The thing about this "pro-North viewpoint" is that it isn't pro-North at all. It is pro-union, pro-Constitution, and pro-United States of America. That the North called themselves the Union is a historical convenience when discussing the Civil War's historical treatment as a war over the union of the states who ratified the Constitution. Were the Confederates to have won, there would no longer be a United States of America. There would not have been a 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment. There would not have been a march toward applying the principles of the Constitution to formerly excluded people who only counted as 3/5ths of a person for the sake of increasing the slave states' representation in Congress.
Slavery wasn't just "used more as a political weapon"--it was one of the primary political and human issues dividing the united States (downcase intentional). The acts of secession were seen as in violation of the Constitution and a detriment to building a United States (upcase intentional). To suggest slavery was merely "used more as a political weapon" reads as if there's an implicit statement that it was not a huge political problem. The facts of history overwhelmingly suggest that it was. There is a reason that long before the civil war, Americans considered themselves to be members of either free states or slave states.
Moreover, there is far more historical evidence to suggest that the war, and not slavery, was "used more as a political weapon" to resolve the divisive issues surrounding slavery and the primacy of the US Constitution. Suggesting that slavery was used as a political weapon falls down when one looks at the post-assassination history, particularly the negotiations between the Johnson administration and the reconstructing state governments in the South. American support for the abolition of slavery had been present since the time of the Constitution. The problem in the intervening 70 years was that most people saw slavery as constitutionally protected, requiring a political solution that would abolish it permanently (e.g., an amendment). The war was, ultimately, the political weapon used to find a solution.
Even as far back as the ratification of the Constitution, these tensions existed. Twenty years prior, in the 1770s, there were already known and notable movements to abolish slavery in the colonies. Lincoln introduced an amendment to a resolution abolishing slavery in DC in 1849. The Compromise of 1850 leaves zero room to suggest that slavery was not an inherently and fundamentally divisive issue for which the Congress was trying to find any peaceful, political way possible to resolve it while mitigating growing tensions. The Kansas-Nebrasks Act of 1854 brought Lincoln back out of what looked like political retirement because he felt it was wrong to leave the slavery question a matter of popular vote in new territories. His opinions on slavery are well-documented, before and during his presidency.
> This declared indifference, but I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself...it deprives our republican institutions to taunt us as hypocrites...the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity...it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the fundamental principles of civil liberty-criticizing the Declaration of Independence and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self interest.
> The doctrine of self-government is right-absolutely and eternally right-but has no just application as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such just application depends on whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, why in that case, he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just as he pleases with him. But if the negro is a man, is not to that extent, a destruction of self-government, to say that he too shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than self-government-that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that ‘all men are created equal,' and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another...What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without the other's consent.
> Allow all the governed an equal voice in the government, and that and that only is self-government...Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a ‘sacred right of self-government.'...Let us return to the position our fathers gave it...Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence. We shall have so saved [the Union], that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations.
Perhaps close to your cited statement on Lincoln's wanting to keep slavery and the Union, you are mischaracterizing his intent:
> ...Nebraska is urged as a great Union-saving measure. Well I too go for saving the Union. Much as I hate slavery, I would consent to the extension of it rather than see the Union dissolved, just as I would consent to any great evil, to avoid a greater one.
Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature-opposition to it is in his love of justice...repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature.
For Lincoln, as with others who sought a political solution, the biggest problem was maintaining fidelity to the Constitution and the Union, while solving what was seen as a national problem:
> You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the constitution and the Union.
The apologists for the Confederacy who to this day stupidly refer to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression, those who try to rewrite the intent of the actors before, during, and after the Civil War--those who attempt to hide behind the statement that the Confederacy seceded to exert and protect States' Rights--willfully ignore history to advance an insidious viewpoint.
Nobody involved, not even Lincoln, disputed that the secession and the resulting Civil War was a matter of States' Rights. More importantly, everyone at the time knew exactly which rights the States were seceeding and fighting to protect.
This is a matter of historical record, not some alleged pro-North viewpoint.
