There were free blacks migrating there from the south, and they were working.
But there is a big difference between being a low-paid blue-collar worker and being a slave, with no right over your own family or body. If you can't see that you are not serious.
And while being a laborer in any generation is a tough life, people were pouring in from Europe because whatever it was, it was better than what they came from.
But it was tough, you're right, which is what drove so many of them west, because dying on the frontier was better than what they came from whether back home in Europe or back east in the tenements. Life is tough. That is a separate issue from slavery. If you are a conservative or a libertarian you already know that.
Abolition was the founding cause of the Republican Party. It was born out of the churches; people didn't join the cause for political advantage because it was a minority party that shouldn't have had a chance. But true believers don't care about stuff like that. They just act, and let the chips fall.
It is a mistake for the Republicans to distance themselves from Abolition. It is the reason for their birth. Color-blind citizenship is at the heart of the movement's philosophy. Let the Democrats defend slavery. Its their institution. Let the Democrats defend racialism.
I am comfortable with Lincoln's flaws; he was after all a human being. You must know that by now; that if you take a stand on any moral issue you will be torn apart by your enemies in this generation and, if you had an impact, in the next. Don't worry about it. Take the stand. There were decent men on both sides of the Civil War; this is the tragedy of it. It is also one of the most important lessons; of the 640,000 men who died at least half were good men dying to defend the indefensible, led to their deaths by men who were not worthy of their sacrfice.
Please continue. I'm fascinated. How many were working in the 1850s? What was their treatment from management and from other laborers? What sort of pay did they receive compared to others? How about their freedom to go where they pleased, to live where they wanted (within their means), to associate with whom they wanted?
Have you ever read the Emancipation Proclamation? Do you know what it actually says and how many slaves it actually freed? Do you know why Lincoln wrote it? Do you know what plans Lincoln had for helping freed slaves make it out in society? Do you know which document really freed the slaves?
Not everywhere. Several northern states such as Illinois had laws that virtually prohibited blacks from even living within their boundaries. Oregon even wrote this into their constitution.
Abolition was the founding cause of the Republican Party.
Once again, that simply is not so. Free Soil was a major founding cause, combined with hamiltonian constitutionalism, high tariffs, national banking, and subsidies. This attracted some abolitionists, but abolitonism itself was not a cause.
It was born out of the churches
But, once again, not the same type of churches we tend to think of today. Some religious fundamentalists were abolitionists, but the most prominent "religious" abolitionists were all Unitarians. If you do not know what a Unitarian is look up one of their churches in your local phone book and drop in one sunday for a service. You will be treated to a leftist freak show that makes the Democrat national convention look tame.
people didn't join the cause for political advantage because it was a minority party that shouldn't have had a chance.
Actually they did gain political advantage from it and it did indeed have a chance. Numerically, the GOP had almost as many seats in Congress as the Dems. When you take into account that the congressional Dems were divided into two factions, north and south, that gave the GOP a large plurality.