Kenneth M. Stampp - The Causes of the Civil War (notes) 1991

In his preface Stampp says that the causes of the Civil War remain debatable.  This is truly dismaying.  P. 18

Was there a conspiracy that could be called the Slave Power Conspiracy?  The South was never so completely organized as such.  Yet there was agreement that slavery was a good system amongst certain slave owners and that slavery should be maintained and posssibly extended.  Slavery was a positive good. Abolitionists were not wrong in saying that slavery jeopardized the American system.  P. 23-24

Many Northerners believed in the Slave Power Conspiracy whether true or not.  P. 26