I herd that the civil war (America) was not mainly faught about slavery, what was it mainly Faught over then?

Answer 1

Like most wars, it was primarily fought over money.

In the 1860s, Congress was dominated by the north (they had more seats in both the Senate and the House). But we didn't have income tax then: all revenue was from tarrifs and excise taxes, mostly on cotton and tobacco (from the south). Thus, 75% of our nation's revenue was coming from the South, but 85% of it was being SPENT in the North. (Southern taxes were financing the Industrial Revolution in the North).

Slavery was also an issue, but the South wanted to secede so they could keep their money. The north wanted them back for the same reasons.

You should read The Secessionist Papers, several Declaractions of Independence written by some of the southern states when they left the Union.

EDIT: Big Mike, below here, is incorrect about the Emancipation Proclamation. In fact, it only freed the slaves in the SOUTH. It specifically freed only the slaves in the states that were in rebellion. It was an excellent piece of political bribery, as the implication was that if the South had given up, they would have been allowed to keep their slaves. Had slavery been the only issue, the South could have given up here and been, at least, back where they were before. But since they had already found that position to be untenable, they didn't take the bribe.

Answer 2

It was fought over the rights of the States to determine their own destiny as opposed to the Federal Government holding absolute control over the State governments. While slavery was an important issue at the time, the real push for abolition came about because the northern states had few slaves, and abolition would not hurt them economically like it did the south.

Basically, the South was of the opinion that anything not specifically spelled out in the Constitution was the sole right of the States. The Federal Government, and the North felt that the Federal Government, in order to maintain the economy and the welfare of the citizens, thought that the Federal Government had a right to pass law on any subject they deem fit, and the States would have to comply. This was mainly due to the industrialized North needed interstate commerce laws that kept the individual states from excessively taxing interstate commerce. The South, having a mostly agricultural base, was not as concern with interstate commerce, and thought that the individual stated could control entirely what went into and out of the states because interstate commerce was not one of the duties of the Federal government as spelled out in the Constitution.

There are many other reasons that the Civil War came about, but it was mostly about the rights of the individual states vs. the overriding rights of the Federal government to pass sweeping, interstate law.

Answer 3

Although slavery was an issue, the main issue was States Rights. Slavery was part of that. The states maintained that they had the right over their individual citizens, and that they could pass laws that governed slavery, land ownership, etc, and the federal government could not pass laws to overrule the states laws.

Before the War, many people were more concerned with being "Virginians", "South Carolinians", etc., than being "Americans". The War made the issue of being an American more important than what state you were from.

Those who maintain that it was over slavery are only part right. Slavery was an issue -- government's part of the individual's life choices was more the issue. Not much changes in 141 years, huh?

Answer 4

The big issue was states' rights. Southern states' economies at the time depended heavily on agriculture and they claimed that they needed the slaves to continue. This turned out to be false but it was about wheter of not a state could enact laws that go againt the grain, if it's in the interest of said state to do so. The North felt that there was a point where states' rights ended and the common good and welfare of the federal government should prevail.

Answer 5

The War of Northern Aggression was fought for state's rights as mentioned above. But it was a different time, the Federal Government was much weaker than now, and the states did pretty much govern themselves, until the issue of slavery came about.

Answer 6

The Civil War can be easily summed up as this....are you a citizen of your state first and the nation second, or America first and your state second?

The south believed the former, whilst the union the latter. it gets into who has the primary regulatory responsibility. The union won, so they imposed their view. Had the south marched north after the 1st Bull Run, things would be different. (There were Blacks that fought on the side of the South as well as the North. Latinos fought on both sides. It was brother against brother as it was a war of ideology.

Answer 7

The Southern states didn't want Washington telling them what to do. The people who rewrote history say it was slavery, but in fact, the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in the NORTH and not the south. Many of the slave owners in the north east kept their slaves until the late 1870's.

Many of the signers of the Constitution were slave owners from the North and held out to the last before freeing their slaves.

Answer 8

States rights, the south thought the federal government should have no say in its laws. Slavery was legal in these states but the feds wanted to end it. Seems to me the south has always been that way, I remember George Wallace standing on the steps of the University of Alabama and declaring that the federal government had no right to end racial segregation. States rights is probably the biggest reason.

Answer 9

The war was fought to preserve the Union. Slavery was an issue with the expansion of the west (which new states/ territories would be slave holding/free states) and various laws threatened to take slavery from new slave states and instate it in free states. The South used this as one of their reasons in succeeding, to preserve their "way of life."
Lincoln said in his inaugural address: “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to ‘preserve, protect, and defend’ it." The was started about a month later.

Answer 10

the south wanted out and to form their own government for some of the same reasons the American colonies wanted to break from England in the revolutionary war, but the north wouldn't let them and kept trying to tell them what to do. the whole slavery thing was just to make it all the more emotional. slavery would have run its course an died out on its own, it was already well on its way