Thank you!! For making a point I’ve been searching for now a long time — that the Civil War was indeed “all about slavery”, but not just about the enslavement of 4 million blacks, but also about white Southern fears of being “enslaved” in the Union.***
LOL! OK. If that’s the twist you want to put on it, then I won’t dispute that part. Southerners were fighting for their own freedom - not the right to hold others in bondage.
Somewhere I’ve seen a quote from Jefferson Davis himself to that effect, but have been unable to relocate it.
So I think it’s entirely fair to say now that slavery was entirely the issue, the only real issue, the one which kept Confederates fighting for months even years after it was clear they’d lose, slavery for 4 million blacks and for 5 million Confederate whites.****
No not for 4 million blacks. That was never threatened within the US prior to 1861. Fighting to prevent their own subjugation and enslavement by a tyrannical federal government? True.
Clear, obvious, irrefutable!
"Never threatened"??
That's not what numerous "Reasons for Secession" documents said, indeed, every such document written before Fort Sumter emphasized slavery.
Further, once war started at Fort Sumter, within a few months slavery again became important, in the form of "Contraband of War", and Contraband lead to various acts of Congress, the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment.
All of those made absolutely clear to every Confederate that defeat in war meant the destruction of their "peculiar institution."
So whichever way you look at it, Civil War was "all about slavery" for both 4 million African Americans and 5-1/2 million white Confederates.
"Clear, obvious, irrefutable!"