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Every secessionist document (prior to the Civil War) that mentions reasons for seceding gives slavery as the overwhelming reason for the breakaway.

Nonsense. In the entirity of the secession ordinances of the 13 states and 2 territories of the confederacy there is barely a mention of slavery beyond geographical references. A similar situation may be found in many of the county secession resolutions and the sort. About the only documents that do give slavery as a reason in any great detail are those four non-binding legislative resolutions you are so fond of citing and overstating in significance. Absent them you have no case.

Nonsense. In the entirity of the secession ordinances of the 13 states and 2 territories of the confederacy there is barely a mention of slavery beyond geographical references.

That is false.

These comments are typical:

Lawrence Keitt, speaking in the South Carolina secession convention, said, "Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it."

--From the Confederate Constitution:

Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 4: "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

Article IV, Section 3, Paragraph 3: "The Confederate States may acquire new territory . . . In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and the territorial government."

From the Georgia Constitution of 1861:"The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves." (This is the entire text of Article 2, Sec. VII, Paragraph 3.)

From the Alabama Constitution of 1861: "No slave in this State shall be emancipated by any act done to take effect in this State, or any other country." (This is the entire text of Article IV, Section 1 (on slavery).)

Alexander Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy, referring to the Confederate government: "Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery . . . is his natural and normal condition." [Augusta, Georgia, Daily Constitutionalist, March 30, 1861.]

A North Carolina newspaper editorial: "it is abolition doctrine . . . the very doctrine which the war was commenced to put down." [North Carolina Standard, Jan. 17, 1865; cited in Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 835.]

Robert M.T. Hunter, Senator from Virginia, "What did we go to war for, if not to protect our property?"

Alfred P. Aldrich, South Carolina legislator from Barnwell: "If the Republican party with its platform of principles, the main feature of which is the abolition of slavery and, therefore, the destruction of the South, carries the country at the next Presidential election, shall we remain in the Union, or form a separate Confederacy? This is the great, grave issue. It is not who shall be President, it is not which party shall rule -- it is a question of political and social existence." [Steven Channing, Crisis of Fear, pp. 141-142.]

The cause of the war was the desire of the south to maintain and support slavery.

Walt

Nonsense. In the entirity of the secession ordinances of the 13 states and 2 territories of the confederacy there is barely a mention of slavery beyond geographical references. A similar situation may be found in many of the county secession resolutions and the sort. About the only documents that do give slavery as a reason in any great detail are those four non-binding legislative resolutions you are so fond of citing and overstating in significance. Absent them you have no case.

Then, pray tell, what are the Southern Institutions that the North is so dead set on destroying mentioned in many of the documents?

But to address your comments directly: Slavery is mentioned more than any other reason given for starting the Civil War. The supporting documents that you so blithely dismiss give the reasoning of the South for seceding. To dismiss them out-of-hand is disengenous indeed. Also, you might notice that the Washington Peace Conference and Crittendon Compromises only addressed the slavery issue. Apparently, both the south and north felt that if they could successfully address this issue, the Union would be saved. All other issues were ancilliary to the slave question in late 1860 and early 1861. The Civil War was fought because the south wanted to keep slavery in their own states (which the north was agreeable to), expand slavery to all territories (which the north disagreed with, but was willing to go with a Missouri-Compromise type proposal), and expand it to the North (a really hot-button issue in the North). The south wanted an amendment to the Constitution that could not be amended that would codify these demands.

IOW, the south were trying to tromp on the rights of the northern states.