I said slavery "caused" the civil war. Full stop.
I said many reasons have been given for the war, implying many are not valid.
Our country was dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, and the civil war tested whether we could long endure. The job of the living is to see that a government of the people, for the people (including all races) and by the people shall not perish from the earth.
You can rewrite history till the cows come home, you do not need to master high school history objectives, to read his brief remarks.
EDIT: Here is part of a prior post I wrote: "I have not read all of the recorded speeches of A. Lincoln, but as it happens I have read the Cooper Union speech. Nothing in it challenges the facts presented in post 51."
My bad, upon review my memory failed me. I had not read (or at least that speech in not in my book of Lincoln's addresses and letters) the Cooper Union speech, but I have read several of A. Lincoln's addresses, and none challenge the facts posted in post 51.
I think that responding to you is becoming a fools errand but allow me to bring up a small item of interest. There were many reasons for the American Civil War, the issue of slavery being but one of them. You will recall that shortly before the war, an abolitionists named John Brown seized the federal armory located in Harpers Ferry Virginia (now West Virginia), this in an effort to force an armed slave revolt. The US government responded to the seizure by dispatching Marines under to command of Colonel Robert E. Lee. Brown was tried for treason and executed for his actions. Later, Lincoln offered Lee the top position in the federal army which he refused. Lee, like many in the high ranks of the Confederacy, had distinguished themselves before the war and many including Lee were of the lineage of our countries founding fathers and/or were politicians in the national spotlight.
But none of this explains why the federal government brought arms against the several states that issued declarations of secession. Those states moved to occupy and take over federal property that was located in their states. One of the most important while not the only site was Fort Sumter SC. The war department needed to resupply the fort with food and water (the fort was still under construction at the time), the Governor of SC resisted Lincoln's request to supply the fort, finally the SC militia fired on it forcing it's surrender. One of my ancestors was dispatched by Lincoln in a last ditch effort to get the Governor of SC to allow Sumter to be resupplied, which was turned down. In strictly legal terms the state of South Carolina committed armed insurrection against the federal government. This was the reason Lincoln ordered up troops to put down the rebellion, not to bring an end to the institution of slavery. Lincoln had neither the legal authority nor the popular consensus to do that but he did have the authority to protect federal property and the lives of US service men.
Four years almost to the day after firing on Ft Sumter, the main Confederate Army in the east, R.E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, surrendered to the Union Army of the Potomac and General US Grant. By that time the economy of the states in rebellion were wrecked, cities and homes in ruins and about 650,000 American soldiers were in their graves, approx 420,000 seriously wounded, 130,000 civilians (free and slave) dead due to disease and depravation. Most of the soldiers on both sides of that war were volunteers. They were paid a monthly salary but they volunteered to serve.
Given the cost in both finances and human suffering resulting from the American Civil War it is really almost idiotic to think that all that capital was exhausted because the common man on either side of the Potomac wanted to end the institution of slavery of which many in the north had no first hand experience with, most in the south were not directly involved with and was in the process of self extinguishment anyway. It may make some feel good to think that lofty goal was the reason but it's wasn't. Slavery exists today in some places in the world and we do not see young men willing to offer up their lives to bring it to an end, now do we?