Jerks in History

[Eva Elisabeth]

(11-22-2013 04:52 PM)My Name Is Kate Wrote:  

(11-22-2013 10:32 AM)Gene C Wrote:  Not surprised, but I did't know that. Where did you read that?

I think for most people slavery was the real issue, although many of them did not have a strong enough feeling to go to war over it.

I read that on Wikipedia.

I'm sure there were individual exceptions, but overall I have a hard time believing that slavery was the real issue for the North simply because they did not also believe in equal rights for all races. The Brooks/Sumner incident probably galvanized anti-Southern sentiment at least as much as it did anti-slavery sentiment.

Slavery was the method the South used to hold on to political power, was it not? It gave wealthy land-owning slaveholders an additional 3/5 vote per slave, and that was enough to tilt political power in the South's favor. At least, that is my understanding.

I think it's inappropriate to speak of "the North" or "the real issue". I think the slavery issue rooted in all these aspects (economic, political - regarding the slaves owners over-representation in the votes - and human ones), with individually (even amongst politicians) different proportions. However, one aspect might have been dominant, still the others (I believe) had their share, too.