What pap! Lincoln was willing to let the South keep slavery if the Union would stay together. When they seceded, THAT was when the civil war became primarily about slavery. Licoln would have done anything to keep the Union intact up to and including the EXISTING slave states remain so.
Lincoln would have done anything to keep the Union intact up to and including the EXISTING slave states remain so.
Make that up to and including ALLOWING the EXSISTING slave states to remain so..
Your right. The Union break up was all about money. How well could the "union" function without the southern states tax and spending base?
While slavery may have been the main, but not the only, underlying cause of the war, the North's objective for the first couple of years was preservation of the Union, not ending slavery. Here is a resolution of the US House of Representatives to that effect from July 22, 1861:
Resolved by the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States, That the present deplorable civil war has been forced upon the country by the disunionists of the Southern States now in revolt against the constitutional Government, and in arms around the capitol; that in this national emergency, Congress, banishing all feelings of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to the whole country; that this war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States; but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States, unimpaired; and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease.
The Senate passed a resolution with substantially the same wording on July 25, 1861.