The great majority of the North could of cared less about the slaves in the South, after all, they were willing to amend the Constitution to make slavery permanent and not subject to further amendments (see Corwin amendment). The war was initially a war of subjugation and morphed into “a free the slaves” war to satisfy Northern sensibilities.
Fair point. The North did not care one lick about slavery to start, at least. It may not have even been the primary motivator for the war, to start. I was just pointing out that it was pretty central to the secession decisions.