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Now, beyond that, it is a matter of historical record that Lincoln committed constitutionally questionable actions, based on his interpretation of his wartime powers and other factors. That he committed "many constitutional wrongs" is a likely candidate for debate, but can only be discussed if you care to mention what those wrongs were. This article definitely highlights some of them. Arguing that he "increased the size and scope of the federal government" also requires significant explanation of exactly what you mean. Excluding the wartime expansion of budget and federal employees, which dramatically shrunk after his death and the war's end, what specifically are you referring to here?
This is a long post and merits a long response. I apologize if I'll be using HN as my draft board until I have answered or conceded to your points.
As far as your point that it's pro-Union versus pro-North, the Union in the 1860s is practically equivalent to the North. It doesn't detract from the fact that the North meant the Union, and the South the Confederation. Since all the states that attempted to secede are in the South, I think it's fair to say pro-Union is semantically equivalent to pro-North. However, pro-Union seems to be the terminology preferred by victors as it implies consensus while pro-North made it seem like regional differences (in truth it was). The Civil War was about regional differences largely over slavery. For instance, the South sometimes calls the Civil War by another name, ``the War of Northern Aggression." History is always POV. To indicate the indecisiveness on terminology, Wikipedia interchangeably refers to the Union or the North. It's absolutely about the differences with the North and the South. That's why the South attempted to leave the ``united States of America." If the South had won, I might argue that the USA wouldn't cease to exist, it just would only include a subset of the original members.
You're looking at history somewhat oddly. Until the outbreak of war, the Union was the entirety of the US states. It was when Southern states seceded that the Union became the North—that is, those states upholding preservation of the Union of states and resolving the slavery issue. Once the war is underway, the Union is used interchangeably to refer to the army and the states. Among historians, pro-Union isn't a tenable position of historiography. This isn't about victors writing the history. The pro-Union nature of the conflict had everything to do with keeping the states united under the Constitution. The stupid semantics of calling the Civil War the War of Northern Aggression is far more a pro-South political statement than is prevailing historiography pro-North.
That the war was regionally divided does not lend credence to equating pro-Union with pro-North. This is key. Those who fought against state secession were motivated by wanting to preserve the Union and resolve the slavery question, not by wanting to preserve the North and destroy the South. War broke to preserve the Union in the face of Southern states wishing to break it to persist in determining their own right to perpetuate enslavement of Africans. War resulted in resolving both the status of the Union and slavery.
Those who fought against state secession were motivated by wanting to preserve the Union and resolve the slavery question, not by wanting to preserve the North and destroy the South.
Though I am inclined to agree with you, and have found your posts here extremely illuminating, I am going to play devil's advocate for a moment. The argument I have heard is not that those fighting for the Union wanted to "destroy" the south, but that they wanted to subjugate it economically. While I don't think I could be persuaded that that was the sole motivation and that the slavery issue was nothing more than a cynical cover for it, I could perhaps imagine that there was some degree of truth to it nonetheless. What do you think of this?
I find that to be excessively creative given the facts. Had the buildup to civil war occurred in only the decade prior, or if the North postured aggressively and directly threatened the South, or if there was a significant body of historical evidence suggesting this case, it would be worth looking into. As it stands, however, we possess an incredible amount of primary sources which conclusively prove slavery had already been a source of political and ideological conflict among the states for a century. There was legitimate concern shared among the states about just what would happen economically in the South were slavery ousted, because Southern productivity was dependent upon the use of free, forced labor, while the Northern states were urbanizing, industrializing, and mechanizing their means of production.
The largest counterpoint to this suggestion is in the primary sources themselves. If the claim were true, we should see it throughout the secessionist documents we have available. And we do not. Slavery is the primary issue prevalent in all secessionist sources that convinced the states to withdraw from the union. There was mention of worry about the Republican call for tariffs in the 1860 election, but this did not spread across the whole of the South, nor was it a rallying cry among the secessionists as they whipped up public opinion in support and defense of first the secession, and then the Confederacy itself.
