That may be true. I've read that this was a contemporaneous claim elsewhere. Even the Northern newspapers noted this was likely a propaganda technique to win support for secession, with the real reason being economic independence.
As Lincoln was going to protect slavery, it didn't really make any sense to say you were going to leave so that slavery would be protected, but populations are not always rational about what motivates them.
Still a Confederacy without slavery was inconceivable to Confederate leaders, thus preventing them from following the Union's example and enlisting African-Americans as real soldiers.
They attempted it at the end, but by then it was too late.
So it's simply disingenuous to pretend slavery was not important to Confederates especially, but also to Unionists.
It's disingenuous to pretend it was important to the Unionists. They didn't get rid of their own slavery until six months after they got rid of the South's Slavery, and they probably only did it because after getting rid of the South's slavery (probably only for revenge) it made them look hypocritical to keep their own.
At one time I believed they got rid of slavery because they believed that men should be free. Now I suspect they only did it because they wanted to break the South's economic power, to impoverish it's wealthy, and to create a political class that would support them in elections.
In other words, all for less moral reasons than "freedom."
Agreed with that last bit.
The problem is you have no evidence -- zero, zip, nada evidence -- to support your alternative hypothesis that any more than the top 1% of the top 1% cared about making, say, Charleston, SC, into the new, New York.
DiogenesLamp on black Confederate soldiers: "They attempted it at the end, but by then it was too late. "
In fact they refused all such suggestions so long as they believed there was even the remotest chance of victory.
Even at the very end they did nothing remotely as serious as the Union's nearly 200 colored regiments.
DiogenesLamp on emancipation: "It's disingenuous to pretend it was important to the Unionists.
They didn't get rid of their own slavery until six months after they got rid of the South's Slavery..."
Well, Northern states had no slavery in 1860, so you're talking about Southern states which remained loyal to the Union and were therefore subject to the Constitution's protections for their "peculiar institution".
For those states slavery could only be abolished by constitutional amendment, which was done in 1865.
All of which DiogenesLamp fully understands, but just enjoys mocking the United States, regardless of how truthful.
DiogenesLamp: "At one time I believed they got rid of slavery because they believed that men should be free.
Now I suspect they only did it because they wanted to break the South's economic power, to impoverish it's wealthy, and to create a political class that would support them in elections."
You well know that all Northerners believed the men should be free, that's why they all abolished slavery before 1860.
But Northerners also knew the Constitution protected slavery where it was legal and so it could only be fully abolished by constitutional amendment, which they did as soon as it was possible.
As for trying to "break the South's economic power", Confederates already did that to themselves, by embargoing cotton exports and so forcing their European customers to find alternate sources in India and Egypt.
So the South never again enjoyed the high prices and demand for cotton they had before 1860.
The Union didn't do that, Confederates did it to themselves.
Which you well know, but just enjoy mocking the truth so much, it doesn't matter, right?