Why did the north wish to abolish slavery?

Answer 1

It wasn't just northerners. The south had more abolitionists groups than the north. General Ulysses S. Grant said "If I thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission, and offer my sword to the other side." The war was about economics. 5% of the south owned slaves. For this 5%, the war was about economics and slavery. So slavery was a reason for the war, but not the primary reason. Many people in the south were for abolishing slavery, including Thomas Jefferson and General Robert E. Lee. General Lee said "There are few, I believe, in this enlightened era who would not agree with me that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil."

Northern leadership had no intention of abolishing slavery. They only did so to help end the war. Abraham Lincoln was very clear that he was not in favor of abolishing slavery. He said "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that." He also said "Amend the Constitution to say it should never be altered to interfere with slavery." Northerners wanted to abolish slavery for the same reason that most southerners wanted to abolish slavery, because it was wrong and immoral.

Answer 2

Most of them didn't wish to abolish slavery everywhere.

They had abolished it in the North, because it didn't suit the factory system. (Industrial employers needed mobile free labour.)

But Southern slavery was the mainstay of the cotton industry, and most Northerners, including Lincoln, were willing to tolerate slavery in its traditional heartlands for the sake of the cotton revenues.

However the same people did not like the prospect of an extended slave-empire reaching all the way to California - partly because it might give the South enough wealth to break away from the United States, along with those cotton revenues.

But the big debate also caused some Northerners to review their outlook on the morality of slavery altogether, as the Abolitionist lobby was very vocal, though not very numerous, and it gained increasing influence in Congress.

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I disagree with what is written above. Although some slaves were freed in the North, and in the South, Slavery was a mainstay in all the states. Sometimes as labor, but in the North, generally a status symbol.

It is a fact that Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, was often heard making racist jokes, and that had it not been for his need of the French Navy, the issue would never have came up as an issue in the civil war. Even still, it didn't come up until several years into the war.

When approached by the North for the need of them to help form a blockade to shut down the Southern supply lines, the French insisted that in exchange for their help, Lincoln would have to abolish slavery.

Another not very well known fact is that delegates from Southern states wanted to free the slaves well before the Civil War ever started. Lincoln and his supporters shot it down in a game of politics. The Southern states had a plan to put all slaves through a 10 year training program, educating them all, and teaching all of them a trade. It seemed a viable plan rather than releasing them into society without any means to support themselves. Good ideas are rarely embraced when politicians are playing political games though.

I will agree that it was the wealth of the South that forced the North to refuse to allow the South to leave peacefully, and for them to initiate and wage war against the South to force them back into the fold. To punish the South, and to make sure they would never recover to the level of power and wealth they once had, the North employed a scorched earth policy, burning everything they left in their wake, and stealing anything that was not nailed down.

The winner writes history, and few people care to know the truth about America's bloodiest war. Most people don't even know that Lincoln was going through impeachment proceedings for firing on American civilians in New York at the time he was assassinated. What is more horrifying is that they have no intentions of teaching that in school either.

Answer 3

Because they were the workforce of the Southern enemy.