"Slavery was not the cause of this war. Secession was -- that and Lincoln's determination to drown the nation in blood if necessary to make the Union whole again.
Nor did Lincoln ever deny it.
In his first inaugural, Lincoln sought to appease the states that had seceded by endorsing a constitutional amendment to make slavery permanent in the 15 states where it then existed. He even offered to help the Southern states run down fugitive slaves.
In 1862, Lincoln wrote Horace Greeley that if he could restore the Union without freeing one slave he would do it. The Emancipation Proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863, freed only those slaves Lincoln had no power to free -- those still under Confederate rule. As for slaves in the Union states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, they remained the property of their owners."
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=36428
I take another moment to process my disgust the blight that was slavery on what was otherwise a unique moment in the advancement of human rights and individual liberty. Personally, practically, conceptually, and for the wages we all still pay for the sin of slavery - can we transcend? On a personal level, absolutely, for those of us alive today. Culturally, it seems we may not.
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