The English had a civil war. I don't think it involved any slaves. Some say the American civil war was just a continuation of the English civil war.
You keep saying that, but you also said that the expressed reasons may not be the real reasons, and that you don't trust people to give the real reason, did you not? So it could have been about slavery.
The evidence says otherwise. The money evidence shows it's about money, the "Corwin Amendment" shows it wasn't about slavery, the slavery in the Northern states shows it wasn't about slavery, Lincoln's statements on numerous occasions said it wasn't about slavery.
I would think any one of those things would be sufficient to break the theory that the war was about slavery.
Second, the final precipitating event of the Civil War was the South's leaving the Union after Lincoln's election. Had they tried to work within the system, there may have been ways to resolve this.
They had been working to resolve it for decades. It wasn't working. The election of Lincoln demonstrated to them that no matter what they did, they would still be treated like a stepchild by Washington DC, and they would still have to pay most of the taxes to run the government while being disrespected in the other states.
Finally, your evidence presented in this discussion also suggested that slavery was dying out before the invention of the cotton gin. It is quite possible that other needs for slaves may have been found after the 1860's had slavery persisted.
Not for the numbers involved. Also the abolition movement was gaining adherents even in the South. If you will look at the chapter on Slavery in Charles Dickens "American Notes" you will discover that he spoke with numerous members of slave owning families who wanted out of the slave business but felt as though they were constrained by law and by social pressure.
I try to look at the bigger picture. Where slavery was the least useful, it died out first, but where it was the most economically beneficial, it persisted. As the economics waned, and the social pressure waxed, the two factors would eventually come into equilibrium and people would suddenly "discover" that they should do the right thing and free their slaves.
This would have started among the upper class rich people, and eventually it would have became the "thing to do." Eventually the pressure from the wealthy would cause the enactment of laws to speed it along for the lesser wealthy so they would be forced to stop embarrassing their "bettors" by continuing to keep slaves.
Social pressure combined with economic pressure would have ended it without bloodshed, and there probably would have been a lot more consideration for all parties involved, and most especially the slaves.
I was specifically talking about the US Civil War. I thought that was obvious.
the "Corwin Amendment" shows it wasn't about slavery
"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State." Sure sounds like someone wanted to keep slavery decisions out of the hands of the Feds. Ole James Buchanan (D) put his signature on it.
[The South] had been working to resolve it for decades. It wasn't working. The election of Lincoln demonstrated to them that no matter what they did, they would still be treated like a stepchild by Washington DC, and they would still have to pay most of the taxes to run the government while being disrespected in the other states.
And, according to you, their institution, on which their livelihoods depended, would have been eliminated eventually. So they were going to lose no matter what. It was just a matter of when. So they exited the US to try to prevent the inevitable, which then precipitated the US Civil War.