Quote:We're going to get off track here, but slavery was a product of the larger issue they where leaving over. Yes Slavery was an issue, it was not the issue. Lincoln didn't even want to free the slaves and he said so. It was about where the final authority comes from the individual sovereign states or a federal centralized government. The point is he's making a false equivalence to try and justify War by proxy.

 

No, no no.  Again, that is ridiculous.   The only reason anyone cared about states' rights was because some states wanted the right to have slaves.  That was the reason for the argument over states' rights.   Slavery.  

 

The reason Lincoln said he didn't want to free the slaves was because that was the reason the Southern states were leaving: they thought he was going to try to end slavery.   Of course he denied it, because he was trying to stop them from seceding.   But the war started because the Southern states seceded, and the reason they seceded, in their own words, was to defend slavery.  

 

You make it sound like there was some academic debate about states rights that got out of control and led to a war.   Wars don't start over issues like the role of the federal government vs the states.  No one cares about that issue unless there is a reason to care about it (slavery). 

 

If you look at the entire history of the era of the 1850s, the country was consumed by the issue of slavery.   It's all anyone talked about.  

---