I've always liked a kind of Marxist approach, how the industrial middle classes of the North clashed with the land owning aristocracy of the South. Slavery was a wedge issue, but in reality it was the balance of power tilting geographically, economically and culturally which even put the slavery issue on the table.
I've always liked a kind of Marxist approach, how the industrial middle classes of the North clashed with the land owning aristocracy of the South. Slavery was a wedge issue, but in reality it was the balance of power tilting geographically, economically and culturally which even put the slavery issue on the table.
Interestingly enough, Marx wrote an adulatory letter to Lincoln:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm
I agree, though, that the Marxist story behind the Civil War is a compelling one.