[ek_hornbeck]

There would have been no need for a draft, nor so many attempts to evade it, if fighting the civil war were as uncontroversial among northerners as you claim it to be. A good deal of reluctance stemmed from the fact that (especially towards the end) it was perceived as a war on behalf of liberating slaves rather than preserving the union. Other than some foaming at the mouth radical abolitionists like Thaddeus Stevens (who were seen as clowns even in their own party), nobody wanted to sacrifice his life or that of his sons for “freeing the slaves.” The Emancipation Proclamation added to that perception.

[OIFVeteran]

That is one of the saddest things to me. That more Americans weren’t “foaming at the mouth abolitionists”. I know we’re not suppose to judge people by today’s standards, but there were people with the moral clarity to see that slavery was wrong. Why wasn’t it more! It should have been 90% of Americans!

In fact the south took the opposite path. They went from the founding fathers generation of slave owners who knew slavery was wrong and incompatible with “all men are created equal”. Who may not have had the courage to say it in public but many did express it privately in their letters. To the 1840s and after slave owners (and even none slave owning southerners) who proclaimed slavery a positive good.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

There would have been no need for a draft, nor so many attempts to evade it, if fighting the civil war were as uncontroversial among northerners as you claim it to be.

You do know that the south went to a draft first, had a higher proportion of conscripts in their army, and a much bigger problem with desertion, right?

[DoodleDawg]

There would have been no need for a draft, nor so many attempts to evade it, if fighting the civil war were as uncontroversial among northerners as you claim it to be.

Why did the Confederacy have to resort to conscription a full year before the North did? Why did they have to forcibly extend the enlistments of all their soldiers for the duration of the war? If the war wasn't controversial among its people?

[BroJoeK]

ek_hornbeck: "There would have been no need for a draft, nor so many attempts to evade it, if fighting the civil war were as uncontroversial among northerners as you claim it to be."

In both numbers and percent there were fewer Civil War Union Army draftees than during either First or Second World Wars.
Also fewer than the Confederate Army.
So if that's your measure of controversy, then the Civil War was less controversial than the one our Greatest Generation fought, right?

ek_hornbeck: "A good deal of reluctance stemmed from the fact that (especially towards the end) it was perceived as a war on behalf of liberating slaves rather than preserving the union. "

It's true that Northern Copperhead Democrats opposed the Emancipation Proclamation and expected to gain seats in Congress from it.
And Democrats did gain 28 House of Representative seats in 1862.
So Lincoln paid a political price for his Emancipation, right?
Well, not really.
Those 28 lost seats were fewer than lost by the in-power party in any mid-term election of the previous 20 years, and at the same time Republicans gained five Senate seats.
So 1862 resembled most the most recent mid-term election -- except in 1862 Republicans kept the House majority.
And as in 2018 the seats Democrats won back in 1862 were just those seats they unexpectedly lost in the previous election.
So there was no massive political change in 1862 from Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

As for Army desertions, the percentages in Union & Confederate armies were roughly the same -- ~10% total during the war.
The number one state for desertions, New York, was also the biggest contributor of troops to the war, and arguably the largest number of Copperhead Democrats.
But even New York's desertion rate, total, was just 10%.
So it's not clear how any desertions can be blamed specifically on Lincoln's Emancipation.

ek_hornbeck: "Other than some foaming at the mouth radical abolitionists like Thaddeus Stevens (who were seen as clowns even in their own party), nobody wanted to sacrifice his life or that of his sons for “freeing the slaves.”
The Emancipation Proclamation added to that perception."

I have sometimes marveled at the vitriol Lost Causers focus on my fellow Pennsylvanian, from Lancaster County, Thaddeus Stevens.
Clearly, so much hatred could not be launched at a mere "clown", could it?
Of course not, because Stevens quickly became a highly influential Republican House of Representatives leader, largely responsible for such measures as the 1861 Confiscation Act, 1862 abolition in Washington, DC, and pushing Lincoln to issue his Emancipation.
Stephens was also instrumental in passing the 13th Amendment, among others.

But as for fighting to free the slaves, that became a Union marching song as early as 1862:

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on....

...In the beauty of the lilies[14] Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,[15]
While God is marching on."

So, many Union soldiers embraced the war to free the slaves and relatively few openly opposed it.

[x]

Other than some foaming at the mouth radical abolitionists like Thaddeus Stevens (who were seen as clowns even in their own party), nobody wanted to sacrifice his life or that of his sons for “freeing the slaves.”

There were idealists who didn't mind the idea of dying for the country and for freedom, and they weren't necessarily "radical abolitionists." Not everyone was an idealist of course, and after the war, many of the idealists turned cynical as they grew older.