Not quite so. The North did have slavery, too, though they abolished it state-by-state. For them, it wasn’t financially feasible, not necessarily because of higher moral standards. I guarantee if you had swapped folks from one region to the other, they could’ve easily switched positions if their financial situation were at stake. The North also benefitted from slavery, too. Northern mills and factories got the “product” from down south.
As for opposing human bondage and not wanting “those people” near you when you beat the drum of equality DOES make for epic level hypocrisy. We’re not talking about crack whores and their kids (that’s a helluva comparison, dude !), but people wanting to flee an area where they’re not welcome and perhaps in danger of their lives and likely wanting to get educated and better themselves and become prosperous. They wanted neither the indigents (understandable) nor the ones who wanted to better themselves (plain racist).
True, some of the antebellum romanticization is a bit hard to swallow (especially considering the tinderbox they were sitting on, ready to go up in flames at the first spark), but so is the farcical claim of nobility and superior morality of the North. Each had their own issues and foibles. If Northerners had been given a free decision as to whether they wished to go South to fight, if Lincoln had said, “To free the slaves”, very few would’ve done so. It had to be done under the aegis of “Union, one and inseparable.” That they could agree to.
Remember, most Southerners did not own slaves, and Lincoln badly miscalculated when he thought he could drive a wedge between the slaveholding class and non-slaveholders in getting their fellow Southerners to rise up against the former. Southerners overwhelming saw it as an invasion by a dictatorial and hypocritical North. Lincoln himself said if he could’ve kept the union together without freeing a slave, he’d have done it. That was still the old Whig in him straddling the fence.
As for trying too hard to be even handed, I consider that a compliment. After all, if I’m attempting to analyze it through a historian’s perspective, shouldn’t I be ?
I don't see it as hypocritical in the least let alone "epic level". Seems to me like an invented reason to spread the blame. No one ever through most of history wanted different race people around especially if they are indignant, that is not morally incongruous with the belief that human beings should not be chattel, forced to work for no wage and raped when ever massa gets horny, whipped or killed if they try to escape, give me a break.
I'm opposed to Syrians getting gassed or slaughtered by ISIS, that doesn't mean I would or need to welcome them all to Chicago or Peoria.
Pro-choicers are always slamming pro-lifers, saying that if they oppose massive social welfare for those "unwanted" children they are being hypocrites, it's a pantload. And I think the comparison is dead on.
Remember, most Southerners did not own slaves, and Lincoln badly miscalculated when he thought he could drive a wedge between the slaveholding class and non-slaveholders in getting their fellow Southerners to rise up against the former. Southerners overwhelming saw it as an invasion by a dictatorial and hypocritical North
Well, they were idiots who got manipulated, they got effed over and died for a bunch of rich a-holes who would rather use slave labor than pay a White man a decent wage for picking cotton, no different than those using cheap illegal labor today. I didn't hear that Lincoln tried to inspire non-slave owners to act in their own interest, sounds like a sound strategy that I would have tried. Too bad there wasn't mass communion, I think radio broadcasts could cut through the social programming.
Freeing slaves was never on the table till the rebellion, Corwin Amendment would have forever precluded federal abolition (depending how you feel about entrenched clauses). They rebelled cause they knew EXPANSION (and probably enforcement of fugitive slave laws that forced Northern states to play slave catcher) was off the table without a piece of garbage in White House and with a free state majority Senate and were unwilling to let their repugnant institution slowly die a natural death,
Historical analysis should be accurate. When one side is clearly wrong, that should be stated. People who put Lincoln on the "worst" list with the likes of Carter and Obama are deranged. But I understand where are coming from.