How can anyone doubt that slavery was the BIGGEST reason for the war?

[mattw]

I'm new here but I find some of the posting about slavery being a minor cause of the Civil War to be mind boggling. If it was about States' rights, it was the states' right to own slaves. More specifically, it was about the not allowing slavery to spread.

Just look at at what Southern leaders said to justify leaving the union. Georgia's declaration of secession starts with:

"The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slaveholding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. "

What follows is about 3 pages of rhetoric about slavery.

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/georgia_declaration.asp

Try Mississippi of you think Georgia's reasoning was isolated:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world"

Again, the document stating why they want to leave the union is almost exclusively devoted to the issue of not being allowed to spread slavery to the newly acquired territories taken from Mexico in 1848.

Ditto for South Carolina and South Carolina:

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/southcarolina_declaration.asp

http://www.civil-war.net/pages/texas_declaration.asp

But what do these guys know? It was really about taxes.

[Electron]

Research points to the root cause of the Civil War as money. Freeing slaves was a byproduct. However, since the cause was popular, politicians took advantage of it to mask their true intentions...to tax the South and get their money.

[Natty]

If slavery was such a BIG reason for the war, why didn't the Union states free their slaves before they invaded the South? In fact some Union states even kept slavery after the war was over.

Lincoln said he invaded the South to collect their taxes.

[blueshawk1]

Lordy, lordy, lordy, I can't believe anyone still believes it was all about slavery, well, actually, yes, I can, since it's been drilled into people's head since the end of the war.

One poster wants to use quotes, here's one for you;
Jefferson Davis himself is quoted as having said that slavery was due to die a natural death.
Or quote the Confederate Constitution that prohibited the importation of slaves.

If the Union was fighting to end slavery than why did three northern states pass laws prohibiting free slaves from settling there. And the general feeling throughout the north was they didn't want them settling there.
Guess they could be free as long as they didn't have to deal with them.

Did you know that not one slave ship flew a southern flag? That's right, they were northerners flying U.S. flags.

Do you know the real purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation - it was to make the war about slavery to keep England and France from backing the Confederacy. And it almost backfired on Lincoln because the northerners, both soldier and civilian were near ready to call it quits if that's what it was going to be about.

The Union soldiers were fighting to keep the Union one, the Confederates were fighting for independence from a government that was becoming oppressive. Lincoln and his government wanted the war because they couldn't afford to lose the money from the south.

What people have been led to believe is the result of the winner getting to determine how the history is told, and in our current times, there's the P.C. issue.

[leftyhunter]

Linclon in his inagaural address made it very clear that if the South did not secede the govt would make not effort to take away their slaves. The emancipation proclamation did not apply to loyal state that were not in repellion such has Maryland, KY and MO. The Emancipation proclomation was a war measure because it caused slaves to flee north depriving the CSA of labor and it allowed the Union to recruit Afro-Americans into the US Coulored Troop a win win for the North. Its hard to understand the North was oppressing the South argument because the role of the federal govt was very small back then and if the South did not rebel they could of kept their slaves.
Leftyhunter

[tineak99]

"if the South did not rebel they could of kept their slaves."

Then you agree that the South did not secede over slavery and the federal government did not wage war to free slaves.

From South Carolina's Declaration of Causes of Secession:

"These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the *forms* [emphasis in the original] of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. "

[Natty]

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857) commonly referred to as the Dred Scott decision, was a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves (or their descendants,[2] whether or not they were slaves) were not protected by the Constitution and could never be U.S. citizens.[3] The court also held that the U.S. Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories and that, because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court. Lastly, the Court ruled that slaves, as chattels or private property, could not be taken away from their owners without due process.

This was the law of the US, not just the South.

There was still slavery in Northern or Union states. MD, DE, KY, MO, and even New Jersey still had slavery after the War started.

I hope the hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers who fought and even died to "free the slaves" were not so ignorant that they didn't know they still had slavery in their home states.