Quote:
Originally posted by Torone@May 12 2003, 07:02 AM
The Civil war had little to do with slavery and everything to do with states' rights.
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I would argue that the Civil War was about both state's rights and slavery but more about slavery. There were no other issues that were that hotly contested.
All the states in the Confederacy were states where slavery was legal. All the states in the Union had abolished slavery. If the Civil War were more about state's rights than slavery the states that seceded wouldn't have all been slave states and vice versa. Slavery was THE dividing issue. Slavery DEFINED North and South.
One of the two documents that came out of South Carolina's secession convention was addressed to the "Slaveholding States of the United States". Pretty clear it was important to them.