Originally posted by JaTo:


Anyone that's read more than a pop-up book on the Civil War should know that state's rights was the MAIN cause behind it. The bickering back and forth between many of the Southern States and the Federal Government at that time was something that spanned DECADES before the start of the war. Slavery was a polarizing issue between a number of states and later on the the two governments, yes, but not the main one, though it's the one that gets the most press in middle and high-school texts, due to it's simplicity in representation and explaination of the events that occured around that time. As usual, there are TONS of details that get left out that otherwise would give a more complete picture of what the Civil War was REALLY about, and it didn't revolve around slavery. Period.




If slavery wasn't in the US during that time would there have been a civil war? I don't think so. They would've found another way of solving the problem other than war.

Of course the argument on states rights started way before the war came to play, but the argument on rights was directly/indirectly about the southern states rights to use a different set of laws towards non-whites (slavery), which protected slave labor because it was their (the southern) way of life and their economy depended on it.

That conflict over states rights dates back to the argument over the Negro Seaman's Act which SC was using to bar black controlled ships from coming to port (or enslaving them if they did), in addition the Coasting Act was an issue because some states weren't recognizing the fed government's power to grant port access to any ship with the fed permit. Which further raised tensions about fed regulating commerce. All of this was tied to interstate commerce....which was one of the main points the fed government felt they could regulate. The south feared that if the fed could reguwere able to regulate this the south feared that they would be able to end slavery.

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