US Civil War

A friend reports ranting in response to a smug ignoramus asserting that the United States Civil War was “not about slavery”:

You just don't understand how fucking wrong you are. The war was about the balance of power vis-à-vis slavery, except for the massive number of things that weren't, and all of those things were about the economic organization of slave states. So, it was about slavery, except for when it wasn't; and when it wasn't, it was.