“The US playing craps with its very existence as a sovereign national entity, risking its future and the lives of everyone here... to end slavery.”
False statement. The US/Lincoln may have been playing craps to save the union, but they did NOT engage in war to free the slaves. If they had, Lincoln would have issued an emancipation proclamation on the first day of Sumter...and he would NOT have said:
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.
I get that.
But I don’t think that any southern states would have left the Union if they were not challenged over keeping slaves.
That’s what I mean.
His Proclamation didn’t free any one. It proposed freeing slaves in the South only-no mention of the North. (Ths South had already seceded and Abe had no authority there.)
The 13th Amendment later abolished slavery whem ratified in the latter part of 1865.