# Was the U.S. Civil War all about slavery? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 23, 2010, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432 "2010-05-23T03:36:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 145
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432/145 "2010-05-27T14:25:52Z")
> [@ed malin](#): > > Is this some intellectual argument about sovereignty? I have seen the answer that Slavery Deniers would provide. Do not bother trying to draw your immoral distinctions to me. Frankly, I have been overly tolerant of you so far. I have given you the benefit of the doubt that you are mistaken. I will accept your apologies and retractions, but I will not waste my time waiting for them. I call upon the honest and decent members of the SDMB to use your intellect to fight them. Call them out not just on their inaccuracies, but for their lack of morals. Does the Straight Dope fight ignorance by giving it a home? Answer this for yourselves. You know, I am on your side of this discussion, but you are letting your personal feelings take you over the top, here. The idea that those who incorrectly argue for a “states rights” motivation for the secession do so from a perspective of dishonesty or moral turpitude is not supportable without a significant amount of evidence that you have not presented, (and which is, frankly, not available to you). One might, with sufficient research, provide evidence that the people who initially proposed the “states rights” argument might have done so with a deliberate intention to obscure the truth. (I doubt that there is sufficient evidence that you could actually prove that point, but will concede the possibility for the sake of argument.) Making the assumption that people who, following 150 years of accumulated argument for that position, and being led by the arguments to a conclusion different from yours and mine are, themselves, dishonest, is not supportable. Beyond that, of course, your diatribe, here, whatever your motivation, is way too close to a personal attack on other posters. Having made your feelings known, you will now confine further attacks on other posters to the BBQ Pit. [/Moderating] --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-u-s-civil-war-all-about-slavery/540432)._