Really, it was about 5% of Southern white men that owned slaves.

As for the Wikipedia article, it puts puts far too much emphasis on slaveryas a cause of the war (as most American souces do).  Slavery was one of many issues in the war, and animosity between the North and South due to other issues (taxes, tarrifs, etc.) often manifested itself through the North/South's efforts to expand the number of Free/Slave states, thus expanding each's political power in Congress.

The real issues of the Civil War (though a more fitting name would be the War Between the States, or the War of Northern Aggression) involved tariffs, the wider economy, and states rights (like the right of nullifaction, for example when South Carolina attempted to nullify the tariff of 1828, aka the Tariff of Abominations - and after the war started, the right of Secession). 

In the early 1800s, the South was really getting screwed by the North as far as the economy was concerned.  Southern farmers were the source of a vast majority of Federal income, yet the far more populous North always decided where the money went.  Things were only made worse through Northern efforts to increase import tariffs, in an attempt to make Southern farmers buy their goods from Northern manufacturers, rather than importing cheaper goods from Europe, where the Industrial Revolution had grown strong.

Tension over tariffs first came to a head through the Tariff of 1828, a tariff that raised taxes on imports to unprecedented levels, and was thus labeled the "Tariff of Abominations".  The South, particularly South Carolina, got pissed, and there were even talks of nullifying the tariff, or declaring the tariff to be null & void.  However, they didn't end up doing this, remaining optimistic that the tariff would be lowered by 1832.  The tariff of 1832, however, didn't lower the tariff near enough, so SC, under the direction of John C. Calhoun, decided to go ahead and nullify the Tariff.  They even called up the state militia to keep the Feds from collecting dues from the Tariff.  Of course, Jackson brought up the army, and SC backed down.

They did not back down in 1860, however.

When the Morill tariff (the highest tariff since the infamous Tariff of Abominations) was going through Congress in 1860, and Lincoln vowed to sign said tariff into law should he become President, the Deep South states of South Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and Texas said, "Enough!  We're out of here."  The Morrill Tariff raised import taxes to around 48% by 1868. While, not as high as the Tariff of Abomination's ~60%, it was MUCH higher than the ~20% that had become the norm during the 1850s.

It was only after Lincoln send 75,000 militia to "take back" these states that the upper South States seceded.  Virginia, North Carolina, etc. weren't to fond of what the North was doing at first, but it wasn't enough to make them leave the Union.  Once they saw that the federal government under Lincoln wouldn't even let States SECEDE, they were like, "Oh hell no!"  The rights of the State had been threatened enough.

And that's a rough summation of the beginning of the War Between the States.  Of course, American history books will always make their best efforts to demonize the South and glorify ol' Abe.  As they say, the winners write the history books.  I hear we get more of a fair shake in Europe, though.

Edit: OMG, the wikipedia article on the Tariff of Abominations is so biased.  This line in particular made me LOL: 

"When the Jackson administration failed to address its concerns, the most radical faction in South Carolina began to advocate that the state itself declare the tariff null and void within South Carolina." 

I wouldn't consider John C. Calhoun and those that elected him to be some fringe group of radicals.  And the article completely ignores SC calling up the militia.  It completely downplays the gravity of the situation.

I don't know where you learned your history.  Slavery was a point of contention between the Northern and Southern states for a long time, since the founding of the US.  The issue came to a head when new states were being added to the US and with every new state, the issue of whether or not that would be a slave state caused tensions between the slave and non-slave states.

So yes, states rights was an issue.  But the only state's right that caused that much tension was the right to have slaves.

And the war didn't officially start until the bombing of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, about 1 month after Lincoln took office.

Well I think California would be part of the Union.  If i remember correctly they were Pro Union in the Civil War.

I once read a book like that.  Was pretty good.  Was an alternate history where the South one the Civil War.  Lincoln was all broken... and they covered how everything went.

Was part of a series... I think it all goes all the way to and past World War 2.  Always wanted to read more of those books but could never remember the name of it.

The same with this book about a Quaker man, who during WW2 is forced to watch his daughter get raped by a prison commandant and strikes out at the guy in anger and then has to reconcile whether or not his faith can really work or if it's a religion of convience.

I can't ever find the names of those books.

I think I know the books you speak of.  They involve some guy going back in time to 1865 and giving AK-47s to the South, allowing them to win the war, right?

I never liked them, tbh.  They theroized that slavery would've persisted in the South until...well, until the end of the series, which as you stated went all the way up until around WWII.

The idea that slavery would've persisted much longer in the South had the Confederacy won the war, or had there been no war at all, makes little sense.  Every nation except for the US managed to bring an end to slavery through peaceful means, and the same would've inevitably happened here. Slavery was already on it's way out by the mid-1800s, going through only a short resurgance due to the invention of the cotten gin.

Hell, the Virginia House of Representatives had been holding abolitionist talkes throughout the 1850s.

Slavery would've come to an end in the US no later than 1900, and probably much earlier, had there been no war.  Same goes for the South had they managed to successfully secede.

Also, the actual war started as a direct result of Lincoln refusing to abandon Union forts littered throughout the South.  The troops at Fort Sumter were foreign forces on our soil.