The Civil War was far more than a slavery issue...........The deep divisions had been going on many issues way before it went to blows................Mostly on the South not having a voice..............The North had the large population and were Industrial, while the South relied on farming..........aka cotton..........with a much smaller population.............the South basically had no chance whatsoever in the House of Representatives...........
Yes, and that larger population was responsible for Lincoln's election as an entirely regional candidate in a three way race. Lincoln, Seward and Fremont were representing big northern businesses and lobbying for huge Federal subsidies for railroads and protectionist tariffs for the financial interests the Republican Party was formed to represent, and of course wanted to pass the costs burdens off mostly on the Southern states, for 'national improvements' they wouldn't benefit from at all economically.
.and the North imposed laws that pissed off the South. Secession was talked about in 1820..............
Yes, in 1828, over the same reasons, higher taxes and tariffs that would fall very unequally on southerners. Before that secession was often a cry; the New England states threatened to secede several times before, and during, the War of 1812 for the same reasons; they felt they were carrying more than their share of the Federal tax burdens at the time, too. They were sniveling at the time that the Federal spending benefitted Virginia and the mid-Atlantic states instead of their own states.
We already know abolitionists didn't make up a majority of the Republican Party, and we already know the North had slave states, and we already know what the Republican Congresses and Senators wanted by what bills they concentrated on first, and none of them were about ' ending slavery n stuff'. Cherry pick cites from grandiose, pompous, and self-serving political speeches all you want, they mean little or nothing about the true motivations of those making the laws, any more than they mean anything today; it was about money and getting rid of political obstacles to loot the Federal Treasury and carry pork back home, and get bribes from big business.
Need more evidence of Republican motivations? See the blatant corruption of the Reconstruction farce, the Black Codes in the North that prevented blacks from migrating to northern states, including Lincoln's own Illinois, after the war, along with the corruption and cronyism during the war itself in supplying the Federal armies, in the Johnson and Grant adminstrations. Also see Lincoln going against his own Cabinet in deliberately provoking the war over Fort Sumter, with only his Postmaster General appointee supporting that illegal action, the rest being opposed, including General Winfield Scott and Seward himself being opposed to that. Lincoln was going to go to war, no matter what; it was the only way to remove southern political opposition to the railroad bills, massive tariff increases, and 'Homestead Act' scams to support the railroads subsidies.
The war was over two divergent sets of wealthy financial interests and the political power exerted by those interests, and nothing more.
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