While to the North slavery was the main issue to Southerners it was much more complex.
They saw their power slipping away with the might going away form the agricultural regions and going to the industrial.
Slavery was a litmus test to some as to whether a state would favor agriculture or the more industrial orientation of the North East.
Trade laws and customs fees were as big a part of States Rights at the time as slavery.
To the planters, being able to sell goods to England for higher prices was a big motivation. Something the North Eastern mill owners wanted stopped.
Slavery may have been a defining issue for some but not most of those who served. People of the time felt more patriotism for their State than the Federal Government. Preserving the Union was a stronger issue than slavery. States Rights drew recruits to the Southern cause from California to New Jersey.
Racism was no issue at all. Most whites felt that blacks were inferior by nature and hatred of blacks was more common in the North than in the South.
We find atrocities committed against blacks by both sides. CSA forces against Black Union Regiments, and Union Forces against contraband, meaning unarmed slaves. There was also violence in the North against Free or Freed blacks as they saw them as the cause of the war.
It was fought for the same reasons of most wars. Richmen on both sides manipulating the populations to achieve their ends.
Slavery is just the most popular excuse of the time.
Originally Posted by :
wikiquote:
Sam Houston was probably the premier "Unionist" in Texas. Like most of the same in the South, he strongly believed in the doctrine of states rights, and even assured his fellow Texans he would personally lead the state out of the Union should matters justify such. However, he thought secession at the moment in time was "rash action," and certain to lead to a conflict sure to favor– in the long run– the industrial and populated North. He predicted: "Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives you may win Southern independence if God be not against you, but I doubt it. The North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery impulsive people as we are...but once they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum of a mighty avalanche, and what I fear is that they will overwhelm the South with ignoble defeat."
Houston accepted the result of the secession convention, but, believing, along with his strong attachment to the old Union, it had overstepped its authority in becoming a member state of the newly formed Confederacy, refused to take an oath of allegiance, and was deposed from office.
Houston's later feelings are hard to gauge. He retired from public life, although his son and namesake distinguished himself in Confederate service. Houston later wrote a friend: "There comes a time a man's section is his country...I stand with mine. I was a conservative citizen of the United States...I am now a conservative citizen of the Southern Confederacy.
If you want to be a modern day dupe of propaganda then yes...you can say it was about slavery.
edit:Subotan:
I think your interpretation of the Constitutions is flawed
It sets limits on federal power not on the power of the States. Those things left out are within the power of the States to determine.
The first amendment listing the bill of rights was only an enumeration of the rights the States could not take from their people.
All of it was intentionally vague.