[BroJoeK]

jeffersondem: "Are you going to tell me this person is not a real expert?"

DoodleDawg: "I would doubt that BroJoeK would call himself an expert, any more than I would call myself an expert.
I consider myself widely read on the subject.."

Correct.

DoodleDawg: "BroJoeK has his beliefs and opinions, and if he truly believes the North fought to end slavery then I would respectfully disagree with him."

I'm not trying to exaggerate the role of slavery, simply to prevent our partisan pro-Confederates from denying that it was important, to both sides.

The question is: how important?
The answer is: very important as demonstrated by:

1. Slavery's numerous & central mentions in Deep South "Reasons for Secession" documents and speeches.

2. Confederates' refusal to adopt George Washington's Revolutionary War practice of offering slaves freedom in exchange for military service.

3. Confederates' refusal to accept the Union's offer of compensated abolition.

4. Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic, sung by Union soldiers at the time, and by Patriots ever sense.

5. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, issued after victory at the Battle of Antietam.

6. The use of large numbers of African-American soldiers and freed support workers by the Union Army.

7. The 13th Amendment especially, and also 14th & 15th.

Sure, super-sharp hair-splitting lawyers might claim: "Civil War was not about slavery", but nobody at the time made such arguments.

They all understood intuitively what it was.

[jeffersondem]

“I'm not trying to exaggerate the role of slavery, simply to prevent our partisan pro-Confederates from denying that it was important, to both sides”

Of course slavery was important. That is why New York voted to include slavery in the US constitution. As did New Jersey. And New Hampshire. And Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, and Delaware, and Maryland.

Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia also voted to enshrine slavery into the US constitution.

A student has only to read the great northern patriot Daniel Webster to understand slavery was still an important issue in the 1850’s, long after northern accountants advised manufacturing owners of the advantages of low-wage sweat shops and fully-stocked industrial scale ghettos.

Said Webster:

“If the South were to violate any part of the Constitution intentionally and systematically, and persist in so doing, year after year, and no remedy could be had, would the North be any longer bound by the rest of it? And if the North were deliberately, habitually, and of fixed purpose to disregard one part of it, would the South be bound any longer to observe its other obligations?

“I have not hesitated to say, and I repeat, that if the Northern States refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain cannot be broken on one side and still bind the other side.”

Webster and others were successful in strengthening federal law to enforce Article IV, Section 2 but the law, as before, was widely violated in the North.

After John Brown's murder raid, northern politicians essentially set up sanctuary states to harbor terrorists.

For some reason, the South did not want terrorists attacking them from sanctuary states so they attempted to separate from the convenant-breaking states as Webster had feared. Then Lincoln did what he did resulting in well over 600,000 deaths. Lincoln never attempted to amend the constitution to end slavery peacefully before the war.