long time guy wrote:
If you read any history book it will state that expansion into the territories was central factor in the Civil War.
No, they won't, because people understand that secession was the central factor in the Civil War, and it (secession) was spurred by Lincoln running (and winning, wihtout carrying a single Southern state) on a platform of restricting slavery, a practice to which Southerners believed that had a constitutional right. They believed the federal outlawing of slavery would harm them in two ways:
1. The tools used to abolish slavery in the new territories would be the same tools used by courts and Congress to abolish or further restrict slavery in their home territories
2. Abolishing slavery in the new territories would create more areas into which they could not travel with "their property".
It had nothing at all to do with actually expanding the practice of slavery. They were "pro slavery", not "more slavery".
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Lincoln stated that he didn't want to touch the issue of slavery yet you ignore it.
In favor of the literally hundreds of other quotes in which Lincoln says he despises slavery and wants to end it, up to and including where he ends it, yes.
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The issue regarding the Kansas/Nebraska was directly related to territorial expansion. It occurred 3 years prior to the start of the Civil War. Violence erupted as a result yet Territorial expansion over the issue of slavery was unimportant.
It was actually a war for sovereignty. Popular Sovereignty was slipped into the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which itself made quite clear its stance on the legality of slavery in the two territories. The people fighting in Kansas weren't fighting to repeal a law, or to free slaves, they were fighting to get more of their own people into the territory so that Kansas could enter the Union as a free state and be further used to abolish slavery throughout the country. Pro-slavery groups saw this happening, and tried to stop it.
It had nothing to do with actually wanting more slaves and more slave-worked land in Kansas and Nebraska, it was about wanting to wield the political might to keep slavery legal in places where it was already legal.
Time to debunk this. So now you are making the argument that this dispute wasn't based on slavery expansion but protecting the interests of existing slave owners. So they fought in Kansas For The purpose of protecting slavery in Alabama?