Ultimately, the sources speak for themselves. Take a look at the literature of the time, the pamphlets, the various arguments made for the purposes behind and need for secession and war. Wherever the states seceded, and even within those states wherever pro-Union--by which I do not and the people of the time did not mean the North, but the constitutionally declared perpetual union of the States--had an almost singularly consistent theme: slavery. There were parties and factions, candidates and referendums, that self-identified as slaveowners vs non-slaveowners. There were no demonstrable parties or groups or calls for rallying against the North and dividing the Union to repel Northern economic subjugation.
[EDIT]
I worry that I may have failed at directly answering the question by my chosen vector of interrogating secessionist documents, as opposed to those of the Union instead. On that front, to my knowledge, there is ample evidence to suggest that some in the North preferred to allow secession to stand than fight a war to preserve the Union. Some of this has often read to me as the kind of if-you-don't-like-it-then-good-riddance kind of attitude that occurs in these kinds of situations. I don't at the moment have much at my fingertips to state emphatically whether there is significant evidence to support the idea that the North used slavery as a cover to subjugate the South economically. Popularly speaking, this would be difficult to prove. We would need some very strong and persuasive documents from monied interests in the North with significant political power and/or connections, a direct line to the Congress and President, and demonstrated influence on Lincoln's decision to reject secession.
In the end, while secessionist and Northern declarations may have included a varying number of otherwise important reasons for the conflict, there was only one issue that so polarized the nation that one side was willing to break away from the Union and the other was willing to dispute the legitimacy of such an act.
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Interestingly enough, this economic argument actually began immediately after war broke out (which, curiously for those who wish to dub the war one of Northern aggression, was initiated by the Southern states). More curious, however, is that this argument did not have primacy in America. Instead, it was found in the pages of the London press, arguing from afar that the war was one of tariffs and economic issues perpetrated against the "free trade economy" of the South by the North, had no basis in any principles beyond that of the North's lust for sovereignty, and advocating that the North ought to recognize the seceded states. And then, though certainly never taught to any American student who studies the Civil War, a (now) infamous man who was ever watchful of economic matters, particularly of matters that focused on the abuses of economic power for another group's gain, came out to dismantle these arguments in their entirety. His name? Karl Marx.
Marx wrote a series of articles in 1861-62 attacking the London press and politicians for fabricating reasons to explain the war that were opposed to the facts of what was actually happening in the states. In one article, he even runs down a list of seceded states and data that was available at the time showing that border states, like Tennessee, rejected secession, but were then subjugated by force of arms from the Confederacy, who laid claim to such territory as being rightfully "theirs" and places where the institution of slavery ought to exist.
* If you're interested in more of Marx's articles against the London press, these two are the earliest:
There were slave states (even Southern slave states) that did not secede from the Union though. Virginia is perhaps the most exceptional case of that, the western counties of that state seceded from Virginia itself to re-join the Union as the state of West Virginia.
Either way though, bikeshedding about the name of each belligerent is to miss the whole point of that wonderful long post. I encourage you to give it another look once you return from dinner before you give your fully-considered response.
>people who only counted as 3/5ths of a person for the sake >of increasing the slave states' representation in Congress.
You have this backwards, please read the history. The 3/5's compromise was an initiative by northern states to REDUCE the electoral influence of southern states, who argued for 1/1 ratio.
I have exhaustively read the history. Perhaps you misunderstand my presentation. Or perhaps you choose to view the compromise from a purely Southern point of view.
Representation was apportioned according to free, legal persons. The slaveowners argued for representation according to total (free and non-free) population, specifically including slaves, to increase their presence in Congress and the electoral system. The compromise was struck to mitigate disproportionate representation on the basis of counting the slave population who secured no rights as persons, but allowed greater place at the legislative and electoral table.
The compromise can hardly be called a Northern initiative, as it was, specifically a compromise. The South increased its representation 3/5 more than the North wished it to have. During debates for amending the Articles of Confederation, the North wanted to increase the South's burden of taxes, while the South wanted to diminish it. During the Constitutional Convention, however, the greater interest was found in the Southern states' desire to have greater proportional representation that did not exclude slaves (they were both property not deserving of recognition as legal persons, but human beings which the South believed entitled them to greater representation).
