[Gene Eric]

The issue of slavery was not a factor until the war effort required greater political support many years in. I’m happy to review any related documents that tell a different story. And it’s doubtful the Country would willingly sacrifice more than half a million young men for the issue of slavery regardless of its egregious nature. It was about commerce and control.

[Rockingham]

Not so. Uncle Tom's Cabin turned Northern opinion decisively against slavery, making it an increasingly contentious issue before the Civil War, with Kansas and Nebraska in bloody turmoil, a band of anti-slavery fanatics led by John Brown attacking a federal arms depot at Harper's Ferry, and the secessionist states and the Confederacy's leaders identifying slavery as the cause of the conflict.