[Bubba Ho-Tep]

I know slavery was a part of the conflict but not the only one, there were many other issues.

Okay, then it should be easy for you to find some statements from southern political leaders citing those other issues as the cause for their actions.

It seems that most of the Lost Cause insistence that there were lots of issues and slavery only a minor irritant is simply excuse-making. The fact that slavery and the threat that Lincoln's election posed to it was far and away the most cited cause for southern actions is embarrassing, hence a need to put the causes elsewhere. The problem is that the contemporary documents and statements simply don't support such an argument.

Here's Alexander Stephens, the Vice President of the confederacy:

"The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."

Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.

It is just a shame that the PC crowd, the education system and so on has hammered the slavery issue so much that even many Freepers buy into the brainwashing where critical thinking is shut down.

Then I invite you to read the original documents for yourself.

[vetvetdoug]

If the North was pursuing the war because of slavery, why was Fremont fired early in the war because he wanted Lincoln to proclaim the war was for slavery? In the book, "Seeing The Elephant published in 1989 the authors researched the reason for the men fighting at Shiloh using letters and reference and the statistical method for verifying the findings. The chapter that answers the question, why did they fight?, none of the combatants were fighting for the defense or abolition of slavery. One Yankee Captain remarked that he'd be lucky to get two companies from either side if the fight were to be over slavery. The men on the battlefield were fighting for other reasons other than slavery. The main reason was "because you are down here" as remarked by the Southerners. Other than that particular book there hasn't been a concise and thorough study on why the men fought and academics have referred to the politicians' speeches to justify and use as documentation. The Northerners were even more racist than were the Southerners when the letters were studied thoroughly. Slavery was the straw that broke the camels' back and is easy to point to as the cause of the entire conflict.

Stephens is vilified in this but compare it to Lincoln's speech of the 1850's. Are they not much the same?