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Second Lincoln openly offered the Corwin Amendment to the original 7 seceding states. Its right there in his inaugural address. Try reading it some time.

They literally cannot bear the thought that the motivations of their side were evil. All their lives they have been told that the side supporting slavery must be evil, and when it is shown that their side was actually supporting slavery, they have a cognitive break.

Without their fig leaf of "Dying to make men free", the entire thing looks like what it was; A raw grab for power by a totalitarian who got 750,000 people killed in direct conflict, and perhaps 2 million more killed as an indirect result of it. (for money and power)

This is why they always look at the conflict through "slavery colored glasses". It is the sole moral justification for the horror unleashed, and it isn't even true when you look at specifics.

They can't look at the specifics.

A cause they did not even discover they were actually fighting for until two years into the conflict.....after being told this is what they were fighting for by Mill.....despite the offer of slavery expressly protected by constitutional amendment that would still be irrevocable even today without the consent of the dlaveholding states and despite the nearly unanimous resolution passed by Congress declaring this is not what they were fighting for and despite Lincoln’s repeated denials that this is what they were fighting for.

Theirs was revisionist history right from the start. Unfortunately for purveyors of this propaganda, we can read. We can see what they actually said and did at the time rather than what they later said.

We’ve been arguing specifics for dozens of posts now!

FLT-bird: "Second Lincoln openly offered the Corwin Amendment to the original 7 seceding states.
Its right there in his inaugural address.
Try reading it some time."

DiogenseLamp: "They literally cannot bear the thought that the motivations of their side were evil.
All their lives they have been told that the side supporting slavery must be evil, and when it is shown that their side was actually supporting slavery, they have a cognitive break."

Cockamamie cognitive nonsense.
"Cognitive break" can't happen from lies, and you people have few clues as to real truth.
It starts here: in 1860 Republicans were the party of abolitionists and Lincoln favored gradual abolition, as can be seen from any number of quotes.

In a speech in 1858

'We have in this nation the element of domestic slavery.
The Republican Party think it wrong - we think it is a moral, a social, and a political wrong.
We think it is wrong not confining itself merely to the persons of the States where it exists, but that it is a wrong which in its tendency, to say the least, affects the existence of the whole nation.
Because we think it wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall deal with it as a wrong.' "

So "Ape" Lincoln and his Black Republicans believed slavery wrong, period.

In 1860 Southern Fire Eaters threatened: if Lincoln won election they would secede.
He was and they did, making certain their new Confederate constitution explicitly protected slavery under all circumstances.
In effect, the Confederate Constitution made the SCOTUS Dred Scott decision inviolable.

So it was all about slavery.

Now Lost Causers claim Corwin was offered to secession states and they rejected it, but there's no record to support this.
Instead, the record shows Corwin offered to Union states like Kentucky and Maryland, which ratified it.
Further, Corwin simply made explicit what the Constitution already implied: that Congress alone could not abolish slavery in states and that abolition must come from within slave-states themselves.

Civil War -- started not over slavery but over Federal properties unlawfully attacked and secession unlawfully declared.
For Lincoln's thoughts at the time, see here.
Fort Sumter was not about slavery:

But slavery quickly became an issue, in the form of "contraband of war", should they be returned to Confederates or freed and hired to help the Union cause?
They were not returned leading to the 1862 Emancipation Proclamation and enlistment of nearly 200,000 black soldiers in the Union army -- enough to replace every Union soldier killed in battle.

That's how by war's end Northerners saw themselves fighting for both Union and freedom: "As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, as God is marching on."

Of course, for many Northerners (especially Democrats) abolitionism did not come soon or naturally, they had to be dragged to it kicking & screaming.
But by civil war's end, even with Lincoln assassinated, Republicans were ready for not just emancipation, but also full citizenship: the 13th, 14th and 15 amendments.

And those were all about slavery.
So slavery was the issue before, during and after Civil War, supported by Democrats, opposed by Republicans second in importance only to Union itself.

And that's the truth, with no "cognitive break".

DiogenseLamp: "Without their fig leaf of "Dying to make men free", the entire thing looks like what it was; A raw grab for power by a totalitarian who got 750,000 people killed in direct conflict, and perhaps 2 million more killed as an indirect result of it. (for money and power)"

According to both FLT-bird & DiogenesLamp's own posts, "money and power" is what Southern Fire Eaters expected in declaring secession from their allegedly "oppressive" Federal government and what they fought for, until the bitter end.
Lost Causers themselves say, in effect, "money and power" were gone from Southerners in Washington, DC, by 1860 and this loss, not "slavery, slavery, slavery" forced Fire Eaters to declare secession.

So here we see DiogenesLamp releasing his inner Democrat to do what Democrats often do: project their own mind-sets onto others.
He's telling us, in effect, that since Fire Eaters were driven by "money and power" therefore so must Lincoln's Black Republicans.

Indeed, it's often the Democrats' last resort, when they are finally caught, cornered and have no place to escape they throw up their hands saying: "you're right, both sides do it".
DiogenesLamp knows well his own side is guilty, and his evidence for "both sides"?
Only his own inner Democrat, crying out for recognition.

DiogenseLamp: "This is why they always look at the conflict through "slavery colored glasses".
It is the sole moral justification for the horror unleashed, and it isn't even true when you look at specifics.
They can't look at the specifics."

More rubbish & nonsense, because the United States Constitution itself is moral.
So neither Lincoln's April 15, 1861 proclamation nor his July 4, 1861 message to Congress mentioned slavery.
The former called for 75,000 troops to return Federal properties unlawfully seized, the latter argues against secession and for restoration of the Union.
And after Fort Sumter plus Confederates' May 6, 1861 declaration of war, no more justifications would be needed than after, for example, WWII attacks and declarations of war against the USA.

So here's the bottom line: when Democrats accuse Republicans of the very thing they are most guilty of (think "Russia collusion", in this case "money and power"), it should be taken as only a sign they full well know they've been cornered & caught and this is their last chance to escape judgment.

Of course, I know this post is too much "cognitive break" for DiogenesLamp to even read, such is life...