No, I mean the families that owned the means of production, farms, processing, factories etc. Producing class vs. producing class was this war. Ample evidence of northern industrialist intentions are found in the Library of Congress and the Congressional record of pre war times. And, not all slaves were African. You may or may not know about the English debtor system in place and which was continued in post revolutionary war America. There were also many slaves in the north (for example busy in tobacco production in CT) who were not let out of their slavery until the war was over. This is fact- the Emancipation Proclamation was not directed at slaves in northern states.
No, I mean the families that owned the means of production, farms, processing, factories
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The means of production included those slaves, John. The profits that “southern producing class” generated utilized that particular means of production in large measure. I know you are smart enough to understand that.