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Those men, in their own words, make it clear what the reason for rebellion was. Defense of slavery. You can rewrite history but you can't remove words from the mouths of men once they are spoken.

You just made my point.
For the south, it was almost all about slavery but not, I believe, just for slaverys sake. It was the advantages that slavery gave the south over the north in production that was the reason the south wanted to keep slavery so much.

You can rewrite history but you can't remove words from the mouths of men once they are spoken.

Again, you've made my point. The Union (north) HAS, for all practical purposes, rewritten history. I really DON'T believe that it was ONLY about slavery for the north. That was an incidental that would look good for the common man.

We may have grounds for agreement here. For the north, at least at the beginning, it was never about slavery. It was about preserving the country as a whole, complete, the way our founding fathers had presented it to us. If you had asked the average Union soldier what he was fighting for, the overwhelming majority would have given that as their reason. Lincoln himself made no secret of his goal, to preserve the Union and not to either end or defend slavery. As the war progressed, ending slavery became a political goal and was incorporated into the Republican platform in 1864.

But for the south from the beginning the cause was the defense of the institution of slavery. They made no secret of that. Their Secession Declarations, their last minute attempts at compromise all dealt with slavery and it's protection. Not only where it existed but to ensure that it would be allowed to spread in the non-state territories.

I don't understand this confederate revisionism. Sure we can look at slavery today and agree on its evil. I do not for a moment think that you confederate supporters want to bring slavery back. But look at the world through 1860 eyes. Morality aside, slavery was a fact. It was legal. It was the reason for the rebellion. Why do you deny it>