"There would have been no need for secession without slavery, no decades of deeply divisive politcal contention that built up so much hatred, no abolitionists for certain, and without secession there'd have been no war. "
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Now about this latest post about Lincoln:
I understand the reasoning you are driving at with this quote, but I again have to revert to my previous answer repeated above, and ask you:
If slaves had never been brought to these shores, would we have had this war anyway? I myself do not believe slavery was a red herring, or even a pretext of some sort. I think it was a real issue, a heated one, and with decades of escalating violence and incredible rhetoric from both sides, all that had just happened in the struggles in Kansas and Missouri, it was not just some non-issue. Folks weren't burning each others towns in Kansas over constitutional philosophy.