I bet I gotcha with that title didn't I? Well, my question is a bit more complex. I have heard both the claims that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery and more to do about states rights. I have also heard that slavery was the only reason the Civil War was fought (both of these examples are extreme but I used them to illustrate the point of the partisanship of the issue). Over the last generation, the latter opinion has prevailed. My question is this:
How does one reconcile the fact that slavery was a major cause of the Civil War with the fact that many in the North did not care about the slavery issue?
The way you reconcile it is by remembering that it was the South that started the war by seceding and then attacking a federal fort. The North may not have cared about the slavery issue enough to fight a war, but the South did (at least the political elites), and that's why the war came.
It's also important to remember that why the war started and why men fought are different issues altogether.