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Abolitionists were at the time a collection of kooks very much like modern environmentalist whackos, animal rights activists, and homosexuality proponents.

Yes, the abolitionists were equivalent to modern day liberals. As Charles Dickens said of them at the time. (1862)

"Every reasonable creature may know, if willing, that the North hates the Negro, and until it was convenient to make a pretense that sympathy with him was the cause of the War, it hated the Abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale. For the rest, there's not a pins difference between the two parties. They will both rant and lie and fight until they come to a compromise; and the slave may be thrown into that compromise or thrown out, just as it happens."

They were the loons of their era, and they were a tiny minority for most of the US history prior to the civil war.

"Abolitionists were at the time a collection of kooks"

The Founding Fathers were at the time a collection of kooks too. King George III would be happy to tell you all about it. But what they had in common is the most important thing - our Rights are a Gift from God, and the abolitionists and Founders agreed on this.

....very much like modern environmentalist whackos........"

You are promoting modern environmentalist whackos and the rest you mentioned with a position that they did not earn and they do not deserve.

As for Charles Dickens, that passage is an irrelevant bait and switch. It doesn't matter what anybody else thought about the abolitionists any more than what the King thought about the Founders or what the tories thought of the Founders. You want me to quote Peter Oliver for you about how whacked out the patriots were? Who cares what Oliver thought. What matters is what the Founders believed in and what others believed in, and if those beliefs matched up.

Abolitionists believed the same as the Founders. Our Rights are a Gift from God. Let's see you say it. "Our Rights are a Gift from God." You say it.

DiogenesLamp quoting Charles Dickens letter to WW Cerjet 16 March 1862: "Every reasonable creature may know, if willing, that the North hates the Negro, and until it was convenient to make a pretense that sympathy with him was the cause of the War, it hated the Abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale.
For the rest, there's not a pins difference between the two parties.
They will both rant and lie and fight until they come to a compromise; and the slave may be thrown into that compromise or thrown out, just as it happens."

So, like DiogenesLamp himself, it appears that Charles Dickens in March, 1862, had a very limited understanding of Americans, Northern or Southern.
Most specifically, Dickens & DiogenesLamp cannot see the difference between Northern anti-slavery Republicans and pro-slavery Democrats.
That's why when Dickens here says, "the North" he really means Northern pro-slavery Democrats.
When he talks about "the hated abolitionists" he means the anti-slavery Republican minority.

Remember, when Dickens had visited the US in 1842, there were no Republicans and Northerners opposed to slavery nationally remained a decided minority.
For example, in 1840 the opposition Whig party won the Presidency and won majorities North & South by posing no threat to slavery.
As recently as 1856 a majority of Northerners -- south of Chicago, Detroit & New York City -- most were pro-slavery Democrats.
That is the America Dickens knew and commented on in 1862.

But by 1860 everything had changed -- anti-slavery Republicans were now the majority in every state north of the Mason-Dixon line.
Pro-slavery Democrats were reduced to their strongholds in big-cities (especially New York) and the southern-most counties of states like Illinois.
Of all this Charles Dickens knew nothing.

As for "the North" alleged to "hate the Negro," in fact freed-black populations were growing in every Northern region and growing fastest in just those states (i.e., Illinois) with the strongest "Black Codes" intended to restrict them.
So the truth is that while Northern pro-slavery Democrats may well have "hated the Negro", anti-slavery Republicans had a different idea -- one founded in the Bible and in such books as Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852, "Uncle Tom's Cabin".

Of which neither Charles Dickens nor our own DiogenesLamp had/have any understanding.

Finally, we should also notice Dickens' prediction of a "compromise" which would ignore slavery -- that did not happen, but rather Unconditional Surrender, Reconstruction and the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments did happen.

So both Dickens and DiogenesLamp could not be more wrong.