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There doesn't seem to be much point in arguing "It was all about ...," "It wasn't all about ..." Historians take it for granted that there's rarely one reason why anything happens.

But it looks like you're playing a slippery game. You say: "Sure. Don't get me wrong, its my opinion that slavery was the fulcrum, the prime mover." And then, 'But I think its fairly meaningless to use the criteria of "the war would not have happened if"....as the determinant of causation. I would posit that if the program of industrialization and resultant immigration in the north had not occurred that northern sentiments would have been damped as they had been for decades before living with slavery as a neighbor. Thus no war and no secession. Just because I believe this is true does not lead me to say "industrialization and immigration is the ultimate cause."'

If something is "the fulcrum, the prime mover," it's likely that the event caused couldn't have happened without it. Of course any unique event results from a particular combination of unique events, but it looks like you are trying to equate various kinds of causes and not distinguishing between those that are more and less important.

According to Aristotle there are formal, material, efficient, and final causes. Something like state's rights may be a formal or material cause -- part of the general situtation that made the war possible -- without being an efficient or a final cause. Industrialization, and the invention of the cotton gin fall in a similar category. They helped to make possible secession and war, but they seem to be more contributory than primary factors. "Fulcrum" can be a pretty slippery term, but if slavery was in some way "the prime mover" that means it was more important than other contributory or secondary causes.

Discussions here tend to focus more on guilt and sin, good and evil, purity and impurity, rather than on what happened and why. Very often people are trying to get a "directed verdict." They assume that slavery was wrong and the South couldn't have been wrong, therefore slavery couldn't have been an important part of what the war was about.

So these discussions tend to be of limited use as history, and we get long pointless arguments about whether the war was "all about" slavery or not. If you recognize the importance of slavery, then you can also admit the significance of other factors without playing the chump's "it was all about"/"it wasn't all about" game.

But it looks like you're playing a slippery game.

I'm really not trying to play any game. My concerns would be allayed if the popular mind had a more holistic understanding of the whole event. Unfortunately, your average Joe doesn't have that understanding and generally wasn't provided it by our educational system. Those without that understanding will generally absorb the quick soundbite.

When a historian goes on a television show and makes the soundbite statement he generally means what you and I mean, knowing the complexity of the event. That is not necessarily the perception the general public gains from his words, not knowing that complexity.

In a normal environment that would not necessarily mean that much to me. But we are in an environment where activists are attempting to deepen the divide for modern political purposes, for fundraising, and for getting attention. We see this in efforts to alter the interpretation of battlefield parks that previously concentrated on the battle that took place there. We see it iin efforts to erase the Confederate battle flag even as a historical symbol at memorials or cemeteries and in a historical context. Even the Sons of Union Veterans decry this because they have an understanding of the complexities involved.

The offhand statements by historians regarding causation is not necessarily providing the public with the necessary information that they require to adequately judge what they are being told by activists who are trying to sway them to a modern political view. This has been true in regard to the NAACP for years and increasingly true for activists on the other side in recent years who have gotten caught up in the tit-for-tat. Historians should be aware that a one-liner can result in cardboard cutout history in the public mind.

Essentially, the game I am playing is to advocate a much more in depth presentation of the event in our educational system to arm the public with a better understanding of the complexities so that they can better judge the current "yes it is" - "no it isn't" argument.

I am also advocating that Southern partisans, of whom I am one, stop playing that game and stop digging through the historical record for factoids to fling. When the public has a real awareness of the complexities they are much less likely to be swayed by simplistic pronouncements about it by modern pot-stirrers. Fighting factoids with factoids is a loser's game and makes you just another pot-stirrer.

If you change the environment there can actually be rational discussion of how we mark the Civil War as a common cultural event and within its historical context without regard to modern political correctness or agendas. We can provide a full understanding of the tragedy of slavery without prohibiting the display of battle flags. Its not a zero-sum game here.

The guys who actually fought this war on both sides and shot at each other ended up with more common sense about it in their later years than we have 150 years later. Thats just crazy.

"Peace at the End of the Civil War", Capitol Rotunda, Washington, D.C.