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You may have been taught lies about the Civil War, I was taught to keep an open mind and educate yourself from resources you choose yourself.

Otherwise, education becomes a punching bag process where one learns from agenda driven propaganda.

We have discussed this issue at great length, before, the causes of the Civil War, of which there were many.

I correct myself in that regard, to wit, slavery was not the “only” cause of the Civil War. It was the single greatest irritation and the Civil War would not have been fought without it.

Is it your position that, were there no slavery, there would still have been a Civil War?

I correct myself in that regard, to wit, slavery was not the “only” cause of the Civil War. It was the single greatest irritation and the Civil War would not have been fought without it.

Correct. And every other "cause" resolves itself back to the practice of the "Peculiar Institution".

Sine qua non...

I correct myself in that regard, to wit, slavery was not the “only” cause of the Civil War. It was the single greatest irritation and the Civil War would not have been fought without it.

That is an excessively broad statement. While that statement is likely true, it misleads greatly as to the primary cause of the war.

What I have learned is that the South was producing 73-85% of all export value for the United States. The Northern states only produced 15-27% of the total export value to Europe, but strangely enough, 90% of all the money for the entire US export production funneled it's way back through New York and Boston.

The Northern Coalition had rigged the game so that virtually all the slave money flowed through their hands. They set the tariffs high because that boosted their profits for domestic manufactured goods, and the laws were rigged to give New York virtually total control on all shipping and imports. It is estimated from various sources that New York was getting 40% of the total profits from slave produced goods, and Washington DC collected their tax percentage on these same goods, and that absorbed another 20-30% of the entire value of all those slave produced goods.

New York and Washington DC were making a fortune off of Slavery, (More than the people actually running the plantations) and they didn't have to do much of anything to collect that money.

When the South decided to become independent, that flow of money (230 million per year in 1860 dollars) was going to stop. Worse, European goods would flow into the Southern states at greatly reduced prices, and there displace goods which were previously manufactured in the North, costing even further financial losses to the North.

Worse still, the Southern states would began supplying European manufactured goods all along the watershed of the Mississippi river, destroying the Midwestern market for goods manufactured in the North East.

Worse still, as the border states realized they could make more money off of the CSA system than they could off of the USA system, they would have eventually moved to join the Confederacy, causing even further losses of money and power to the then greatly weakened USA.

Where does slavery come into all of this? The slaves were producing the money. The fight was over the money, not over freedom for the slaves.

The reason Lincoln urged passage of the Corwin amendment was because they wanted those slaves to remain in the status quo of producing all that money which was flowing through New York and Washington DC hands!

The sticking point of the war was independence. There was no sticking point about keeping slaves in slavery. Both sides had intended to do that when the war began. The North continued keeping slaves for 8 more months after the war ended.

That's why I say that people have been misled about the cause of the war. Slavery is only indirectly involved. The real cause of the war was a fight over money.

For a view of the situation from the perspective of a British Abolitionist, Charles Dickens had this to say about the matter.

I take the facts of the American quarrel to stand thus. Slavery has in reality nothing on earth to do with it, in any kind of association with any generous or chivalrous sentiment on the part of the North. But the North having gradually got to itself the making of the laws and the settlement of the tariffs, and having taxed South most abominably for its own advantage, began to see, as the country grew, that unless it advocated the laying down of a geographical line beyond which slavery should not extend, the South would necessarily to recover it's old political power, and be able to help itself a little in the adjustment of the commercial affairs.
Every reasonable creature may know, if willing, that the North hates the Negro, and until it was convenient to make a pretense that sympathy with him was the cause of the War, it hated the Abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale. For the rest, there's not a pins difference between the two parties. They will both rant and lie and fight until they come to a compromise; and the slave may be thrown into that compromise or thrown out, just as it happens."

Why speculate gandaltfb?

The Virginia secession convention provides plenty of detail as to the cause of the secession and the resulting war.

The DEMOCRATS initiated the secession AND the war because they wanted to SPREAD slavery.

The REPUBLICAN party was formed in direct opposition to Douglas (D) “Kansas-Nebraska” act. This act violated the Missouri compromise of 30 years prior that sought to limit slavery. It allowed both Kansas and Nebraska tertitories to become slave states by majority votes.

This ill considered law gave us ten bloody years in Kansas before the civil war.

DEMOCRAT fireeaters - led by the treasonous vice president John C Breckenridge were not content to keep their slaves. THEY WERE SEEKING TO EXPAND SLAVERY. They wanted to take their ‘property’ to every location they could settle.

SO DEMOCRATS SECEEDED AND THEN INITIATED HOSTILE ACTION.

On the other hand,

REPUBLICANS were adamantly opposed to slavery but were seeking to remove the institution in a peaceful manner.

President Lincoln sought one compromise after another to avoid the bloody civil war - up to and including the Corwin amendment.

So the REPUBLICAN and LINCOLNS initial purpose for fighiting was to ‘PRESERVE THE UNION’.

However, after much bloodshed, Lincoln expanded his goals to ENDING SLAVERY. The horrible consequences having already been thrust upon the nation by toxic, treasonous DEMOCRATS.

At the Virginia Secession convention - a near thing - speakers from the Seceeding States spoke to the convention to give their reasoning for their actions. Here are the words of the Georgia delegate to Virginia. The cause of the Civil War between Republicans and Democrats does not get any clearer than this.

First paragraph:
“I have been appointed by the Convention of the State of Georgia, to present to this Convention (Virginia), the ordinance of secession of Georgia,

and further, to invite Virginia, thorough this Convention, to join Georgie and the other seceded States in the formation of a Southern Confederacy.

This, sir, is the whole extent of my mission….”

Second paragraph:
”What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession?

This reason may be summed up in one single proposition.

It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia,

that a separation from the North was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery.

This conviction, sir, was the main cause.

It is true, sir, that the effect of this conviction was strengthened by a further conviction that such a separation would be the best remedy for the fugitive slave evil,
.... {Note: This ‘fugitive slave evil’
.... being the the refusal of some Republicans
.... in Northern States
.... to refuse to return escaped slaves}

and also the best, if not the only remedy, for the territorial evil.
.... {Note: This ‘territorial evil’
.... would be the Missouri compromise
.... from thirty or forty years prior
.... where the territories were declared free
.... and slaves were not allowed.
.... The democrats wished to take their slaves
.... with them.}

But, doubtless, if it had not been for the first conviction this step would never have been taken.

It therefore becomes important to inquire whether this conviction was well founded.”

………..Honorable Henry L. Benning, of Georgia
……………addressing the Virginia State Convention
……………on Monday, February 18, 1861
……………the Fifth day of the Convention
....
.... The second speaker from the other States after Mississippi.

Yes.

Had the Southern states emancipated all the slaves and adopted sharecropping which they later did, their economic interests would have remained the same. They would have wanted as low a tariff as possible. The economic interests of the Northern states would have remained the same. They would have wanted a high protectionist tariff and they would have continued to lavish federal money for infrastructure and corporate subsidies on themselves.