@ManusJustus: You and Mafoo are pretty close to each other with your view on the matter.

When we talk about reason being slavery, we are talking about the reason being human rights.

There were political and financial reasons for the civil war that some of them culminated in the use of slaves. That's what both of you actually are saying.

i think they are arguing about the predominant/root cause of the civil war, which was indeed slavery. But there were different reasons/motives for either upholding/abolishing slavery, predominantly economic (cotton industry, economic interests) & political (state rights, proper govt representation etc)...there were also social reasons but these were in the minority.

And there is no posable way that it's be labeled about Slavery to make the north seem more honorable?

Here is a tid bit of information that some might find interesting. Many people think that before the 1600's, it was common knowledge that when Columbus sailed in 1492, everyone knew there was land there. It had been discovered well over 100 years prior. But the Spanish wanted Columbus to be the "founder of the new world", so they propagated that "truth", so for hundreds of years, we have been teaching in wrong.

We know the right answer today, but it would shock most people to know we knew the right answer 500 years ago too.. but people were effective at changing history.

So... as you say, believe what you will...

The difference between what he is saying, and what I am saying, is this:

I think if at that time, they had picked something as sweeping as abolishing slavery, we would have the same result. The states that seceded were fed up with federal government take over of there rights.

ManusJustus is saying that no other issue would have caused this. That the war was over slavery alone. 

I think in the next 50 years, the US might prove him wrong, as I think it will happen again, and it will have nothing to do with Slavery.

Institutions that do not change will perish, no matter how solid the foundation. The constitution has survived longer as a willow than it would have as petrified wood.

No, he said that slavery was the main cause of this specific war. If healthcare instead of slavery was the issue, than healthcare is the main cause of the civil war. And there are motives/reasons for supporting/not supporting whatever the major issue are (healthcare or slavery), these reasons than subsequently drove america to civil war. What you are assuming however is, no matter what the issue is, these reasons (eg state rights) will remain the same or remain the most significant drive behind a civil war.

What Mafoo is saying is, that in order to have people's support to something like war, you need to give them a "larger than life" reason for the war. In general, there are only two reasons behind any war:

1. Money

2. Power

In my earlier post, i wrote that some things that resulted into civil war culminated in slavery.

Slaves were cheap workforce in the south, which is why the economics of the south relied on the slaves.

South wanted to sell the cotton they produced to Europe, but north insisted, that the cotton should be refined first at the factories of the north.

South wanted all the states being autonomic, while the north wanted an union with centered government.

If we look the situation preceding the the civil war, it's really a no brainer to see that the south was getting the short end of the stick. Basically they were put into the same situation as the developing countries are today - they were just producing low-margin products for the rich.

Here's the catch. With the union politics (that was supporting north due to them being bigger) that basically forced south to sell the cotton to north, instead of Europe, south indeed needed the slavework. But if the states had become independent and south could have sold their cotton to anybody for the same price, the slavery would've been pretty obsolete. But, the cheap cotton of the south was too important for the industry of the north to let go.

Now, IF the south had been bigger than the north, south had not wanted to leave the union, because they had been in charge and the union would drive their interest.

Gettting back to the excuse - which one do you think is the better one:

These are evil people and have slaves

or

These fucks don't do as we tell them to

Slavery was the last straw, right. So slavery burst the bubble of accumulated problems, that drove america to civil war. So technically speaking, slavery was the cause of this specific civil war. But this is from a face-value perspective, if you look at a it holistically, than of course youre going to find deeper reasons/motives than what is presented at face value (slavery). I guess it all depends on how you view the issue.

Slavery was not outlawed, until 1865, and the 14th amendment. A year after the civil war was over.

So Slavery was not the cause of the war, as it was legal all the way up to, and through the war. The way slavery could factor into it, was the south might of been worried the the Union one day would outlaw it, and chose to not live under a government with that much power over them, but there was no law on slavery that forced there hand.

So change the constitution. Deeming it unimportant because it's to hard to change, will be what causes this country to perish.