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non-sense!

for the 5-6% of southerners who actually owned slaves, the preservation of chattal slavery was VERY important.

for the other 94-96% of southerners, it was NOT an issue AND our ancestors were NOT going to die for some rich guy's "right to won slaves".

you position is SILLY, IGNORANT & NOT the TRUTH.

secession was about LIBERTY. nothing more,nothing less.

free dixie,sw

How are you Stand? I figured my comment might raise your hackles! I'll tell you why you are partially right, and mostly wrong.

#1 The secessionists in the South were (to use a modern phrase) the "power elite." They were the oligarchy of wealthy land owners and slave holders. I'm talking about Stephens, Toombs, Cobb, and that whole group. I'm NOT talking about the poor, dumb, schleps, like some of my Tennessee ancestors, who ended up fighting a war for them!

The Southern power elite had controlled their States, and to some extent, the Continental and Federal governments since the mid-1700's.

#2 Where was the money in the 1850's? The South had a poorly developed industrial base. They had a mediocre (relative to the mid-Atlantic states and New England) mercantile class. They had a strong agricultural base. It was very, very important for the southern states to protect their agricultural economy. This is why they furiously fought some of the onerous tariff measures. This was nothing new, as the 1830's nullification crisis during the Jackson Administration showed.

"secession was about LIBERTY. nothing more,nothing less."

You are a smart guy, Stand. You studied this stuff in college (as did I). You know your statement is SIMPLISTIC and amounts to nothing more than propoganda.

Your 5-6% number (percentage of slaveholders in the south) I have seen quoted before; but I know it to be controversial. I have seen other data which represent that as many as 1/3rd of the white soldiers from Mississippi, Alabama, and other states of the deep south were from "slave-holding families." As is usually the case, war is a young man's fight. I would not be surprised that many of the teenaged rebel soldiers did not individually own slaves; nor would I be surprised that they came from families that did. I know you don't like the 1860 Census data, but the number of slaves in the deep south nearly equalled the total number of whites. That would mean, roughly, the average slaveholder (based on your 5% figure) would have owned about 20 slaves (20 to 1 ratio). I thought the average number was much lower - more like 3 to 1. Do you happen to know what that number might be?

Before you call me "SILLY" and "IGNORANT" again, let me find my citations for your perusal.

These data are from the Census Archives at the University of Virginia (a bastion of northern revisionism - sarcasm tags off). These are the percentage of "slave-owning families" as a fraction of total free households in the state:

49% Mississippi
46% South Carolina
37% Georgia
35% Alabama
35% Florida
29% Louisiana
28% Texas
28% North Carolina
26% Virginia (including what became West Virginia)
25% Tennessee
20% Arkansas

You can add to these the border states:
23% Kentucky
13% Missouri
12% Maryland
03% Delaware

Even if these figures are incomplete, due to errors and omissions in the census, they probably represent a reasonable estimate. Your statement was "for the other 94-96% of southerners, [the preservation of chattel slavery] was NOT an issue AND our ancestors were NOT going to die for some rich guy's 'right to own slaves'"

It seems to me that the data suggests that throughout the Confederate States, about 1/4th to 1/2rd of all families were slave-owners. It is more likely that a significantly higher number of rebel soldiers had the preservation of slavery as a motivating force for fighting. Slaves represented a large capital investment; sometimes the value of the slaves as part of an estate was greater than the value of the land.

Given that the higher ranks in the CSA officer corps came primarily from the plantation and political class, I would suggest the percentage of officers coming from slave-holding families to be even higher.

"You[r] position is SILLY, IGNORANT & NOT the TRUTH." Care to re-think that, in light of the facts?