I'd say the Civil War was about slavery the same way WWII was about fascism--the casus belli wasn't that one side held slaves or that one side was fascist, but having fascists control a couple of central European countries leads to war the same way having a pseudo-aristocratic slave-owning social structure in the same country as a free-labor capitalist society leads to inevitable divisions and attempted secession.
The South was a deeply evil society even then--plantation owners were hereditary lords in all but name, except their slaves were mere chattel rather than serfs, and everyone in the middle were exactly that.
Partially yes, but 1860 was the most divisive Presidential election in history. The Republican strategy was basically to punt on the South and run on an entirely pro-Northern/Western platform. Notably, the Republicans ran on a platform putting tariffs on foreign machinery, requiring raw materials to be processed in America before being shipped, granting free farmland in the federally owned West (instead of selling it), and support for a Northeast/Western railroad. All of those were unpalatable to the South. The tariffs protected Northern industry at the expense of making it more expensive for Southerns. Not letting raw cotton be shipped overseas until it was sent to the North for processing was going to be a nightmare.
The free land would again reduce the price of inputs to Northern factories by producing more agriculture, at the expense of the South. Mind you, the South had also been a part of paying for and fighting for Western lands in the various purchases and wars, and now the land they'd bought/fought for was going to be given away, which would also lower the prices of their crops.
And so on, and so on. Lincoln carried zero southern states, zero border states. He took all of the Northeast and West Coast.
I agree with you on the deeply evil society thing, 100% agreement. Just that's not why the war started. Or, it's one small component of it. Slavery was ended without a massive violent conflict in most civilized places and could have been ended that way in the USA, and besides, the Civil War was only partially about slavery. Lincoln's entire platform was anti-South, he ran his campaign similar to Bush II: That is, punt entirely on large parts of the country and try to win core demographics. The tariffs, shipping laws, giving federally owned lands for free, and railroads were all pro-Northern measures and somewhat hostile to the South. Lincoln didn't even want to end slavery, as you'll see in his inauguration speech. The way they teach the Civil War in American high school, as sort of a moral fight, is entirely wrong - it was about politics, money, and empire. But anyways, I'm on the North's side for the Civil War, glad they did it, and glad they won. But we should all understand the real root causes of it. It wasn't fought for morality's sake.
Tariffs in particular were an issue between North and South forever, most notably in the nullification crisis, where South Carolina "nullies" petitioned their states to "nullify" the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations". The legal theory at the time was that the states had the power to nullify federal law, so if you were in California and California legalized medicinal marijuana (hey!) the federal government had no legal power to enforce drug laws[1]. Andrew Jackson and the U.S. Army put a quick end to that idea. (This confrontation also put to an end the service of South Carolinian Vice President John C. Calhoun, who resigned and ran for Senate, not at all helped by his wife making wild accusations about the Secretary of War and his wife.)
Lincoln's election (when he wasn't even on the ballot in half the states) was the casus belli, in the sense that some Serbian bomb-throwing anarchist killing some archduke was the casus belli of the First World War. But that's like dousing your neighbor's house in kerosene and lighter fluid and then saying it was burned down by a single match.
Incidentally, you're right on the morality thing. A few enlightened liberals were abolitionists, but most anti-Southerners just thought the whole slavery-backed aristocracy thing going on in the South was bad news, and that the "Slave Power" would take over the country and crush democracy. Actually, that was the more consistent argument--the North fulfilled its demand for cheap labor by importing tons of poor European immigrants who worked in factories and lived in tenements, which was in many respects a worse life than slavery. It's hard to take a moral high ground from there.
[1] The legalization laws for medicinal marijuana simply create an exemption for state laws. Since state and local cops don't usually enforce federal law, this has the practical effect of sanctioning medicinal marijuana, even though on a legal basis the DEA could go in and sweep every single dispensary and cancer patient they find. At various points in recent years, the feds actually have gone after medicinal marijuana even in legalized states, leading to significant controversy. So if you can imagine Dick Cheney as a hardcore stoner and Dick Cheney's wife spreading wild rumors about Don Rumsfeld, you have a fairly decent grasp on Jacksonian-era political intrigue.
Good comment, I think we're basically on the same page. I generally like Andrew Jackson, he was right about the banks and he balanced the budget, only U.S. President born poor, etc, but how he handled nullification was wrong in my book. Interesting that it's coming up again now with the medical marijuana thing... of course, not many people are sympathetic to the drug laws right now. I wonder what would happen if Texas declared income tax invalid in TX? Well, it'd be interesting at least...
I think we're on similar pages, probably a couple differences in interpretation but both aware that the official historybook version is lacking. Good discussion, cheers.
The South was a deeply evil society even then--plantation owners were hereditary lords in all but name, except their slaves were mere chattel rather than serfs, and everyone in the middle were exactly that.