Reply #46: I've just spent a lot of time reading the Milwaukee newspapers from the civil war era [View All]

And what I saw there proves your claims dead wrong. From the addresses by various Wisconsin governors and mayors to the very coverage of the war day-to-day, there was an absolute preponderance of revulsion over slavery starting long before the war and the traitorous actions (their words) of the secessionists that kicked it off. In fact, Wisconsin was then and still is very proud of the fact that we were the first state to challenge the Fugitive Slave Act in the courts and we won. This wasn't just the sentiment in Milwaukee; I found those same sentiments expressed even more strongly in some of the small town papers of the time.

From the time of the Federalist papers on, there had been a stream of thought that embraced a strong federal government in this country. The fact is, most of the south didn't and their solution was to secede. That slavery and the regulation/demolition of it was the crux of the argument doesn't mean it wasn't a hugely important cause and was thought of as such for a very long time by "most people" in the north before the war began. Where you came up with the theory that people didn't think slaves had souls I cannot comprehend.

Whether or not slavery was an excuse by the powers that be in DC to exert that federal control is meaningless, as clearly there was a strong rallying cry around slavery, soldiers living and dying to end it and protect the union. No small cause for them, no matter how you try to diminish it. Did they use slavery to build sentiment for the federal cause like they used 9/11 to build cause to go into Iraq? Perhaps. But that doesn't change the fact that the sentiment on the ground in so many parts of this country truly was about the dual purpose of protecting the country and freeing the slaves.

For years I'd been fed the same steady diet of "it wasn't really about the slavery" as you've had. The research I've done over the past year on this war in my state and across the country has turned that claim on its head.