(08-14-2017, 07:26 PM)TJBender Wrote: The Civil War was fought over money and power. The northern states were growing in both wealth and influence because they had growing industries while the southern states waned because they were falling behind and had no industry to speak of. The southern states thrived on agriculture, and agriculture was only good business if labor was free, so they were naturally dependent upon slavery. With free states gaining in power, the southern US saw its only real method of maintaining a competitive economy being stripped away and leaving it in the dust, and in a hissy fit following the 1860 election, they took up arms against their fellow Americans (treason). It wasn't a war about racism or white power--there was plenty of that going on regardless of which side of the Mason-Dixon line one was on--but it was absolutely 100% about slavery. Without slavery, the south was an economic wasteland, so the southern states committed treason on a grand scale to protect their right to enslave others.