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“Don’t disagree(we can forever dismiss the notion that Lincoln and the North fought for the high moral principle of “freeing the slaves”).”

It is fine that we don’t disagree but you can expect to hear many contend that in some way Lincoln was “fighting to free the slaves” - - and even that the war was fought for high moral purposes.

That, by the way, is not a new idea. It was part of the spiel to keep Britain and France from coming into the war on the side of the South and continued well after the construction began of huge, segregated urban ghettos (unspeakable conditions) in the North that would be fully stocked with poor laborers displaced by the war and needed to create industrial wealth.

jeffersondem: "you can expect to hear many contend that in some way Lincoln was “fighting to free the slaves” - - and even that the war was fought for high moral purposes."

Well... "The John Brown Song" was first played & sang at a flag raising ceremony in Fort Warren near Boston on May 12, 1861.
That date is most significant because it is just six days after the Confederate congress formally declared war on the United States.
The unit which wrote & sang is said to be the Massachusetts militia's Second Infantry battalion, aka "Tiger Battalion".

Congress began dealing with slavery in August 1861 with the Confiscation Act addressing "Contraband of War".

Julia Ward Howe first heard soldiers of Company K of the 6th Wisconsin singing "The John Brown Song" near Washington, DC, in late 1861.
Julia's husband, Samuel Howe was one of John Brown's Secret Six, so for her, it had always been "all about slavery".

Her version of the song, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was published in early 1862.

So there is no doubt that Civil War was indeed "all about slavery" for some Northerners from Day One.
By war's end it was a major war aim for virtually all Northerners, hense the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments.

I think we should all here seriously acknowledge that it pains our dear FRiend jeffersondem to the soul of his heart to hear that there was anything in any small way moral, noble or uplifting about Unionists in "the War of Northern Aggression" against Southern Freedom Fighters, but sadly, the facts are still facts, regardless of how much jeffersondem hates and denies them.

;-)