What caused the Civil War, or, as some letter writers prefer,
the War Between the States? Certainly secession was the
immediate cause. But what caused secession? Could it have been
slavery? The evidence strongly supports that conclusion. When
South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas seceded, each
wrote a Declaration of Causes, not unlike the Declaration of
Independence, that listed grievances. Mississippi, home state of
Confederacy president Jefferson Davis, gets straight to the
point: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the
institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the
world ... a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and
civilization." South Carolina historian David Duncan Wallace
states on page 527 of "South Carolina, A Short History": "It is
hardly conceivable that secession would have occurred if slavery
had not existed." And in "The History of Beaufort County, South
Carolina," co-authored by professor emeritus and Beaufortonian
Larry Rowland, we find on page 425 the state