For over a century your side of the debate has cast itself as the heir to abolitionism and based on that title you stake out a claim to some unnamed moral highground on slavery.
Thanks for demonstrating yet again that you have no conception of the politics and sentiment of the people of the time. Spooner was an abolitionist and a very radical one at that. Abolitionists only made up a small fraction of the anti-slavery side in that age. The vast majority of anti-slavery people, both north and south, were like Lincoln who favored the gradual elimination of slavery because the understood the political and economic realities. Radicals like Spooner wanted an immediate end to slavery, fire and brimstone for slave owners, and were perfectly willing to destroy the constitution and the nation to reach that goal. To say, as you do, that one could only be pro-slavery or be an abolitionist is like saying that the anti-abortion fight of today one can only be an abortionist or a member of Operation Rescue.
Spooner was the ying to Ruffin's yang. Neither gave a damn for the nation. They were irresponsible radicals and nothing but minor footnotes to the great events of the age.
Oh, I don't think anything of the sort has happened. You're just mad that I called you on missing the entire point of this thread and needed to throw out an attack to cover yourself.
Spooner was an abolitionist and a very radical one at that.
Most abolitionists were very radical, and I fully concede Spooner was one of them, though his radical drive was more restrained than the murderers and domestic terrorists of his movement at the same time.
Abolitionists only made up a small fraction of the anti-slavery side in that age.
5% of the northern population according to John Calhoun in 1847. Most estimates put the number at between 5-10% by 1860.
The problem is that abolitionism is most frequently equated, be it accurate or not, with opposition to slavery on "moral" grounds and its name is the one seized by northerners to justify their cause.
The vast majority of anti-slavery people, both north and south, were like Lincoln who favored the gradual elimination of slavery because the understood the political and economic realities.
I'll agree with that, holding that you concede their understanding of political and economic realities to be just that - many opposed slavery for economic and political reasons, not the moral ones frequently attributed to them. You may see this evidenced throughout their writings. Lincoln's famous Peoria speech mentions it when he declares the purpose of opposing slavery's expansion into the territories - to retain those territories for free white laborers to escape to without the competition of blacks. I also invite you to check out Alexis de Tocqueville's commentary on the same subject where he asserted that most northerners hold anti-slavery positions not for the concern of the slaves but for themselves and their economics.
You'll also note that this is Spooner's very grievance in the above essay. He complains that the moralistic claim being made to have freed the slaves was itself fraudulent because the war was not waged to free the slaves and they were only freed because doing so benefitted the northern cause. He continues noting that had they wished the moral title they claim they needed only to say so when they undertook the cause of anti-slavery but they had not.
Radicals like Spooner wanted an immediate end to slavery, fire and brimstone for slave owners
Yes.
and were perfectly willing to destroy the constitution and the nation to reach that goal.
Now that's interesting, because that is exactly what Spooner argued had happened when they did it by what was supposedly "the other way." History gives credibility to his characterization in the most obvious of ways. After all, was not the nation physically destroyed by the war to a degree never before and never since seen? Did not Lincoln trample upon the Constitution's plain meaning in order wage that same war?
To say, as you do, that one could only be pro-slavery or be an abolitionist
I see you've taken up the art of scarecrow conduction. Show me where I ever said anything of the sort as I don't believe you can. I on the other hand would be more than happy to provide you with writing samples from James McPherson where he uses abolitionism and Lincoln interchangably as if they were one in the same to display what he purports to have been THE northern position.