He spoke with calm authority, denying that the Republican Party was either sectional or radical, except as it's opponents had made it so. Slavery was the issue, North and South, he said probing once more for the heart of the matter.

"All they ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right. All we ask, they could readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring it's full recognition as being right. But thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yeild to them? Can we cast our votes with their veiw and against our own? In veiw of our moral, social, and political responsibilities can we do this?" He thought not. "If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty by false accusations against us, nor frighten from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it". Shelby Foote, Ft Sumpter to Perryville page 32.

I post this as it was a speech given before Lincoln was nominated or approached for nomination to the Presidency. To me he is saying, he intended to do away with slavery because he thought it wrong. It also shows that the abolition of slavery was infact an agenda of the Republican party at the beginning of secession and before.

So I must ammend my way of thinking to say Slavery or the Abolition of, was one of the Primary causes of the War if not the cause of the War. The abolition of Slavery was the "Northern Aggression" Southerners were fighting. Now we can attach a whole gambit of other reasons but it is clear here that Lincoln meant to do away with slavery.