re: Obscure/Interesting/Quirky "American" Facts 1865-1880

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And don't come in with "state rights", because the major states rights issue was slavery

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Well - ultimately the average southerner (and even above average, Robert E. Lee, for example) did not fight to preserve the institution of slavery - perhaps it was a (not the) catalyst from the southern perspective - keeping in mind that the average southerner, although benefitting from the institution indirectly, did not have direct benefits from or contact with slavery (and perhaps that's why it persisted as a practice for so long) on a daily or weekly basis.

In any event, the catalyst from the North's perspective was a significant plurality of abolitionists - of course there were many who wanted to preserve the Union, even if slavery were to be tolerated for another generation or so (including, perhaps, Abraham Lincoln).

The price of the failure to come to a compromise, nuanced and gentle resolution to the problem was hundreds of thousands of lives and the loss of, essentially, a generation of young men.

But it was far more complicated than "slavery" or "states rights" - it defies simple explanation.