The first issue is why did the South seceed? Simply, they stated that the primary reason was the preservation of slavery. Many other issues were included as justification, including tariffs and state’s rights. State’s rights is the one that is quoted most often, but is also the least valid, for the southern states had no concern whatsoever about state’s rights when it came to the Fugitive Slave Act. If one were to argue that the South seceeded in order to preserve it’s political power (having been the dominant region for much of the history of the country), that would bear more weight, but that argument isn’t often presented as the main motivation to retain that power would be to preserve slavery.

The Union, however, didn’t go to war to end slavery, but rather to preserve the Union. If the southern states had been allowed to leave when they thought they might no longer get their way, the central government would have become powerless. Any decision that displeased a single region would be grounds for that region to leave the Union. That it ended up ending slavery tends to confuse the issue.

However, the cause of the war or the reasons his side was fighting were not always the reason any particular soldier was fighting the war. Protecting their homes, proving their manhood, seeking excitement, showing their patriotism, fighting for what was right, state’s rights and hundreds of other reasons were motivators for enlistment.

I don’t think that identifying slavery as the cause of the war makes Confederate soldiers into individual advocates of slavery. It merely identifies why the war happened. If slavery had somehow disappeared before 1860, none of the other issues would have brought about a war.

There were, of course, at least 180,000 men for whom ending slavery was a main motivator….

You say that, “Many Southerners fought not to perpetuate slavery but to defend their states and to pursue a vision of states rights that they shared. There certainly were plenty of Southerners who fought for the Confederacy who never owned slaves.”
And while I agree that many southerners never owned slaves, that statement does exclude the war from being about slavery. You cannot deny that when a man donned the rebel gray, he was fighting for the Confederate government, a government that was based on the right to own slaves. Personal enlistment reasons aside, even if a soldier didn’t own slaves, he was still fighting for that right.

To say anything but the institution of slavery was THE cause of the Civil War does not do the conflict and slaughter of roughly 620,000 men justice.

Richard Pruitt