Bryan, good post. And your motives are not now, nor have they ever been in question. Like Jim stated in his reply, the question over the cause of the war has been beat to death. I generally listen to anyone's veiws,except when I hear "Slavery did not have anything to do with the war" or "Slavery was the only cause of the war".
As to that "certain professor", I can not see the words Poison Spring without that "certain professor" coming to mind. It is bad enough if an amateur historian such as myself twists history to fit a personal veiw. It is a crime when a professional historian does the same and teaches young people to believe a warped interpetation of history. And to those that will argue that this does no harm, I would point out what happened in Germany in the 1930's.
Time to climb down off the soapbox.

Chuck Lee