>You mean the real issue _in the minds of some US public officials_ wasn't
>slavery. What of slaves and free blacks? What was the real issue _for
>them_? Whether "the North or South would be the terminus of the
>transcontinental railroad"? I don't think so. The Civil War ended
>chattel slavery in the USA (regardless of ulterior motives of the Northern
>white elite), and that's what makes it a just war for the Union.\
Yoshie, some people have problems accepting the concepts of multiple causality, multi-level interaction, or elective affinity. They make the reality look rather complex, filled with shades of grey, and let's just face it, analog. Not a good thing for ideologies thriving on binary images.
wojtek