[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "That the war was fought for Slave freedom is just propaganda, and it always was. It was the 1860s equivalent of Russia! Russia! Russia! Russia! Russia!
Yes, the Union states still had slavery after they had stopped all slavery in the South."

Rubbish.
The fact remains that protecting slavery was vitally important to 1861 Fire Eater secessionists as was emancipation to Northern abolitionists.
And while neither side went to war just for slavery, slavery was never far from the top of their priorities:

1. Unionists almost immediately realized that emancipating slaves would help the Union's military as much as it hurt Confederates.
   Hence the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th amendment.

2. Likewise Confederates refused to recognize slaves as soldiers precisely because such service implied emancipation in return.

So it's not correct to say that slavery was unimportant to either side, but is correct to say slavery was not their only concern.

[DiogenesLamp]

So it's not correct to say that slavery was unimportant to either side, but is correct to say slavery was not their only concern.

It wasn't the reason the Union went to war with the South. Money was the reason the Union went to war with the South. "Freeing the Slaves" was just mid-war propaganda aimed at securing support for the war from the liberal kooks in Massachusetts and elsewhere in the North. (And as you said, to undermine the South militarily.)

Just as Lincoln traded a cabinet appointment to win the nomination in Chicago, so too did he trade something which he claimed he did not have the power to trade, for support in his war to stop the South from Trading directly with Europe.