Though most cultures (not all) have abandoned slavery as part of their legal and moral society, it is by no means gone. There are more people enslaved now than you would care to count. Also, a hundred fifty years ago and more, slavery was part of international law as having to do with property. More than just a moral issue needed to be resolved.
The war you mention was not a civil war (different factions fighting for control of the same government) and was not fought over slavery, though that was a hot-button issue with many people. There was international property law and states' rights (10th Amendment) on one side, and there was a moral issue and control of the federal government on the other.
There is a lot of discussion over this and a lot of revisionism. I have a friend that teaches American History and I asked him about this. As the Industrial revolution took over farming there would be no need for slaves. So his belief is that slavery still would have come to an end only this would have taken longer without the war. The Lincoln–Douglas Debates of 1858 held in seven towns in the state of Illinois had a lot to do with slavery. Newspaper coverage of the debates was intense. Stenographers were used to create complete texts of each debate. (wiki)
Are you serious? People love to debate stupid things like whether there is only one race or many races!(I do recognise that I speak partially against myself, though.)
This is a very interesting subject, I think when God confused everyone's language at the Babylonian dispersion, and the various groups migrated to their respective places, it seems the selective breeding process itself created the variations and God effectively postponed Babylon so that the world would last as long as it has, so in creating the different people groups according to language it created the "Races" because of selective breeding, so in a sense it is a construct, but a planned one with a intended outcome, variation and diversity makes the human race more sustainable in an evil environment. Even though Satan has used the variations to spark hatred and violence, still the diversity makes the construct more durable, and harder for someone (like him) to hijack the whole thing.
I understand that people were polarized about the hot button issue of slavery. Certain people pushed abolitionists to have the North secede over the issue of slavery some years earlier, but there was not enough interest in it. They worked their way into Southern politics, and pressed for the hot button issue of Tariffs to get the South to secede. Even with that, there was not a pure motive of slavery to fight a war. The South was separate, and that was that. The North was not satisfied to follow the Constitution to begin with, and the war was fought to eliminate the 10th Amendment. (Too much limitation upon the Federal Government for them.)
Because the etymological root to the concept of race is the forerunner of a new species.
There is a definite delineate between where one sex stops, and the other begins. Man and women are distinct entities and the differences do not vary on a seamless continuum.
