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A larger point also deserves mention. The South's fearful unwillingness to think about and discuss slavery and its evils discouraged Southerners against efforts toward reform or abolition. Had such a discussion been had, slavery might have mitigated and abolished gradually on terms that would have been far better than the devastation of the Civil War.

Trouble is, we've all been misled as to what was the purpose of the civil war. The South could have kept all of it's slaves so long as it agreed to keep sending all that money to the North.

The Passage of the Corwin Amendment by a 2/3rds majority in both the Republican controlled house and Senate shows that slavery was no obstacle to a continuing future in the "Union."

What the war was about was the fact the South was going to stop sending so much money into the pockets of the Northern industries. They were going to manage their own trade themselves, and thereby *KEEP* the lion's share of the profits, unlike what they had in 1860.

The Union government would tolerate permanent slavery, but it was never going to allow them to stop pumping money into Washington DC and the Northern corporate interests.

*THAT* is what the war was about.

No. We have battled over this before. Slavery was the cause of the Civil War, not tariffs. After the devastation of the war, "Lost Cause" myth-makers claimed falsely that tariffs were the true issue because keeping slavery was so ignoble a cause for war.

Actually, the country had compromised and revised tariffs numerous times before the Civil War. What could not be compromised though was slavery because the South refused to consider compromise.

I recommend that you take the time to read and consider the references to slavery in all the confederate articles of secession and Alexander H. Stephens "Cornerstone Speech" explaining the reason for secession. Then read several of the standard histories on the coming of the Civil War. There really is no room for serious dispute on the issue of slavery as the cause of the Civil War.