Slavery wasn't just "used more as a political weapon"--it was one of the primary political and human issues dividing the united States (downcase intentional). The acts of secession were seen as in violation of the Constitution and a detriment to building a United States (upcase intentional). To suggest slavery was merely "used more as a political weapon" reads as if there's an implicit statement that it was not a huge political problem. The facts of history overwhelmingly suggest that it was. There is a reason that long before the civil war, Americans considered themselves to be members of either free states or slave states.
Moreover, there is far more historical evidence to suggest that the war, and not slavery, was "used more as a political weapon" to resolve the divisive issues surrounding slavery and the primacy of the US Constitution. Suggesting that slavery was used as a political weapon falls down when one looks at the post-assassination history, particularly the negotiations between the Johnson administration and the reconstructing state governments in the South. American support for the abolition of slavery had been present since the time of the Constitution. The problem in the intervening 70 years was that most people saw slavery as constitutionally protected, requiring a political solution that would abolish it permanently (e.g., an amendment). The war was, ultimately, the political weapon used to find a solution.
Even as far back as the ratification of the Constitution, these tensions existed. Twenty years prior, in the 1770s, there were already known and notable movements to abolish slavery in the colonies. Lincoln introduced an amendment to a resolution abolishing slavery in DC in 1849. The Compromise of 1850 leaves zero room to suggest that slavery was not an inherently and fundamentally divisive issue for which the Congress was trying to find any peaceful, political way possible to resolve it while mitigating growing tensions. The Kansas-Nebrasks Act of 1854 brought Lincoln back out of what looked like political retirement because he felt it was wrong to leave the slavery question a matter of popular vote in new territories. His opinions on slavery are well-documented, before and during his presidency.
> This declared indifference, but I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself...it deprives our republican institutions to taunt us as hypocrites...the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity...it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the fundamental principles of civil liberty-criticizing the Declaration of Independence and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self interest.
> The doctrine of self-government is right-absolutely and eternally right-but has no just application as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such just application depends on whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, why in that case, he who is a man may, as a matter of self-government, do just as he pleases with him. But if the negro is a man, is not to that extent, a destruction of self-government, to say that he too shall not govern himself? When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself, and also governs another man, that is more than self-government-that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that ‘all men are created equal,' and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another...What I do say is, that no man is good enough to govern another man, without the other's consent.
> Allow all the governed an equal voice in the government, and that and that only is self-government...Near eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a ‘sacred right of self-government.'...Let us return to the position our fathers gave it...Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence. We shall have so saved [the Union], that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations.
Perhaps close to your cited statement on Lincoln's wanting to keep slavery and the Union, you are mischaracterizing his intent:
> ...Nebraska is urged as a great Union-saving measure. Well I too go for saving the Union. Much as I hate slavery, I would consent to the extension of it rather than see the Union dissolved, just as I would consent to any great evil, to avoid a greater one. Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature-opposition to it is in his love of justice...repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature.
For Lincoln, as with others who sought a political solution, the biggest problem was maintaining fidelity to the Constitution and the Union, while solving what was seen as a national problem:
> You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the constitution and the Union.
The apologists for the Confederacy who to this day stupidly refer to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression, those who try to rewrite the intent of the actors before, during, and after the Civil War--those who attempt to hide behind the statement that the Confederacy seceded to exert and protect States' Rights--willfully ignore history to advance an insidious viewpoint.
Nobody involved, not even Lincoln, disputed that the secession and the resulting Civil War was a matter of States' Rights. More importantly, everyone at the time knew exactly which rights the States were seceeding and fighting to protect.
This is a matter of historical record, not some alleged pro-North viewpoint.
---
Now, beyond that, it is a matter of historical record that Lincoln committed constitutionally questionable actions, based on his interpretation of his wartime powers and other factors. That he committed "many constitutional wrongs" is a likely candidate for debate, but can only be discussed if you care to mention what those wrongs were. This article definitely highlights some of them. Arguing that he "increased the size and scope of the federal government" also requires significant explanation of exactly what you mean. Excluding the wartime expansion of budget and federal employees, which dramatically shrunk after his death and the war's end, what specifically are you referring to here?