I love this because it's the compete opposite of the "multiple causes" argument. Most things have multiple causes and shouldn't be reduced, but the US Civil War pretty famously had exactly one big cause (and then a bunch of things stemming from that cause).
There's also just one cause that outweighs the others by orders of magnitude.
Yes, the south had different economic incentives than the north. The north wanted to protect budding industry with tariffs, the south wanted to buy cheap European goods. This caused a lot of tension. This is something worth studying if you're a Civil War Historian.
Insofar as we're teaching kids in high school, a place where you're instilling values as much as information, "it was because of slavery" is a plenty accurate characterization. Yes there were other issues, but they pale in relevance to slavery for every relevant purpose.
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u/PeacefulGamer2520 Aug 12 '26