Oh, I was about to opine something or the other but maybe I will just offer you this: You would have had to have been there to understand. Slavery was such an integral part of the economic and social fabric of the South that life without slavery was virtually unimaginable to most of the land owners. They were still aristocratic in their views and life styles. This was also the land where the duel lived on and what one said and what one implied could end in death and often did. Free speech that was contrary to popular opinion could easily result in one's imminent demise.

To most the division between the North and South was so sharply demarcated that the ultimate separation was a forgone conclusion. Many saw this as a peaceful parting of the ways. Lincoln did not. To him, the preseravtion of the Uniion was everything. He bet the nuts.

The African slave trade had been going on for hundreds of years before there ever was a United States. by and large it was conducted at the African end of things by Arab slavers, much as it still is today. The US just opened up new markets for the slavers and middlemen in the industry. The invention of the cotton gin really turned the thing into the huge business it had become right up until the "War of Northern Aggression". See, the South was at peace with its way of life.

The war was and was not about slavery. It was about the South and slavery just happened to be part of the Southern way. The North made the distinction and the South did not.

I just notice that in all the discussion above there is no real effort made to understand what was in the minds of those folks who were living through the times. They did not have the luxury of being armchair quarterbacks to the events of the day. They were making the decisions and living with the consequences day by day as things developed. We can't see our future clearly and neither could most of those who were part of the Great War Between the States. They were as smart and dumb as any today and most were doing the best they could with what they had. Had things gone the other way many of us would be sitting around and remarking about how fortuitous it was that the South won and while there would still be detractors they would be considered the oddballs. Why? Because history shape our perceptions, our culture and our interpertation of all things. And who knows? Maybe in a relaxed time, had the South won the war, slavery would have ended regardless, especially with new inventions in farming equipment and science of agriculture. We can never know if that would have been the case because that is NOT how things went.

Just a little humility from you all please, and know that those folks, for the most part were doing all they knew to try and work thing out with the limited tools of thought and compromise, of action and response and the "having never passed this way before", they had. That's all. Don't be so smug in your judgments.