I think there is a lot that gets forgotten about the civil war. Yes, racism and slavery were major issues. But it is a very uninformed view to think that was all that was going on. I'm not downplaying the slavery issue here, don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Just adding to it.
The south was run by a class system that resembled a monarchy much more than the north. Meaning there were ruling families in each area that worked under a tiered system of authority that was often above the government. These two different cultures were at complete odds with each other. The south was more economically efficient from colonization up until the CW. But the North had gone through an industrial revolution that evened the playing field, n gating the economic arguments for slavery (which was horribly wrong). Their plan wasn't just to maintain slavery, it was to exert dominant control over the north to preserve their economic superiority, while also maintaining their class based culture (among the whites) and the power of a relatively few families who ran everything.
Imagine you and everyone you ever knew had one or two companies/families who provided well for everyone in the community. You thought they were benevolent to everyone (obviously ignoring the oppressed slaves) and believed that the only people who opposed them were just crooks. Then some far away country you traded with said that employer was bad and needed to be destroyed. You would think that every world of it was pure evil. So evil you would fight against it with your life. Even if you had no slaves and were just a poor farmer.
Tl/Dr: It wasn't slavery that drove most southerners (who didn't own slaves) to fight in the Civil War. It was fear and misinformation that convinced them their entire word would come to a devastating end if they didn't win. (The people in power did it for money and power, which they used slavery to get)
