Some say that slavery was not the cause of the Civil War. But without slavery it never would have occurred.
Much as I hate to say it, slavery was the root cause of Southern Secession. Any look at a map of the southern states shows that the cotton belt states all seceded as soon as Lincoln was elected. All the rest waited to see what was going to happen. The fact that they remained in the union until the government started the war kinda proves that the war was a result of government coercion of the states! Slavery never entered the equation until after the Emancipation Proclamation was released in the fall of 1862. The war was already a year and a half old, and even then, emancipation was only a carrot and stick approach to ending the war. Slave ownership was still protected in states and sections of the confederacy under federal control. Freeing the slaves was only a secondary consideration to the government's war policy. In fact, Lincoln actually relieved 3 Union Commanders for giving orders freeing slaves in their districts! Emancipation only came about as a result of the loophole General Ben Butler discovered by declaring escaped slaves as "Contraband of War". He assumed (rightly) that holding escaped slaves instead of returning them (as was SOP) was actually weakening the Confederate war effort! 7mm
"Preserving the Constitution, fighting off the nibblers and chippers, even nibblers and chippers with good intentions, was once regarded by conservatives as the first duty of the citizen. It still is." � Wesley Pruden
