What about the moral issue of expansion of slavery Joe?
Blessings
What about it?
First, we have you unsupported word that the seven former states that formed the Confederacy intended the massive expansion you claim. I have a feeling you are basing your assertions on them, as part of the Union, needing to expand it to maintain something close to political parity in Congress.
Second, slavery would have died out naturally as uneconomical in a few more decades. It was becoming cheaper to hire an irishman at 30 or 50 cents a day than to house, feed, clothe, and doctor a slave. And, unlike the northern slave holders who sold their slaves south and then outlawed it in some states, the mood among some of the leaders in the south was that they needed to educate their slaves and prepare them for being free members in a free society rather than just kicking them out to starve. Every other western nation got rid of slavery without a war, why do you believe it would it not have been the same here?
Third, what about the northern involvement in the African slave trade? Northern finance was still backing slave ships, having them built or existing ships converted into slavers, provisioning them, crewing them, supplying capital for buying blacks in Africa to reap huge profits selling them in South America and the Caribbean. If you are going to scream "Slavery!" and point fingers, make sure you include all the guilty parties.
ADDED:
Slavery must not have been that pressing a moral issue since Lincoln was willing to say that slavery would continue if it would keep the deep south in the Union. And when he "freed the slaves" he allowed slavery to continue in the north, in the border states, and in the parts of the south under federal control.
