That one I accept. It’s a pet peeve of mine. Our wonderful public education system no long teaches facts and too many people are ignorant of the facts. Most people actually believe that Lincoln and the remaining Union declared war on the Confederacy with a declared goal to free slaves. Simply not true. It kills them to find out that their whole view of war is false.
As you correctly allude, people can argue that slavery was the cause of the war, but they can’t say that the war started with the intent of freeing slaves. Two totally different concepts. I mean, who are they going to believe, their public school teachers or Lincoln’s own words.
It was part of the equation right from the beginning... the fact that Lincoln articulated it later, differently or possibly for different reasons that people in the South, is not the issue, historically.
The South was an agrarian economy and they were only successful and prosperous at it because they held slaves.... their way of life and consequently their politics as well was tied to slavery.
For THEM, it was a central issue right up front and only became so for everyone else, later.
That’s the way I always understood it.
Based on letters I’ve read of Union soldiers, had they been told that the war was to free the slaves, they never would have enlisted. If Lincoln had declared emancipation early on, enlistment would have been much lower, and I believe the draft would have had to be enacted long before it was in 1863.