Did slavery cause Civil War? Many Americans don’t think so

McClatchy reports:

A century and a half after the war ended, Americans still fundamentally disagree about slavery’s role in the Civil War and what to teach schoolchildren about it, according to a new McClatchy-Marist Poll.

Some 54 percent of respondents think slavery was the main reason for the Civil War. A sizable minority, 41 percent, do not think slavery was the main reason, the national survey found.

Echoing that divide, they also are split over what to teach children. A majority, 54 percent, believe schools should teach that slavery was the main reason for the war; 38 percent think they should not teach that.

How Americans view this, particularly in the wake of bipartisan movements to take down Confederate flags after a horrific mass murder inside an historically black church in South Carolina, underscores how much these basic opinions of slavery and race still split the country.

Some people are beginning to question the establishment propaganda line.