Hi Penny,

You point out that three of my comments, when compared, seem to contradict each other. These comments were:

"Many people point out how unpopular Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was at its announcement and even after its implementation across the North (let alone the border states), particularly among Democrats."

"As I said before, in 1860 only a small population of radical abolitionists supported a sweeping national ban against slavery."

"Finally, the idea that slavery wasn't the "hot button" issue at the beginning of the war cannot stand."

There is no inconsistency in these statements. I understand that someone may be confused by the fact that only a small number of Americans supported abolition in 1860 when I argue that slavery was a "hot button" issue at the same time. Yet, these two are not contradictory or mutally exclusive.

Millions of northerners believed slavery was morally corrupt or wrong, opposed its extension into the territories, and felt very strongly about resisting what they saw as slaveholding aggression in the country. This did not make them abolitionists. Many people, including Abraham Lincoln, hated slavery but recognized its importance and legality in the South. (Sort of like disliking what your neighbor is doing, but willing to let him do it in the privacy of his own home.) Thus, they opposed the institution without advocating forcible abolition (before the war, of course).

As you note, Ken brought up the popular "myth" that the war was entirely about freeing slaves. That is a popular myth, as is the countering idea that slavery had little or nothing to do with the conflict. People on both sides of the issue (if we can legitimately simplify Civil War viewpoints as such) often perceive the slavery debate in extremes --- either people wanted to end it immediately it or they accepted it without problem. In fact, most northerners were largely in the middle. They had little concern for blacks (really were vehemently anti-black) but also hated the institution as problematic for their own interests. This included fears of competing against black labor (free or slave) as well as philosophical differences regarding free labor versus forced labor in American society

Most northerners were willing to leave slavery alone where it existed. Political developments in the 1850s, including the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott decision, and Bleeding Kansas convinced many northerners that compromise with slaveholding interests for the nation's future was not working, and led to a more aggressive stand against slavery. But it did not lead to widespread talk of abolition...though firebreathing Southerners often threatened that abolition was the secret motive in Northern minds.

Slavery was THE issue during this period, there can be no doubt. However, initially it was not the simple all slavery or no slavery image so many people draw up. Instead, it was a struggle for the longterm future of slavery in the Union. Southerners feared being a minority power and voice in the national government, while the Republican Party pledged noninterference with slavery in the South but a dedication to resisting it in the territories and on federal property. Ultimately, it was the war itself, the crisis facing the nation, that led to the embrace of abolition among most Northerners.