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Slavery was certainly one of the bones of contention that started the civil war. If it was not the central mission at the beginning of the war, the North certainly came to demand it by war’s end.

They had made the South hate them. If they left slavery alone, the South would have used the economic power it gave them to seek further revenge on the North for all the bloodshed. By taking away their slaves, they disarmed a potential economic weapon that could have been used against them. Also by giving the Slaves voting rights while denying them to Southern whites, they acquired more power in the Congress than they would have otherwise been able to acquire.

I used to believe that these things were done for moral and benevolent reasons, but since I have come to look at this conflict as a power struggle between groups of elites, it has cast a very different light on what I had previously believed were humanitarian issues. I now ask myself, does a certain act help or hurt the consolidation of power by certain power blocks?

Usually all the acts concentrate power to the same group of people.

...If they left slavery alone, the South would have used the economic power it gave them to seek further revenge on the North for all the bloodshed.

This a very interesting interpretation. In effect, taking away slaves from the plantation was exactly what Rome did to Carthage -- salt their fields to kill their agriculture and their economy.

Of course, the North has an interest in ensuring the "peace" was permanent and they wouldn't have to fight the Confederacy as second time. But killing their industry certainly sounds like destroying their future.

Are you saying former slaves had the right to vote but Southern whites did not? Never heard that before.