re: Was the civil war over slavery?

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The reality is I can’t see how slavery would have lasted much longer. There’s no telling what the American south would be like today if they had won. Maybe better, maybe worse.

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Money fuels wars, you raise a point often overlooked.

South had resources, less manufacturing
North had manufacturing, needed resources

North won and most poverty in the South today ties to theft of resources post war. Kentucky was neutral yet after the war they were dispossed as tho they were a Confederate state. All that coal to this day in the state is still held by a handful of families in NYC and Philly. They do not own a single mine nor to they employ a penny of capital on plant, equipment, or labor.

Had the South won, they would have shipped their raw goods to Europe, not the North.

In time they would move down the integration lane to middleman, producer, and retail. That would mean skilled labor and that would not be accomplished with slaves. Look at China today and cheap labor. At some time industrialization moves slave level jobs to a more demanding labor and subsequent fights for their share of the profits.

I have pondered if at some point "cheap basic labor" moved to the more traditional slavery seen throughout human history. Greeks and Romans built empires on slavery but it was based on the individual. A person in debt, no matter how high in the food chain, became a slave. Prisoners of war became slaves but they could buy their freedom.