I'm pretty sure nobody at the time put it that way.
Davis made it quite clear that it was not about slavery.
Davis's chance to win the war hinged on his getting recognition from Britain, France, and other countries. Saying that the war was about slavery would defeat his purposes. You'll notice that what he said in his inaugural address was different from what he said in his message to Congress: the inaugural address was more likely to be picked up by the world press, so he avoided talk about slavery.
He was even clearer in his farewell address to Congress:
It has been a conviction of pressing necessity, it has been a belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us, which has brought Mississippi into her present decision. She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races.
The fear of emancipation and racial equality was what led to Mississippi's decision for secession. It doesn't matter that the Republicans didn't support racial equality. That's what slaveowners feared. And Davis was clear about that when he wasn't trying to fudge or hedge.
See my post 91 for more:
When you believe in your society enough to fight for it, you take it as a whole, and don't always think about every aspect of it. Some secessionists fought for their right to own slaves (or to acquire slaves eventually). Others were fighting for their state or region. They wouldn't necessarily say that they were fighting for slavery, but slavery was a major part of the economy and social structure of their state or region. Those who felt that their region was being threatened weren't talking about 20th century big government. They were talking about abolitionists.
I’m pretty sure nobody at the time put it that way.
I’m pretty sure you’re digging through old threads and not this one.
-——————————————————————————————Davis’s chance to win the war hinged on his getting recognition from Britain, France, and other countries. Saying that the war was about slavery would defeat his purposes. You’ll notice that what he said in his inaugural address was different from what he said in his message to Congress: the inaugural address was more likely to be picked up by the world press, so he avoided talk about slavery.
That’s your interpretation. I disagree. Davis never mentioned slavery in his inaugural address. Lincoln only mentioned slavery in his to endorse slavery forever by express constitutional amendment.
It was clear that the North supported neither equality nor emancipation. If anybody had any doubts about that, Lincoln made it quite clear that he was not in favor of emancipation. In fact the North offered slavery forever by express constitutional amendment. Yet this failed to bring the original 7 seceding states back in. Obviously slavery was not their primary concern. There’s no way around those facts.