[Cleburne]

And I don't think Northerners really saw blacks as fully equals either. The average boy fighting for the Union certainly did not, and it seems that many abolitionists had their own almost maternalistic views of the black race- blacks weren't quite on the level of whites, and thus were to be helped along in light of that "fact". I think that if slavery opponents had given a message against racism it would have been more effective. But then, quarterbacking a hundred and thirty years after the game is awful easy...

[Texaggie79]

Indeed the majority of the yankees could have cared less about freeing slaves, however I believe their racism was of a different shade.

Southerners were used to being around blacks that were slaves and treated as such. This was ingrained into the culture. So even after their freedom, white southerners were accustomed to treating and viewing blacks as servants who were beneath them.

The northern industrialist racism stemmed from simply not being around blacks as much. They were just viewed as different.