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I'll agree that there were differences, but with the exception of slavery, they were mostly superficial.

Well, I am not one to discount the role of slavery in the conflict as the focal point and prime mover. But I, respectfully, would say that you are giving short-shrift to the effects of the other differences on that friction point.

Despite being secessionists, it was southerners who clung to the traditional concepts of federal republicanism and northerners who appealed to a "higher law". Northerners, for a variety of reasons, many economic, were moving down the road to a more centralized government with broader powers. Their views of the nature of the republic had diverged from the more traditional view held in the south. It is true that protection of slavery also had an impact on southern views, but economic needs in the north (such as in regard to infrastructure) was changing the northern view of what sort of government was needed for their economic well-being.

If the north had still retained its old agrarian nature rather than advancing rapidly toward an industrial model I believe that the frictions in regard to slavery would have been muted because the desire for centralization would have been less. I think this is one reason why the largest pockets of "copperhead" activity were where they were. Those areas, being more agrarian, had less at stake in the move toward centralization and still maintained more traditional views of the nature of the republic.

You can say that it was slavery, but the fact is that northerners had lived in union with slavery for many decades without feeling the overwhelming urge to pick up a gun and go stamp it out for the sake of morality. There was something more going on at this particular time. Slavery was the bomb, but the lighting of the fuse at this particular time has a lot to do with the other differences between the two sections.

I read an editorial out of a New Orleans paper in regard to popular sovereignty. The paper was celebrating the concept. But not because of it being a victory for the expansion of slavery. It was being lauded because the writer believed that the South was being treated as an equal member of the union. The author stated bluntly that everyone knew that the actual expansion of slavery into the territories under popular sovereignty was essentially a pipe dream due to demographic realities but that the concept finally recognized an equality of potential. An even playing field essentially.

Of course, in the north, popular sovereignty was viewed in an entirely different way. It was not seen as an abstract political compromise, but as a potential reality on the ground no matter how unlikely. An abstraction to one, a reality to the other.

The fulcrum here was slavery, but the prime issue for the Southern commentator was the abstract concept of being treated equally within a federal republic and maintaining honor while the prime issue for the northern observer was a concrete threat of having access to the west cut off, having their various interests dominated. Of course for fire-eaters and abolitionists the reasoning was much more purely a direct tie to the slavery issue. Those people, despite how loud they were, were not a majority in either region.

This is only one editorial, but it pretty clearly points out the vast disparity in how the two sides viewed the same simple concept.

Slavery was the fulcrum, but you can't dismiss out of hand the economic interests of the movers in the north and you can't discount the abstractions inherent in the Southern view either.

Cultural differences were rampant. Many of these were caused, over time, by having slavery in the South and not in the North. But not all. Some of the most important differences were caused by industrialization and immigration in the North and the resultant rise in importance of westward expansion to northerners. A strictly internal change in the North influenced very little by Southern views.

I read an editorial out of a New Orleans paper in regard to popular sovereignty. The paper was celebrating the concept.

I suspect the opinion in the South about popular sovereignty was divided. Was the New Orleans paper you saw the Picayune? The Picayune opposed secession in the fall of 1860 but later supported it completely.

Here is another opinion on popular sovereignty (or squatter sovereignty, as it was called in the South), this one from the Austin, Texas State Gazette of May 21, 1859. The State Gazette was pro-secession, and it contained numerous articles about slavery, the price of slaves across the South, the possibility of opening up slave importation from overseas again, etc. Its editor was the head of the Democratic Party in Texas.

The principle of Squatter Sovereignty allows any number of men who can first reach a U. S. Territory to set up for themselves and establish their own political institutions. If this principle were true and identified with the spirit or letter of the Constitution, it would be fatal to the South, for it would enable the populous free States to command the settlement of every future territory in existence. But it is a false as well as meretricious theory. A territory is not a mere nullias fillias -- a bastard birth. It is the offspring of the States; it is subject to their authority; it has its period of minority and majority.

Congress stands as agent for the States. It can not only prescribe the rule when it shall come into the Union, but give to it its organic law and government machinery during minority, and command that its law shall be obeyed; and while it may not force slavery upon the territory or prohibit its introduction, any more than any other kind of property -- what it cannot do the territory cannot do, while Congress has the power and must exercise it whenever demanded, to prevent the territory from destroying slave or any other property by contemptuously and vindictively refusing to give it adequate protection.

Thus stands the Democracy of Texas as a conservator and guardian of inalienable rights under the Constitution. The doctrine of squatter sovereignty is calculated to overturn all this. It concedes the right of a body of men to make a government for a territory without consulting the authority of Congress. They may do what they please. The moment that this power of Congress is withdrawn, the squatters of a territory though they be but half a dozen in number, would have a greater power than Massachusetts. They would draw their power from a source above the Constitution ...