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It was the rebel leaders who said the War of Southern Rebellion was over slavery.

IMO, they viewed it as a matter of economic survival and as the debate went on in the early 1800's they took it as a given.

Most everybody on this thread talks about the "North" and the "South", which I think would be an accurate breakdown pre-revolutionary war, and by necessity for the short period DURING the Civil War. The war was an issue that divided people into two camps.

For most of the rest of the time, as the country grew, it would be more accurate to say there was the Northeast, the South, and the West. The population of the West was rapidly expanding as more and more land was settled for farming. Their primary market was the Northeast where they couldn't grow enough food to feed all the people living in the cities. The South could grow enough food to feed their own population and not much more. The Northeast was largely a manufacturing region, and their major new market in the US was all the new settlers in the west. The settlers in the west were either new immigrants, who had no history of slave-owning, and second generation northeasterners, who saw the potential of a better life than working for subsistence wages in northeast factories. Those people relocating out of the northeastern states also had no history of slave-owning.

Transportation networks were developed to service this back and forth flow of agricultural products one way, and manufactured goods the other. The south was relatively stagnant in terms of population and there was no incentive to develop much in the way of additional transportation networks to and from the south. They couldn't compete with the west in agricultural production on the virgin soils opened up to farming, and they couldn't compete with the northeast in manufacturing. Importing and exporting continually increased through the ports of the northeast while shipping from southern ports stayed the same or dropped.

The populations of the west and northeast were rapidly expanding, and feeding each others economies. The population growth in those two areas led to a US government that could ignore the south's wishes and wants to a much larger degree that was the case at the time of the country's founding. The west and the northeast became economically dependent on each other, and neither region had much in common philosophically with a population of slave owners.

Without funding from any income taxes, the country relied to a large extent on tariffs. The higher the tariffs, the better the northeast manufacturers did while the worse the south did. The people of the west didn't think like the northeasterners either. They had much more of an independent nature. But their economic interests tied them together much more than either region had with the south.

The population growth in those two areas led to a US government that could ignore the south's wishes and wants to a much larger degree that was the case at the time of the country's founding.

An interesting theory but one which overlooks the fact that the South controlled the government for most of the time up to the rebellion. Alexander Stephens summed it up in his address to the Georgia Secession Convention in January 1861:

"But, again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change of our relation to the general government? We have always had the control of it, and can yet, if we remain in it, and are as united as we have been. We have had a majority of the Presidents chosen from the South; as well as the control and management of most of those chosen from the North. We have had sixty years of Southern Presidents to their twenty-four, thus controlling the Executive department. So of the judges of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South, and but eleven from the North; although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in the Free States, yet a majority of the Court has always been from the South. This we have required so as to guard against any interpretation of the Constitution unfavorable to us. In like manner we have been equally watchful to guard our interests in the Legislative branch of government. In choosing the presiding Presidents (pro tern.) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of the House, we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of the Representatives, from their greater population, have always been from the North, yet we have so generally secured the Speaker, because he, to a great extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country. Nor have we had less control in every other department of the general government. Attorneys, Generals we have had fourteen, while the North have had but five. Foreign ministers we have had eighty-six, and they but fifty-four. While three-fourths of the business which demands diplomatic agents abroad is clearly from the Free States, from their greater commercial interests, yet we have had the principal embassies, so as to secure the world markets for our cotton, tobacco and sugar on the best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the higher offices of both army and navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of Clerks, Auditors and Comptrollers filling the Executive department; the records show for the last fifty years, that of the three thousand thus employed, we have had more than two-thirds of the same, while we have but one-third of the white population of the Republic."

It is hard to believe that the South's "wishes and wants" were ignored by the government when they exercised such a disproportionate level of influence over it.

The higher the tariffs, the better the northeast manufacturers did while the worse the south did.

Why?