If that it true, and it very well may be, then we can forever dismiss the notion that Lincoln and the North fought for the high moral principle of “freeing the slaves.”
But the North did fight and for good reasons: it was in their economic and political best self-interest.
Don’t disagree. Bringing the seceded states back in the Union was Lincoln’s primary objective throughout the war. Ending slaver became one of Lincoln’s objectives later in the war. Through the Emancipation proclamation, the Union Army freed about 3,000,000 slaves before the war ended. Lincoln strongly pushed for the second XIII Amendment before his death. He realized that once the war ended, it would have to be a nation without chattel slavery.