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Secession was more about slavery in the deep South states, whereas it was less about slavery as you move geographically farther from the deep South areas.

But, still, the smaller the percentage of slaves and slaveowners, the less likely it was that a state would join the rebellion. That's a pretty good wholesale indicator, though of course, it can't account for everything.

You can not make the statement "The Southern states seceded over slavery" and give a clear picture of the whole.

So far as I can make out, historians tend to avoid blanket statements like that, and look at the actual details of the conflict. Nonetheless, it is quite clear that without slavery and the perceived threat to it, there woud have been no secession and no war.

It's not a black and white answer. Very few things are.

Undoubtedly. In history few things happen because of one and only one reason, but the connection between slavery and secession in starting the Civil War is clearer than the reasons for many other conflicts.

Nonetheless, it is quite clear that without slavery and the perceived threat to it, there woud have been no secession and no war.

Sure. Don't get me wrong, its my opinion that slavery was the fulcrum, the prime mover.

But I think its fairly meaningless to use the criteria of "the war would not have happened if"....as the determinant of causation. I would posit that if the program of industrialization and resultant immigration in the north had not occurred that northern sentiments would have been damped as they had been for decades before living with slavery as a neighbor. Thus no war and no secession. Just because I believe this is true does not lead me to say "industrialization and immigration is the ultimate cause".

I can say that turning on a faucet is the cause of water running in my sink. It is true in the immediate sense. But I am discounting the fact that there are people at a pumping station somewhere without whom my faucet turning wouldn't matter much.

The only thing I am advocating here is a holistic view. Just because we live in a world where everything has to be explained in a thirty second soundbite on tv does not mean that we must boil the most complex political and social event in our history into a soundbite within our own minds. It leads to stupid "yes it is", "no it isn't" arguments that really have little meaning.

...or it could just be a spurious correlation that hasn't been demonstrated under reputable statistical scrutiny.