otoh, the other 90+% of southerners/northerners could not have cared less about slavery, "the plight of the slaves" and/or "the peculiar institution". that is fact. (further, in many cases the southern slave-owners were "collaborators with" the invading DAMNyankee army, as they were promised by members of "the union high command" that their ownership of slaves would be permanently protected. ===> IF the south had won our war for independence, the slave-owning collaborators might well have been NEXT on the list of dixie enemies. - NATURE is UNKIND to turncoats/collaborators.)
furthermore, many of the NORTHERN slave-owners were sure (right up to the passage of the 13th Amendment) that they would be able to keep "their human chattels" forever.
in other words, what you "learned" in school reference slavery & TWBTS is a pack of sanctimonious, knowing, SELF-righteous lies & nothing more than that. (frankly, anyone who believes that nonsense is "not overburdened with gray matter".)
the facts are that NOBODY's hands were CLEAN on the "peculiar institution".
as i said in an earlier post, "things are simple only to simpletons".
free dixie,sw
By 1804 all northern states had outlawed slavery, but gradually, so there were still a dozen "permanent apprentices" in the north in the 1860 census.
Possibly these dozen are the "human chattels" you refer to?
"the facts are that NOBODY's hands were CLEAN on the "peculiar institution"."
Of course, under the Brits slavery was legal in all colonies, so you could say that no one's hands were "clean." But northern states clearly confessed that slavery was not acceptable in a country where "all men are created equal." So the North outlawed and gradually eliminated slavery.
Southern states made no such confession, and chose instead to secede from the Union, then attack the Union Fort Sumter. So the North fought first to preserve the Union, and while we're at it, to abolish slavery.
Those were the main ideas, everything else side issues.