Slavery was an important issue but certainly not the primary one. This fiction has been captured by the PC crowd since the new Deal and made into a major plank for the Democratic party, assuring the unwavering voting support of the vast majority of American blacks for the past 70 years....regardless of issues.
Many people rank the fight for states rights versus federalism as number one!
Taxes, tarrifs, States rights, abolitionism, and Northern vs southern economic issues all contributed.....
Subsequent to the war, the "Carpetbaggers" from the north descended on a defeated south and were among the first to "simplify" this slavery fiction as being easy to understand justification for their economic plunder of the south.
The record simply doesn't support that.
Soon to be CSA congressman Lawrence Keitt, speaking in the South Carolina secession convention, said, "Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it."
Keitt's comments are typical; slavery was the most important reason for the war. Your statement is based in myth, not the record.
Keitt was later KIA at the head of regiment --- defending the slave power.
Walt
There were -no- federal taxes. None, nada, zilch. Not much of an issue, huh?
"Antebellum Americans had been one of the most lightly taxed peoples on earth. And the per capita burden in the South had been only half that in the free states. Except for tariff duties-which despite Southern complaints were lower in the late 1850's than they had been for more than 50 years- virtually all taxes were collected by state and local governments."
--Battle Cry of Freedom, James McPherson
Walt
I'm sorry but I think you have it backwards. Subsequent to the war the southern leaders were anxious to downplay defense of slavery as their reson for rebellion. Prior to the war and during it they were loud in their insistance that secession was the only possible method for defending slavery. For every reference to a tariff, there are dozens that reference slavery.