re: Thomas Jefferson did more to end slavery than Abe Lincoln

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You have a dim understanding of human nature.

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Oh you must be one of the enlightened few who actually believe that the Civil War was about some sort of "higher" principal or the American Revolution was not started by guys who did not want the British interfering in their commerce. The Southerners went to war because the Southern political leaders since about 1820 were ginning up the populace for it because long term they knew that they could not keep their power based on the 3/5 compromise. The North was growing way too fast and these new immigrants had no need nor could afford slaves.

They were of greater numbers and they did not like slavery and the monied people in the North were not enamored of the outsized influence of the Southern planter class on trade and development. Like I said the poor in the South fought to preserve the status quo because of social and money status. Free black guys able to farm and accumulate money or some sort of wealth?????

No way were they looking to be on the same level with a black man.

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The sad part about that whole affair is if Japan never committed Pearl Harbor, there is a very minimal chance the US would have participated in WW2 ( or at most played smaller role).

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I completely disagree. A majority of Americans favored peace to war, but they also were under no illusion that they'd be able to stay out of the war in Europe indefinitely. U-Boats were beginning to sink U.S. merchant traffic in the Atlantic just prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The continued sinking of U.S. shipping in the Atlantic would have eventually led to a declaration of war upon Germany sometime in early-1942.

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Oh you must be one of the enlightened few who actually believe that the Civil War was about some sort of "higher" principal or the American Revolution was not started by guys who did not want the British interfering in their commerce.

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If everyone was autistic, then your explanation would make sense.

Humans think in narrative form, and act for largely emotional reasons. Look at how we’ve persuaded the public to go to war... a day that will live in infamy. Lines like that resonate emotionally, and push us to act. An actuarial analysis, does not.

And this nearly explains why so many poor white southerners went to war for the Confederacy. It also explains why rich white Southerners sacrificed everything, including their wealth, for the cause.

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Humans think in narrative form, and act for largely emotional reasons.

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Yeah, we need a good bullshite line that we can justify to our conscience.....generally.

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a day that will live in infamy.

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We as a people did not need flowery language to justify responding to an attack. Lies like "rights" work well too. How were the average Southerner's rights being violated?

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And this nearly explains why so many poor white southerners went to war for the Confederacy

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Yep....no way were they going to fight for the freedom of the planter class to expand out slavery and increase their wealth. Don't think that the large planters were interested in having economic competition.

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It also explains why rich white Southerners sacrificed everything, including their wealth, for the cause.

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Yeah, they were stupid, but I won't get into the utter futility of "the cause" from jump

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Again, read period letters. Read what the newspapers were printing.

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Most Southerners could not read, the newspapers were going to parrot the views of the monied classes....BTW, the NYT and other periodicals of the time in the North did the same.

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They believed that the north would use their political power to subjugate the south, and impose their way of life on the south.

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The South had outsized political influence in the House as well as electorally in contrast to the amount of people that could actually vote. They were able to leverage at least 2.4 million people that were their property in order to leverage power That was 3/5 of the slave population.

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the Republicans were a strictly northern party,

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Well in fairness to them the Republicans were not allowed on many Southern state ballots

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Most Southerners could not read

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75% to 90% of adult whites were literate.

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The South had outsized political influence in the House as well as electorally in contrast to the amount of people that could actually vote.

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And that had protected them.

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Well in fairness to them the Republicans were not allowed on many Southern state ballots

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The Republicans ran on hostility to the south.

The south seceded and was attacked. The southerners fought because they were attacked. Why were they attacked is the correct question