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There seem to be two common extreme viewpoints about causation of the war:

The war was NOT about slavery.

The war was ONLY about slavery.

Seems to me both positions are entirely idiotic. The war was about much more than slavery, but slavery was the root and origin of the problem and the only issue that could not be compromised.

Tariff rates could be adjusted and negotiated. But slavery would either be allowed to expand or it would not. Of course, it would have been possible to allow slavery to expand into some areas and not others, a kind of compromise. Which indeed was in effect till the 1850s.

Thereafter positions hardened. Republicans wouldn’t allow slavery in ANY of the territories, the fire-eaters insisted it must be allowed in ALL the territories, indeed that a federal slave code, enforced by federal troops, be imposed on all the territories, regardless of the wishes of the inhabitants.

Failure by northern Democrats to give in to this demand is what caused southerners to walk out (twice) on the Democratic convention, splitting the Democratic Party and ensuring Lincoln’s election.

I must admit I do get tired of the arguments between the two extreme positions. Seems to me it’s much more interesting to discuss how slavery was and was not involved.

Personally, I think one of the main factors was expressed, perhaps unintentionally, by Louis Wigfall. In one of his speeches, which I haven’t been able to locate again, he spoke of how desperately tired southerners got of constantly being taunted that their entire way of life was based on evil. Which is of course an utterly human POV.

So they wanted out so that they wouldn’t have to hear this anymore. The problem of course was that their society WAS based on an evil institution, and ignoring this truth wouldn’t make it go away. Don’t care how many southerners eloquently proclaimed the positive good of slavery, it didn’t make it true. And that position was at root entirely and completely anti-American.

Washington, like most southerners of his time, believed slavery was evil but didn’t see how to get rid of it without immense social upheaval.

Given that we’re still dealing with related issues 150 years later, it’s difficult to argue with that concern.

He also believed, again in common with most educated southerners, that the institution would gradually wither and die on its own. Given what he knew, he was entirely correct. He had no way to predict the invention of the cotton gin or the sudden development of the Cotton Kingdom.

One virtue is prudence. Washington refused to wage a bitter campaign to destroy an institution that would, he believed, fade away on its own. While I wish he’d done otherwise, I continue to admire him as a principled but imperfect man.

Much as I like to think of myself.

I agree. But I have repeatedly seen claims that the EP was a fraud and a farce because it wasn’t immediately and universally effective.

Some pro-CSA types even claim it was intentionally worded as it was to allow Union slaveowners to keep their slaves indefinitely. Despite the fact that Lincoln had been trying to persuade Union slave states to emancipate and then, after than failed, working for 13A.

The same people who claim the EP was unconstitutional will turn around and say it was a farce because Lincoln recognized he didn’t have constitutional power to touch the institution in loyal areas.