Slavery was the triggering cause in the larger and more important matter of the rights of states versus the federal government.

Most of the southern states that seceded produced cotton--an industry that depended on slave labor-- but not all. Virginia, for one, produced tobacco mainly, not cotton at all, but it not only seceded but also became the capital of the Confederacy. North Carolina did not depend on cotton, but sent more men into the Confederate army than any other state-- and held out the longest, even after Lee's surrender. Kentucky and Missouri are odd cases, never actually seceding, but accepted into the Confederacy, and neither produced cotton. Other states produced cotton, but were not economically dependent on it, like Texas. Seven Confederate states out of the eleven-- or thirteen if we count Kentucky and Missouri-- were entirely economically dependent on cotton.

Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation after Antietam in order to make the war all about slavery. He did this for a number of political reasons, chief among them to gain European support, especially from England-- which had been helping the Confederacy in a number of ways.

It's not a yes or no answer, but more yes and no. How much power the federal government should have-- versus the power of states within their borders-- had been problematic right from the inception of our country. The Federalist Papers argued the matter extensively.

And it's still a problem. Just look at "sanctuary cities" for one example.

And it's a misnomer to call it a "civil war." A civil war is a struggle between two or more factions for control of the central government. That's now what happened in America in 1861. The South did not want to control the government. It wanted out, just as the colonies wanted separation from England.

It was a second American Revolution.

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Originally posted by Southflorida-law:

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Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
Hmmm, fighting over slavery, ahem or maybe it was states rights?

Better example of the Federal Government's over-reaching would be the storied history of the Utah territory to Statehood and the 1st Amendment.

As I've read some on the subject, it's interesting to me that some of what helped push the issue of slavery / states rights to have slavery to the boiling point was the Slave states insisting that non-Slave states return runaway slaves and allow slave in their states under the control of the masters, by way of the Federal government. So they wanted freedom from the Federal government on one hand, yet wanted the Federal government to force their laws on other states (when it suited them).

Because to a Slave State & Master, a Slave was just property, like stolen cotton or horses. Except they would come into contact with Free people, who obviously weren't property. There were well publicized events of runaway slaves being returned, which fanned the flames of abolitionists in the North.

I find the whole time period fascinating and it's an interesting discussion.

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Originally posted by RHINOWSO:

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Originally posted by Monk:
If the issue was really slavery, how is it, so many years after slavery has ceased to be a point of contention, we still have very nearly the exact same geographic regions voting the exact same way? The North and South still exist as political entities, and the South still votes predominantly in favor of states' rights while the North continually seeks to increase the influence of the federal government. If slavery was the cause, then these geographic divisions should have disappeared with it. But they didn't. The North-South division of this country is still very present in modern day, and it has nothing to do with slavery and everything to do with states' rights.

So slavery had nothing to do with the US Civil War? That's your assertion?

I don't doubt that there is a divide and the issues of states rights are an issue, but I don't see it boiling over to Civil War in 1860 without slavery and the large impacts that abolition would have had on the South.

The South wanted Slavery as a state issue.

That's not at all what I said. What I said was, if the real issue was slavery, now that slavery no longer exists in this country, you would not see the exact same geo-political divide today that you did then. Of course slavery contributed to the war, as an extension of states' rights.