Please, you’re reaching. The South went to war to preserve an economic system based on the use of slave labor and defended that practice in drawing up it’s own constitution and by going to war.
No it did not. The South shut down the river through a collection of states. That was a major point.
Your liberal arts class may not make that known.
Everyone I worked with in Tennessee had no slaves in their history. It was a common labor for cotton but not much else.
The North honestly could care less. It was about creating a Government that you get today.