Slavery was an issue brought into the War of Northern Agression by the NORTH. As in all things, history is written by the winners, not the losers, so everyone who just swallows the party line believes that the South fought the war to maintain slavery. The South fought the war to keep the Northern states from riding roughshod over us, treating us like children and telling us what to do. What most people don't realize is that the Northern states threatened to secede from the Union at least twice before the South ever did. The only reason the North did not secede was that they were placated and petted to keep them in the Union because of their industrial infrastructure. When the South seceded, they weren't begged to come back because it was thought (ingnorance again) that the nation could easily manage without the textiles and tobacco that the South brought to the national equation. If you bother to really look at history, only a tiny portion of the people in the South owned slaves...98% of the citizens of the South were too poor to own slaves. My family has been in the South since way before the WoNA and NEVER once owned slaves. We worked our own fields and sweated our own lives away, thank you very much. You also might want to check out the number of people in the North who not only OWNED slaves, but profited greatly by returning run away Southern slaves to their masters once those runaways reached the "free North". I suppose for some people it's just easier to float down the stream with the popular current than to think for themselves and do a little mental work.