[Aric2000]

Oh, come on, Slavery was a minor issue if at all for the civil war. To the victors go the writing of history. Lincoln took on the call for the abolishment of slavery AFTER the war had already started to give him the moral high for his illegal and unconstitutional war.

Slavery WAS NOT a major issue, and this is provable by the fact that a number of slaveholding states stayed in the union, if, as you say the war was about slavery, then those states would have joined the confederacy.

And also, for your information, the emancipation proclamation freed NO SLAVES, NOT ONE!! Lincoln stated that those slaves held in the south, which he had ZERO authority over were free, but those slaves that were held in the north were to remain slaves. SO get off you slave high horse, it's a red herring. The civil war was about states rights, and that's ALL.... read it and tell me that isn't what it says.

[katana]

Which State's right other than the right to maintain the holding of slaves (rights of personal property to a slave holder) was exactly in dispute ? Secession was a result not a cause. The south's inability to maintain an effective veto over slavery within the Union was the reason they picked up their marbles and left.

To argue that slavery, which was recognized from the time of the Articles of Confederation and the later formulation of the Constitution as something that would eventually split the country wide open, was unimportant to secession and civil war is either obtuse or ignorant.

It was certainly important to my great grandfather who lived in a slave state that did not secede (Kentucky) and fought in a Union regiment against neighbors and kinfolk. We've been voting Republican for around 140 plus years as a result. So please don't try to lecture me about the Civil War. I've got history handed down in my family from people who fought it.