Read the Confederate States letters of secession, it's easy to say all of this, they fought for slavery. That's hardly free. There is not one mention of that word in what you wrote.
http://civilwarcauses.org/corner.htm
That's making a silk purse from a sow's ear if ever there was one. Talk about sugar coating things.
Your argument is in the first place completely irrelevant because I'm talking about the definition of "civil war," not the cause of the American "Civil War." It is inarguable that the Confederates were *not* fighting to control the Federal government, they were fighting to leave it. The reasons they wanted to leave are irrelevant to the definition of "civil war."
And in the second place you are factually incorrect, although certainly in today's majority. The states of the deep south *did* secede from the union to preserve slavery, and they *did* write a constitution for their own confederacy which required slavery. But they did not declare war on the union. The war took place because Lincoln insisted on it, insisting on war rather than the freedom of people to govern themselves, even if their culture was corrupted by a practice we now recognize as a hideous sin. The Confederates did not fight for slavery, they fought for their own right to determine their own affairs. They fought because they were invaded. Had Lincoln not waged war against the Confederates there would have been no American "Civil War." And had he not begun raising an army the states of the upper south would not have seceded.
You are certainly correct that *some* of the articles of secession identify slavery as the cause of secession (note : not of war). Mississippi for example was absolutely clear about it. Georgia, Texas, and even South Carolina were less clear, but I will readily concede that the Confederate States of America were formed to preserve slavery. What about Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee? Can you cite their "letters of secession" and demonstrate that they fought for slavery? More to the point, can you cite a declaration of war, of the Confederate States against the Union, stating that the Confederates *fought the war* to preserve slavery?
In fact
@TomSea the reference to which you link, a speech by Alexander Hamilton Stephens, says this :
"Our object is peace, not only with the North, but with the world. All matters relating to the public property, public liabilities of the Union when we were members of it, we are ready and willing to adjust and settle upon the principles of right, equity, and good faith. War can be of no more benefit to the North than to us."
Many here on TBR will reject my argument, and consider me fundamentally treasonous or even racist. The verdict of history, right or wrong, came in long ago, and I have no desire for lengthy debates over a subject now relegated to mere academic consideration. I won't defend the Confederacy's foundation on slavery. That is a fact and it is indefensible. But I won't let pass a position which is demonstrably false, no matter that Lincoln raised it in his Second Inaugural, and regardless of how widely accepted and sacrosanct it is now considered. Why were union armies on Confederate soil from the spring of 1861 until the Emancipation Proclamation took effect January 1 1863? Clearly it wasn't to end slavery, because there was no law, ordinance, or other order in place to end slavery. So why was there a war for those 21 months? Why, and more importantly *where*, were those men in grey fighting?
