Reply #56: Sorry but to a large degree liberation (33) is right.

[The Croquist]

The Civil war WAS fought over slavery but only by the South. In the North it was fought over "Preserving the Union" (AKA no "States Rights"). The great irony is that today the Southerners will tell you that it was fought over, not "Slavery", but "States Rights" and the Yankees will tell you it was fought over "Slavery" not "States Rights".

A big secondary issue (related to slavery of course) was that as states were being added the South demanded an equal amount of "slave" states and "free" states. The big problem there was that the part of the country we were expanding into was not "slave friendly".

There really wasn't much support initially in the North over emancipation. It was about 18 months after the war started that the US proclaimed the Emancipation Proclamation and that freed almost no slaves initially and never freed all. From a military perspective, the single biggest thing that the Emancipation Proclamation did was to encourage slaves to flee plantations and disrupt the southern economy. Don't underestimate that. The North won more economically then militarily.

Throughout the war African-Americans were largely treated like crap by both sides.