A discourse about the causes of the War or Northern Agression.

How connected is slavery with the cause of the "War of Northern Agression"?

I'll just leave this simple question to be discussed through-out this thread.

I was originally going to post a different thread, and had written much but decided my original idea was too narrow and needed to be more broadly discussed.

To me, I don't think slavery was even remotely a key issue, I believe it was kindling for a fire and nothing more. A part of the causes, that without, the Civil War may still have happend, but also it may have been averted. If anyone thinks that slavery had nothing to do with the cause of the Civil War aka War Between the States aka War of Northern Aggression, do try and ellaborate as I can not figure how without slavery the war would be anything short (if it would happen at all) of the North attempting to seceed to protect its industry from the agrarian States.

Also, how important was slavery to the causes of the Civil War, and to the consequences of it?

I believe here that slavery merely gave a cover to an atrocious crime, while the slaves were freed the Union, the States, and thus all the people of the nation became enslaved to their Federal masters.

the war of northern aggression! wow! ihavent heard that term since my last ConfederateChicksQuarterly meeting!

To me, in my studies at least, slavery was a bonus (kind of like oil in the iraq war). It did play a key role eventually, but in the beginning was nothing more of a sidenote.

Well semi-complex analysis would involve understanding the attempt by the Southern States to maintain control of the Senate (their last hope).

They only had enough Senators to block a veto, which meant if a President was elected that would not support Southern Rights (by opposing Northern Industrial Protective Tariffs) the South could do nothing about it.

If the President vetoed and the Northern States tried to turn that veto around, they could do so in the House but not the Senate, hence the importance of having such a President.

When Lincoln was elected, the chances for such a President went out the window, the Republicans were like the "Greens" of today, they were fanatical about smashing slavery, and after the Civil War, smashing the South entirely.

And after the Civil War, the banishments of many Democrats from Congress was living proof of that.

(In support of modern Republicans, the ideologue mentality has switched to the Democrats, who are now avid centralists in an effort to establish a socialist state.)

I feel like making a thread purely for discussing how "America lost the Civil War".

I think it can be likened to freeing any type of peoples from repression. The problem is, how would America have ultimately stopped the passage of the 14th with the military stationed and appointing people in the South. Not to mention throwing out the politicians in Washington.
Ultimately, it would have been up to the people to change things. But they didn't. People stand idly by while any number of horrendous things will happen. The point is, if people don't realize the reprocussions for certain legislation, then such laws will be passed under the guise of motives that appear righteous. This is what happened with the America I think. The people ultimately let things change by not acting when all of the people who had the same agenda decided to change things. But there is no point dwelling in the past as you said. We must do something about it now. Such as contacting our politicians. Maybe even a third party whose main objective is to allow for the overturn of the 14th and 18th.

But all in all, I think the Patriot Act is another piece of such legislation silently chipping away from what this country stood for. There is no point waiting to see if the bill sets. We need to urge our congressman to turnover this legislation once and for all.

We need to stop letting the progress with this alternative agenda. Only when we stop this seemingly constant flow, can we return America back to its foundings...