his unlawful, unconstitutional, and immoral invasion of the Southern States to "save the union"... was the cause of THE WAR
OK. Slavery was the cause for secession. The war started, not when the South seceded, but when Lincoln sent the military to stop it.
No argument.
So, for the South, the war was about slavery, and the right to spread the practice into the western states.
Although the North was opposed to slavery, and to the spread of the practice into the western states, for them the war was about saving the union. As has been pointed out, when the Union was at stake, abolition went to the back burner, to the consternation of the Radical Republicans.
But slavery is the elephant that came to dinner. Without slavery, there is no war to defend it, no secession, no war to save the union. Whether for economic reasons, or any other.
Although the North was opposed to slavery, and to the spread of the practice into the western states, for them the war was about saving the union. As has been pointed out, when the Union was at stake, abolition went to the back burner, to the consternation of the Radical Republicans.
But slavery is the elephant that came to dinner. Without slavery, there is no war to defend it, no secession, no war to save the union. Whether for economic reasons, or any other.
Absolutely, positively correct. This is what confuses people. They hear that the South seceded to preserve slavery, but then they read Lincoln's statements where he seems to not be overly concerned with ending slavery. This is because he wasn't. The Republican Party was not overly concerned with ending slavery, but the Southern states knew that with Lincoln in office, it would, without a doubt, die a slow but painful death. One reason being, unless they could spread slavery into the Western states, the South would be isolated both socially and economically. Plus, the South would continue to bleed runaway slaves into the North and there would be nothing they could do to get them back since the North was ignoring the laws written to return them to their owners.
Slavery was dead if the South remained a part of the US.
The only reason the Emancipation Proclamation was issued was because Lincoln knew the war was won and there was no way the South could come back into the Union with Slavery still intact. After all, this was the reason they left in the first place.
Ironically, the South sped up the demise of Slavery by seceding from the Union. If they had just stayed, Slavery would probably have continued, (in a diminished form) into the 20th century. As a society, we were probably lucky in the long run that the South sped up the demise of slavery.