Why was the North against slavery during the US Civil War?

Answer 1

They didn't mostly.

It is true that the Abolitionist lobby had been growing, largely thanks to the influence of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'.

But it is not true that the North leapt into uniform to fight the terrible institution of slavery. (They were wanting to save the Union, which principally meant the cotton revenues.)

That is why Lincoln had to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, to turn the war into an official crusade against slavery, to shame free nations abroad out of helping the Confederates.

Answer 2

Northern states were industial, so they didn't need or use slaves. They saw no importance in them. Therefore they saw it as crule and were against it.

Another view: the Northern states made the US Civil War about slavery to prevent other countries from intervening on the side of the Confederacy. The North was particularly worried about the British Empire allying itself with the Southern states. But the British Empire couldn't be seen to support slavery having abolished it 50 years before.

Answer 3

In the North only the minority of the public opinion, that is the Abolitionists, was openly thinking that the war was against the slavery.

The majority thought that it was being fought against the rebellion of the South and for the restoring of the Union.

This last was also the only official task of Lincoln and his government, until the definitive Emancipation Proclamation, enacted on January 1, 1863.

Indeed the Proclamation didn't make any radical overturning in the public opinion.

It only added to the war a new important objective, which had been understood and endorsed as a measure of war, aiming to weaken the Confederacy and gain the favour of the Foreign Powers' public opinion and governments., without undermining the most important one: that of the restoration of the Union.

Answer 4

Because slavery is inhumane and the north's economy was not as needing of slavery as the south's was.

Answer 5

Because the abolitionists in the North thought slavery was sinful and detrimental to the rights of free men.

Answer 6

they believed the South was the bane of America; to them, southerners were odd, stubborn, and stuck in an antiquated lifestyle that northerners.

Answer 7

because they were slack offs.

Answer 8

Because people wanted to.