I'll freely admit that I don't like the centralization of federal authority that resulted from the Civil War.
But that the Civil War was not primarily fought over the issue of slavery is rampant revisionism.
The sole cause of the Civil War was the insistence, by a radical group of Southerners, that they be allowed to extend slavery as they saw fit, and that slavery be accepted as a just and moral practice by the entire United States.
The Republican Party didn't form with the goal of ending slavery, it was formed with the goal of preventing the Southern-dominated federal government from forcing acceptance of slavery on the Northern states that deplored it.
Fanatic southerners planned invasions of Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba, etc., in order to extend their abominable practice into new territories.
In Dred Scott, the Southern-dominated Supreme Court overturned every law in the Northern states against slavery - forcing slavery to be accepted. A Southern-dominated Congress and a Southern President repealed the Compromise of 1850, and opened all new territories to slavery, if their citizens so chose.
And with that a fanatic Southern governor assembled a gang of thugs and bandits to terrorize the free citizens of Kansas, and to force a pro-slavery Constitution upon the new state.
Like I said, it was all about slavery - and the South's insistence that it had the right to force slavery upon people who found it abhorrent, that led to the formation of the Republican Party, to Lincoln's decision to re-enter politics, to his election as President, and to the decision by the South that they would secede. And not only secede, but that they would enter into open warfare with the North, rather than to be forbidden to extend slavery by force.
Yes, slavery was dying. It couldn't compete in the market with free labor. This was why the pro-slavery forces were so radical - they knew that slavery was a dead instituton, unless they could force the system of slavery on competing regions.
But all of this is too simple, for modern-day historians. They insist upon bringing up all these "real" reasons for the war. The tariffs being the most popular.
But all of these have one major drawback, when considered as reasons for the war. The secessionists never mentioned them. Not in their declarations of secession, not in their debates.
What they argued about, what they shouted about, all they were openly concerned about, was slavery. And how unjust it was that a "sectional party" would try to prevent them from spreading it where they willed.
Slavery was the issue, according to those who actually led the secession. I'll take their words over modern-day revisionists.
There's an interesting scene in the movie Gettysburg, prior to Pickett's Charge. Armistead is pointing out various Virginians in his division to the Brit officer. The pedigrees of some of the soldiers in the Viriginia ranks was astonishing. I can't believe that all those sons of the Founders were motivated by 'radical notions of forcing slavery on their neighbors'.
It was pretty easy to slander them all after many of them died charging Cemetery Ridge, though.
One aspect of history that I like to ponder is what happens to a society when a conqueror slaughters the best men of that society (as a conqueror often has to do). It was pretty easy to paint the beaten American Indians as dirty drunken thieves after we killed their chiefs and holy men. The Nazis and the Jews, Stalin and the Poles, etc., etc.
I wouldn't gloat too hard on the Confederates, because the gloating puts you in some pretty seamy company.
I'm not sure there is such a thing as free labor. I know I don't work for free. Slaves didn't get wages, but the owners surley had to provide for them if they were to live very long. Not free labor from the owners point of view either. The immigrant labor force in the North wasn't free labor either. Low wages, abysmal working conditions were more akin to indentured servitude.
The fight was ultimately over control of the branches of our government, which tied to the voting population in each state (Compromise of 1850/Kansas Nebraska Act). Political control was the real issue at hand, slavery was just the vehicle (much like Pro-Life/Choice is the political litmus test today). Of course slavery was A central cause of the WBTS, but it isn't an issue that I'm convinced the little man was willing to die for. The WTBS was a "rich man's war, poor man's fight", as most wars are. The WBTS was not, and never has been a black and white, neatly packaged part of our history. It is gray through and through. I believe that is why the likes of us are attracted to it. God Bless America!