That moment...

A lot of the signers of the Declaration of Independence wanted to abolish slavery, however, the south did not. In order to beat the British, they had to be unified and not fighting between themselves over the issue. So, they came to the compromise that they'd keep slavery for a certain period of time, but eventually it had to be given up. What started the civil war is that when that time came for them to give it up, thee south did not want to. Plantations required a LOT of manual labor, especially, back then when they had such little technology. Slaves were a cheap means of keeping the plantations run. If they had to pay labor, they'd not be able to afford to run their large plantations. That, and their way of life would be turned completely way upside down. Thus, the civil war. The more you know! ^^