[thecavemaster]

So you basically just said Lincoln violated the rights of the constitution to preserve them? The people of the southern states voiced opinions and secceeded. They were then invaded by the North.

So we have ruled out that it was not fought over slavery,since there were slave states who fought for the north.

We have ruled out it was not Lincoln's constitutional obligation, he actually violated the constitution in a major way.

So what was the reason? To preserve the Union? The southern states had no intentions of initially secceeding (The north forced thier hand) and would have eventually joined back up anyways. The states can't survive without eachother, however, that doesn't mean that any state should sit idly by and allow the other states to force their will on them. That in itself is oppression.

Threats foreign AND DOMESTIC.... In the balance of powers between state and federal, the University of Alabama, when it denied the right of an eligible citizen to attend based purely on race, mistakenly claimed "violation of state's rights" when Bobby Kennedy sent in troops to Tuscaloosa. The fact that the Union survived 1861-1865, and still stands today, is, to me, a testimony to Lincoln's vision.