New York was taking about 60% of all the value of the South's entire production, and if the South became independent, New York would lose about 230 million dollars per year in 1860 dollars. Worse still, European manufactured goods would have flooded the continent through Southern ports at prices deeply undercutting the North Eastern manufacturers, and thereby causing a double financial whammy to the power barons who would have lost significant market share and income.
The existing power structure in New York and Washington DC, then as now wanted all the nation's money funneling through their pockets, and when the South threatened to take control of their own trade and finances, this was more than the existing power structure could tolerate, and so they launched a war to subjugate the South.
Lincoln clearly had no intention of freeing the slaves when he began his presidency, and he did in fact urge the passage of an amendment that would have made slavery virtually permanent. (The Corwin Amendment.)
Lincoln and his New York backers knew where all the trade money came from, and they were not going to tolerate it getting out of their control. Their initial efforts was to get control back quickly so that everything could resume as it was before the war. When Southern doggedness kept them from winning quickly, they eventually decided it would be better to break the economic back of the South than to allow it to escape their control, and this is why they moved to abolish slavery.
In point of fact, the Northerners didn't really care about the black people, and they would have kept them in slavery had the North won quickly, but after almost two years, they saw it as a useful tactic to help them win the war, and so they made it one of their goals.
The whole affair is a lot more complex than people realize, and this is why people just generally accept the commonly repeated claim that the entire thing was over slavery. It was really about who would control that money, not about who was creating it.
Also, the Northern powers were mostly English, and the Southern powers was mostly Scottish, and so there was a continuation of the bad blood that existed before back in the old country.
Follow the money. The north was just fine about letting the south go its own way until they started losing a lot money to southern ports. Most people in the north didn’t give a rat’s furry behind about slavery. I’m not saying slavery is right. The institution had to go, but before we get all self righteous about ending it with a destructive, nasty civil war, consider that it would have eventually gone the way of the dinosaurs and lamp lighters as production became more automated.
If all of the imports were funneled through New York as you claim then why weren't all of the exports funneled through New York as well?
Worse still, European manufactured goods would have flooded the continent through Southern ports at prices deeply undercutting the North Eastern manufacturers, and thereby causing a double financial whammy to the power barons who would have lost significant market share and income.
You claimed that all those European goods were already flooding in through New York because of the Navigation Act or some such reason. What would have changed that would have made it cheaper to bring them in through southern ports? And why wasn't that done prior to the rebellion?
The existing power structure in New York and Washington DC, then as now wanted all the nation's money funneling through their pockets, and when the South threatened to take control of their own trade and finances, this was more than the existing power structure could tolerate, and so they launched a war to subjugate the South.
How would the south do that?
The whole affair is a lot more complex than people realize...
So it would seem.
Also, the Northern powers were mostly English, and the Southern powers was mostly Scottish...
Yes, where would the Confederacy have been without Robert MacLee, Stonewall MacJackson, Jefferson MacDavis? And without their traditional haggis and grits meals to keep them going. Utter nonsense.