[colechristensen]

People say this, but they're being pedantic. Plenty of people cared a whole lot about slavery both in the human-rights sense and the economic sense. The war was fought over secession, but the states suceded as a direct result of the federal level's intention (and actions) to constrain and eventually extinct slavery and the southern slave economy.

It's something like saying my house actually burned down because it's made of wood, not because I let a kid play with matches.