Henry Olerich, “What the American Civil War Has Not Done” (1893)
PERHAPS all well-informed persons admit that chattel slavery was the cause of the American Civil War. All other questions that were incidentally drawn into the controversy were but secondary, and would likely have been treated as ordinary questions of politics. The animosity which caused the Civil War was created by the agitation of the slave question; and it is altogether probable that if slavery had not been introduced in to the United States, the Civil War would not have occurred. The previous union of the southern with the northern states is evidence that a friendly feeling between them had once existed, and if no enmity had been created between them by the agitation of the slavery question, there would not have been a desire to secede; for no one desires to withdraw from a partnership that is harmonious and profitable. […]
