No need to do that. It’s a valid question.
To expand upon my very short answer let’s look at the other so called “reasons for secession” and see why they are all red herrings used almost exclusively by Confederate apologists and Neo-Confederates.
States Rights - this is especially is ludicrous as the Federal government was on the side of the slave holders for the entire early history of the country. It enforced the Fugitive Slave Act and by way of the Supreme Court allowed for the expansion of slavery in the territories. By and large it was the Northern States that clamored for States Rights.
Actually, slaveholders were (and felt they had to be) fanatics about "states' rights" and "state sovereignty" long before the War. It started in South Carolina, after the Denmark Vesey affair of 1822. Vesey, a freedman, allegedly recruited numerous slaves in the Charleston area into a conspiracy to rise up and kill all the whites. In the wake of this, slaveholder paranoia exploded. South Carolina had a significant free colored community, some of whom were even wealthy; they were all run out of the state. South Carolina also enacted additional security laws, including a "Negro Seamen Act" which required free black crewmen of visiting ships to be held in jail till their ships left. When applied to British ships, this violated a treaty which guaranteed reciprocal treatment for British and American seamen. A Federal judge declared the Act void, but South Carolina basically ignored him.
It was at this time that Southerners took to fetishizing "States Rights"; and the Nullification doctrine arose. Basically, Southerners began to see that the Federal government might not always be 100% supportive of slavery. And they believed that if government authority was not an absolute solid front in support of slavery, that would encourage slave rebellion. Therefore, state authority (which they controlled) had to be supreme.
Calhoun wrote at the time of the Nullification Crisis that the tariff issue was a mere skirmish on the outworks; the actual citadel being slavery.
I would also note the 1831 birth and christening of future Confederate general States Rights Gist. (His actual name.)
Tariffs - while true that low tariffs benefited the South and high tariffs helped Northern states who wished to build native industry, there was never a time (barring South Carolina’s hissy fit) that the two regions couldn’t reach a compromise.
There were plenty of pro-tariff men in the South; Henry Clay was a Southerner. In 1844, running on a high-tariff platform, Clay carried five slave states, and averaged 45% in the other seven that had popular votes.
By 1860 the only issues that caused regional tension to any real degree were those associated with slavery.
Other issues caused tension, but only slavery was viewed by a significant geographical section as a life-or-death issue. Nothing less would have provoked secession.
So, NO. Without slavery there would have been NO CIVIL WAR.
Benjamin
Unless some other issue arose that a large number of Americans considered so important that they would rebel against the government to get their way on it. And I can't think what that could have been.