Causes of the American Civil War 

Conventional wisdom, which is often wrong, tells us that the American Civil War was fought over the issue of Slavery.  However the Slavery issue was not all that important to most Americans at that time.

The Southern States, known as the South, were being more heavily taxed that the Northern States, known as the North.  This seems to have been due to the high tariffs on imported goods.  The North made a lot of items and the South imported many items since the South was more of a faring community.

Thus the American Civil war, or the War of Northern Aggression, seems to have been fought to keep the South in the Union so that they would continue to pay the bulk of the taxes.

The war was fought mostly, if not totally, over states rights and over money.  This seems to have been one of the very few wars that was not fought over Religion.