No, it wasn't about slavery. Well, many people wanted it to be about slavery, but the North didn't invade the South to end slavery. What did Lincoln say? If I can save the Union without ending slavery, so be it. Or something like that... The South didn't want to keep paying high taxes, so a secession movement began in Charleston SC - the birthplace of an earlier secession movement based on tax policy. Lincoln said the only reason he'd send federal troops southward was taxes, that says it all...
C'mon, you've watched President after President lie us into war based on what sounds best to the masses and you're still buying into last century's BS?
600,000 dead, millions maimed...
or
two nations (or 1 if the Repubs dropped the protectionism) with slavery in one for another 10-30 years
You do believe slavery was on the way out, right? Banned in the North and much of Europe, new inventions making it less efficient, the abolitionist movement winning the battle of ideas... You know, by your morality George Bush could have sacrificed many many more Americans to oust Saddam
You evade the point. There was never a possibility of war except that the South refused to accept that slavery was not going to be expanded into new western territories. They refused to accept the results of elections, so they committed treason. The North did not declare war to end slavery, the South declared war to keep slavery. Slavery was the one and only cause of the war.
So what was the North to do once the South declared war? Appeasement? Roll over and play dead?
