>>It wasn't about freeing any type of slavery. Slavery wasn't
>>an issue for either the North and the South. They didn't
>care
>>about slavery. The issues at the table were protecting the
>>union.
>
>OK, but *why* did they have to protect the Union? What was the
>issue that divided the Union? It was slavery, point blank.
>
>>Slavery was an add-on for the war. The North didn't care
>that
>>the South had slaves, that wasn't the reason for the
>secession
>>and the Civil War.
>
>The North did care that the South had slaves, but they were
>willing to accept it as a necessary evil to keep the Union
>together. But at the same time they did not want to perpetuate
>it any further, so they did not want slavery to spread outside
>of the south.
>
>Which leads us to the reason for the secession: Lincoln wanted
>to ban new slave states from entering the Union. The South saw
>this as a threat because as new free states entered the Union
>the South would be at a political disadvantage, and they
>feared that abolition would then be forced on them. That's why
>they seceded.
The biggest problem I have with this is that the banishment of further slave states from the Union wouldn't necessarily lead to the abolition of slavery. My thing is that even people in the North had slaves, so slavery wouldn't be much of an issue there.
As for the free states vs. slave states, that was more political than anything else. You're absolutely right, the South would be at a political disadvantage. But not because of that (or not only). It was moreso that the Northern population was also growing, and the South wanted balance in the House of Representatives. And with more people up North, there wasn't much the South could do to balance out the House.

>>You honestly think if the North could've figured out a way
>to
>>benefit from slavery in industrialization that they would've
>>abolished it...no way.
>
>No, but the fact that the North didn't depend on slavery
>allowed them to come to grips with the immorality of it,
>without having to rationalize it because their way of life
>depended on it like they did in the South. So no, the North
>was not inherently more moral than the South, it's just that
>they were in a position to look at the morality of it from a
>more detached, objective position, whereas the south was
>not.
Don't get me wrong, there were people in the North that though slavery was an abomination and should be abolished and rightfully so. But they weren't the majority of people in the North, and wasn't enough to convince the government that it was worth alienating half the country over. It wasn't that much of an issue to the North.

Here's a couple of sites (because my history is still a little rusty)
http://www.swcivilwar.com/cw_causes.html
http://members.tripod.com/~greatamericanhistory/gr02013.htm

And don't get me wrong, I'm not pro-slavery and I know the evils of it. I don't think that it was the cause of the Southern secession (which was more politically driven than anything else) and slavery wasn't as big of an issue.