Reply #77: Read the Articles of Secession. South Carolina's will do. Most of the seceeding states

[No Elephants]

followed South Carolina's lead. http://alpha.furman.edu/~benson/docs/decl-sc.htm

BTW, SteveM never said slavery was the only cause of the civil war. However, here's a list of the alleged top 5 causes of the civil war.

http://americanhistory.about.com/od/civilwarmenu/a/cause_civil_war.htm

Each of the five items comprising the list has at its core the issue of slavery, including "states' rights" which was about the "right" of each state to make its own decision about the abomination of slavery, as the articles of secession demonstrate.

Later, as you probably now, "states' rights" was often used in an attempt to justify Jim Crow laws. Schmuck McCain even used it to justify his opposition to making Martin Luther King day a holiday. Goldwater did something similar. "States' rights" sounds so much more socially acceptable--P.C.--than "let states discriminate against them coloreds as much as they damn please."

Fact: Slavery was an abomination. (Still is.)

Fact: Slavery existed in the U.S.

Fact: Slavery found its way into the U.S. and into the U.S. Constitution largely because of the South.

Fact: Economically, for the South, slavery was a hell of a lot more significant than any tax ever imposed by the U.S.

Fact. Slavery, especially the issue of extension of slavery into the territories, was a major cause of the Civil War.

Fact: There was a holocaust in Germany and people deny that, too. But, neither denials nor spinning nor revisionism changes history.

I note that you (or your screen name, anyway) have all of 1876 posts in almost three years. I've noticed similar things about posters (or screen names) who show up on threads like this to defend the honor of the South as to the Civil War and/or the South's nostalgia about that era. Not sure exactly what I conclude from it, but I sure have noticed it.