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Whenever I hear that myth about Lincoln freeing the slaves, it is fun to debunk it. It is also fun to point out that he promised to keep slavery forever legal in the South, at his inauguration. Yet the war was all about slavery. Right.
---warning long winded Poli Board-esque response ahead---
----skip ahead if historical discourse bores you---

First, promising not to interfere with slavery where it existed is not the same as "promising to keep slavery forever legal in the South." One is passive tolerance, and the other implies active support.

Slavery was a dying institution on it's own. Had the South surrendered prior to 1863, they likely would have retained the practice of slavery as a peace concession. With the growing industrialization of the world and the US, America was becoming more urbanized and the inefficient and high costs of slave power as an agrarian factor of production made the end of slavery an inevitability.

The main contention for the South was over the ability to import new slaves and the right for new territories and states in westward expansion to be slave states or not, which directly affected political power distribution and economics.

Ironically, it was the federal government choosing not to violate states' rights and force free states to return runaways that served as the straw that broke the camels back, which is why the post-war, neo-Confederacy states' rights proclamation always makes me laugh. It would have been pure hypocrisy based on the Southern stance on lack of support for the Fugitive Slave Act.

If anything, the states' right the South was fighting for was the right to retain and expand the unrestricted practice of slavery. So, which is it, as you can't have it both ways.

Of course, the war was not about slavery in and of itself. It, like all wars, was about power, both political and economical power.

However, as most every Southern state's declarations of secession proclaimed, those ideals of "power" were manifested in the institution of slavery: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin." (Mississippi - though virtually a plagiarized version of any other)

Lincoln fought to retain, preserve and protect the Union. And, that is what he did. The Emancipation Proclamation was a brilliant political move to avoid further attritional based warfare and a bargained peace. It essentially removed limitations in the conduct of warfare, and shifted both sides closer to total war. It was a direct attack on the very base of power (slavery) that the Southern states proclaimed so vital to their interests that it compelled secession and warfare to protect it... even though Lincoln had vowed not to further interfere with slavery where it existed, as you alluded to in your initial slight misrepresentation of his intent.

Further, southern slave emancipation created social unrest. Very few white southerners owned slaves. But, the model for success at the time was measured in acres of cropland and numbers of slaves, so most all surely aspired to own their own slaves. But, a majority were likely living and working in equal to worse conditions than some slaves. The only thing to their advantage was their freedom and the color of their skin. If the slaves were to be freed and considered anything but wholly inferior to the whites, it blurred the lines of established societal class to a point of unacceptability to all southern white men, not just the rich.

So, from 1863 forward, the war changed. The only acceptable terms for peace in the eyes of the Union were a complete and total surrender by the Confederacy. And, that is what they won.

Most interesting to me in all of this discussion is the lack of consideration given to the likelihood that the Civil War hastened the end of slavery, but prolonged and engrained a strong want for segregation and sense of racism in the South. Wounded pride, resentment for having individual rights stripped away, and sentiment of continued federal government overreach into state affairs during reconstruction would shape a pervasive attitude that still lingers today. I'd argue that the majority of southern whites desired to restore social norms and a perceived class structure that were torn down and imposed upon them in their eyes. Had slavery simply run its course, and slaves become too expensive and inefficient due to advances in technology, there would possibly have been a more natural erosion of those social barriers in the South and greater, albeit gradual, acceptance of freed blacks on more equal terms across the South as their occurence became a natural norm. But, who knows...

I do not deny that the pro slavery motives of Southern oligarchs played a significant role in the desire for secession. However, their stated pro slavery motives in most, but not all of the states' articles of secession, do not tell the full story, especially not in regards to the motives of the avg Southern soldier.

Moreover, I do resent the Black and White view we have been given of the war. The notion that the North was slave free, and started the war to end slavery is the myth I am seeking to debunk for it is not only false, but has led to the continued demonization of the South. It also ignores the strong resentment of the South for the fact that it paid for up to 80 per cent of the federal budget via the tariff. South Carolina had come very close to leaving the Union in fact for this reason about 10 years prior to the war.
Another example of how the South has been unfairly demonized is the lack of attention given to the truly evil practice of child labor in the Northern factories. It is also a fact that a certain non Christian tribe was disproportionately involved in the slave trade, and in slave ownership, but few are willing to discuss it even as they pretend slavery was a uniquely Southern and Christian practice.

Also, you overlook the very good reasons for Southern hostility to the North. Union troops destroyed much of the developed South during the war. The Univ of Alabama in fact, except for several buildings (the President's Mansion was saved by the verbal tongue lashing given to the Union troops by the President's wife), was completely destroyed. Women of all races were raped. Post war, Black illiterates were placed into political power by reconstructionists. Northern carpetbaggers were merciless.

Finally, neither Lincoln nor the North supported integration. For all practical purposes, the North was segregated too, just not by legal means. You can't force different peoples to integrate. I agree it was wrong to mandate segregation, but certainly no American region was gung ho against the spirit of segregation till post WW2. And even then, many Northern Whites bitterly resented forced integration methods such as bussing.

This post was edited on 3/29/20 at 2:28 pm