The pre-Civil War South's entire culture, both social and economic, was based on slavery.  To assert the War was not primarily about slavery is to dismiss the importance of slavery to the culture and the threat of abolition and it's impact on Southern thinking.  Those factors cannot be ignored.  Post Reconstriction Jim Crow laws and institutions were an effort to reconstruct that culture as closely as possible without the "benefit" of slavery..... They were based on white supremacy and racism and, of course, placed former slaves and their children in second-class citizen status.  The battle to end that second-class citizenship status has yet to be won.  Gary Crum