's effects were felt in banking, insurance, warehousing, and many other industries in the North East.
The threat posed to the North East robber barons was that of taking away the vast majority of the European trade from New York, and sending it South. It would have resulted in the shifting of that 230 million that New York was receiving from Southern trade (With Washington getting it's 65 million or so per year cut) to Southern ports.
To make it simple, the 1860 counterparts of the same class of very powerful northern elites who control the media and Washington DC today, would have been economically ruined by Southern states taking over control of their own export/import economy.
These same Northern elites would have been further damaged economically by the Southern states allowing superior and cheaper European goods to be landed in the South, and distributed among all avenues of commerce (such as the Mississippi river) to other states, thereby displacing their own products in the markets they were currently serving in the Midwest and border states.
Southern independence was a *HUGE* threat to the existing monied classes which had gained control of Washington DC.
People nowadays are simply unaware of the massive economic threat an independent South posed to the wealthy northern elite of the 1860s.
This is why supposed anti-slavery crusader Abraham Lincoln was urging the passage of the Corwin Amendment, which would have made it virtually impossible to abolish slavery. They believed that slavery was the cause of separation, and were willing to give the Southern states every conceivable assurance that the slavery economy of the South would not be undermined by Washington DC, so long as the economic control of the Southern export engine would remain in the hands of New York and Washington DC.
The war was all about protecting the economic interests of the wealthy influence cartel then controlling Washington DC, and who are still effectively the main force Conservative America is fighting today.