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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 5823606" data-attributes="member: 177">While wikipedia is by no means definitive, it is often a good starting place for investigation.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War#Causes_of_secession" target="_blank">American Civil War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</a>Issues at the time were somewhat more complicated than, "can we have slaves".  There was growing schism between North and South in terms of economy, culture, and political values.  There was conflict over not just whether states that allowed slavery could continue, but whether slavery would be allowed in new states as the Union grew.  This tied into the cultural split - Southerners wondered if their culture would be allowed to grow, or if it would get fenced in and marginalized, and whether their needs were going to be represented on the Federal level going forward.  There was conflict over whether a slave-owner could travel to the North with slaves, and retain what he felt to be his property.  There was conflict over whether property in new territories would be bought by wealthy slave-owners and worked by slave labor, or owned and worked by individual "yeoman farmers".Ultimately, there was conflict over whether it was legal to leave the Union.  The Constitution contained no provision for such. To many people at the time, this was often as important a question as the issue of slavery.  If you asked a Northern soldier of the time why he was fighting, he would probably answer, "to preserve the Union," not, "to abolish slavery."</blockquote>

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