Could the Civil War Have Been Avoided?

Discovery News ^ | October 15, 2002 | Jennifer Viegas

[H.Akston]

Whatever path you follow into the root causes of the Civil War, it always leads back to the inevitable fact that the South wanted to maintain slavery as an institution, and secession was the means they chose to use to do so.

But slavery was not illegal. They were within their rights to maintain it. No matter what you say, the North didn't fight to abolish slavery. They thought secession was illegal, and fought to overturn that act. That's what the war was ultimately about.

You can try to justify their actions by cloaking their motives in whatever high-minded principle you want.

Sorry you regard the right to institute new government as so "high minded". It's only a basic American ideal.

They didn't secede to prove they had a right to seceed. They did it so they could continue to own other human beings.

ehh. The yankees didn't care then. You can create all sorts of noble motivations, after the fact, but the fact is, the Yankees didn't object that much to owning other human beings. They just had to come up with a politically correct justification for the war.