He’s right Einstein....The civil war was about states rights and the power of the states in most cases guaranteed by the Constitution being usurped by an overzealous Federal govt.
Slavery entered the discussion because it was expedient for Lincoln to make it so but it was nothing ever other than a secondary issue.
Which “state’s right” in particular?
What powers were being usurped by the overzealous Federal govt.?
Why don’t you tell us of another “right” that was in danger, that should be fun. Remember or look it up the federal government was TINY in 1860 and we barely had an army.
The Emancipation Proclamation was signed on January 1st, 1863. LINK
It seems to me an argument could be made that if the war had been about slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation would have been issued early on after the war started.
I have read that the war had grown unpopular, and funds were running so short that Lincoln faced not being able fund his war effort, and that was why he offered up the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863.
Seems a bit of an afterthought in desperate times.
I've never quite been convinced the war was as much about slavery as dynamics surrounding states rights. Of course the two were probably intertwined as well.
The Civil War is something folks will discuss with vigor for the life of the Republic.
When folks carp about slavery and why it wasn't addressed at the inception of our nation, the Civil war is worthy of mention regarding states rights and slavery.
It is crystal clear that if Slavery had been addressed at our founding, there would be no United States today, at least not as we traditionally think of it.
Some Northern states exercised their states' rights by declining to vigorously enforce the federal Fugitive Slave Act.
Southern states, upset about this, seceded and formed their own federal government, under whose constitution the states were prohibited from making their own decisions about slavery.
So the war was about states' rights.
The Union was the states' rights side.
Have you read any of the Constitutions of the seceding states?
You should seek out and vote for candidates that share your point of view.
But the vast majority of people who have studied history disagree.
Somebody tell Cory...
Initial secessions were caused by belief that the Lincoln administration would try to abolish slavery. Hot heads in South Carolina ordered the US Army to leave Fort Sumter which they regarded as sovereign SC territory (in Charleston harbor). When the commander refused they were ejected by force (”firing on fort Sumter”). That action was the basis for Lincoln raising an army to force the rebellious states to return to the Union (”preserve the Union”) which, in turn, resulted in the raising of a southern army and the secession of most of the rest of the slave holding states. So the answer is that the penultimate cause was slavery, but the final cause, and the reason for starting the war was states rights (i.e., leaving the union... secession and state versus national sovereignty)