[Non-Sequitur]

BTW, since this was such a 'serious' concern, exactly how many members did the Abolition Party (percentage wise of entire population) have circa 1860 in the north?

Beats me, but the North didn't launch a rebellion to end slavery. You should be asking how many southerners saw the election of Lincoln as a threat to their institution of slavery. The answer to that would be just about all of them. That's why they rebelled.

[pepsionice]

Economics can be utilized to explain a lot about the civil war. The south based its dynamic economy...of which only 5 percent of the whites in the south were part of....on cotton and agriculture 'manufacturing'....similiar to what Wal-Mart does today. The bigger the plantation...the bigger the profits. Unfortunley, they needed manpower to make this particuliar Wal-Mart work....and slaves were key to its surivival. Behind this massive production and sales area, was tariffs...which the north benefited greatly from...although very few northerners ever realized that. You must remember that tax money did not pay for a lot of pork in the 1840s-1850s. You built canals and bridges for the local folks, and you operated forts near hostil settler areas to provide protection. That was the major user of US funding in 1840s. The slave issue is simply one major issue of several that drove the war to its start. The growing population of anti-slaves states helped as well....look where the incoming Irish and Germans were going...primarily non-slave states. Look where the Trans-American railway was going to run. Lots of things were on Lincolns plate....some good and some bad.