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My final sentence stands. The Southern States which seceded said it very clearly and plainly. If you wish to pretend that they didn't mean what they said (i.e. when they clearly identified slavery as their reason for seceding), then you are delusional, and there is no logic in you. Possibly some racist, or extreme state's rightist animus, but no logic.

Oh, they meant a lot of things at the time. And a lot of what you quote comes under the heading of emotional propaganda, voted by angry Legislators, tired of being insulted by people who were supposed to be their fellow Americans, bound together by ties originating in the Revolution and the building of a Federal Union. But the precipitant for all of the venom on both sides, came from the Abolitionist attacks upon the South, the Constitution itself, etc..

Historians can certainly debate, whether the South over-reacted. But the Abolitionists precipitated the horror which followed. Before the Abolitionist movement gathered steam in the 1830s, Southern leaders openly discussed ways to end slavery. One of the reasons for recommending that you read the Webster speech is that he covers just that point. Practically no one thought slavery a good system, before the Abolitionists began to smear the honor of the Southern leaders.

William Flax

Historians can certainly debate, whether the South over-reacted. But the Abolitionists precipitated the horror which followed. Historians "can debate", but at the end of the day, what the overwhelming majority of them have said from the time the events transpired until today is that slavery is the issue that brought on the Civil War. In 1941 the Japanese claimed to have many a "beef" with the US: an oil and trade embargo brought on by Japan's occupation of China (and seizing of Indo-China from the Vichy French), an "unequal" naval treaty that was imposed on them at the Washington Naval Conference, US material support to Chinese Nationalist Government which was defending itself from Japanese aggression, and even the movement of the US Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbor. We may suppose that in the Bushido-besotted brains of the Japanese militarists, they felt quite justified in attacking the US (the issue of what the Hell they were doing in China and Indo-China in the first place aside). Unfortunately for the Imperial Japanese, history and Humanity do not see things the Hideki Tojo gang's way. They see an Imperialist nation bent on conquest that launched a sneak attack on its greatest potential adversary. So if you wish to go on believing that the were other "root causes" which the Confederates failed to fully amplify in their state secession declarations (preferring instead to emphasize the minor irritant of a perceived threat to the peculiar institution of chattel slavery), then please cling fast to your opinion, like a "Flat Earth Society" member.