HeavyMetalDave wrote:
Are you HIGH!
Do you understand that this country divided and fought itself?
And the north fought the south to stop slavery!
The Northern states fought to free the slaves.
the war was fought as a matter of federalism and state's rights primarily, and as a matter of congressional voting power for the states secondarily,
lincoln and others wanted to consolidate the nation's government under DC creating a nation in which the states answered to the federal government, as opposed to the states telling the fed what to do (this is the basic meaning of "confederate states of america"),
there was also a power struggle between the more industrialized states and the agricultural states in that the ag states wanted the slave population to be counted as genereal population allowing them to have more seats in the house of representatives, the industrialized states arguing that the slaves were not allowed to vote and were not subject to representation
but it all falls back to the matter of federalization, this is evidenced in part by the fact that there were non-slave states in the confederacy and there would have been more, even New York, if Lincoln had not had there governors and other legislative leaders jailed for treason
there wasn't a noble and glorious mission to end slavery, it didn't even come up until about 3 years into the war, in fact if you read Lincoln's "emancipation proclamation" carefully you will see that it saw the slaves more as property to be confiscated from the CSA like livestock and plantations, as they were getting sick of Lee handing them their asses on a regular basis and decided that if they could not defeat the CSA armies strategically they would defeat them by attacking civilian targets and burning food stores and such, this was the basic principle behind Sherman's march to the sea, avoid militia, confiscate everything (slaves included), burn what you couldn't confiscate
once the confiscated slaves made it north of the Mason-Dixon line, there was no slave trade so technically they were free