Regardless, I have long felt that American involvement in World War I was a grave mistake.
A somewhat cynical reprise of post Civil War history looks like this:
I trace American involvement in World War I to the Civil War. Slavery was a relic barbarism, and needed to be eradicated. To deny that the Civil War was about slavery is naked sophistry. But the ascendence of self-righteous glory hounds in the aftermath was not healthy for American political order.
The immediate after effect was the Spanish-American War, which got America entwined in East Asia and saddled us with Cuba and Puerto Rico, two dysfunctional polities on our borders.
Fresh off victory over the remnants of the Mighty Spanish Empire, a yearning nation’s blue-eyed pride looked for further fields of glory. Or went looking for trouble and found it in Flanders fields.
The demons unleashed came to roost (to mix a metaphor) in 1941. They were demons, they deserved to defeated, and at great cost in blood and treasure. Yet somehow, I feel the worst of this could have been avoided.
“To deny that the Civil War was about slavery is naked sophistry.”
To deny there were far greater issues than slavery at the time is naked sophistry and ignorance of history. Slavery was a component, but by no measure did the north go to war to end it.
“To deny that the Civil War was about slavery is naked sophistry.”
It was about Lincoln’s desire to retain an all powerful central government and deprecate the states. Slavery was a peripheral issue eventually used by the north as a political weapon. Slavery was only about 10-20 years from dying a natural death with the coming industrial revolution. 700,000 lives needlessly sacrificed. Every bit a crime of biblical proportions as was WW1. Alas, Lincoln succeded....witness today’s wonderful all powerful federal central government. All carnage can be laid at the feet of a handful of wretched politicians.
You have that completely backwards. To assert that it was about slavery is naked sophistry. I have proof to back up that statement in the form of Lincoln's 1rst inaugural address in which he offers support for the "Corwin Amendment."
If Lincoln was going to offer slavery as a permanent and inviolable institution, then what possible reason would the South have to leave if there only concern was over slavery?
Beyond that, i've done the math. The 11 confederate states, if they voted against it, no amendment to ban slavery would have been possible till we had a Union of 44 states, which would not have happened until 1896. If the other five Union slave states voted against it, it would require a Union with 64 states to override them.
In a non broken Union, it would have been impossible to eradicate slavery.
Beyond that, When the Union invaded the South, not a single order said anything about freeing slaves. In fact Lincoln said on more than one occasion that he did not have the legal power to do such a thing.
So yeah. Saying the war was about slaves, is utter horse crap. The war was over whether or not the South would be independent of Washington DC and the New York power brokers who currently run the country today.
They started claiming the war was to free the slaves about midway through it. The Washington DC/New York cartel won, and their official propaganda was to ever after describe the war as having been fought over slavery.
But no, the War was fought over Washington losing control of all that money produced in the South. Had the North won quickly, the slave labor production would have resumed just as it was before.
But you are correct in the rest of your analysis. I’ve already pointed out elsewhere that had the South won, both the Spanish American war, and America’s entry into World War I would have been very likely avoided. It was as you said, a self righteous pursuit of glory. This was also true of some regarding the civil war.