Yes, but Lincoln said he was willing to keep slavery if it meant saving the Union. The South wanted to secede because the North was undermining slave ownership. Lincoln couldn't have the agricultural South, which was a massive part of the US economy leave the Union. This is how and why slavery was the issue. Economics.
Guerilla is right here. I do believe that Lincoln viewed slavery with moral repugnance (and this moral code evolved over time), but the first and primary issue for him was a question of federalism over state power. The "Slave Power" represented strongly confederal poles of power, and he would not stand a further centrifugal pull of power away from a unified nation. Slavery was the lightning rod, but it wasn't the primary tripping point - that tripping point was to preserve the Union.
The nation did not support a war to end slavery. However, the South suceeded and Lincoln was able to rally the North to fight to preserve the Union. Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation whcih effictively ended slavery in any case. Slavery was always the underlying conflict between the North and South.
Bogart, I'd have to disagree. Again, from the private (amongst his cabinet members; not a public speech) thoughts: The question at hand is what tripped action. It is clear. Additionally, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued fully one year after the start of hostilities; if slavery itself was the issue, it would have been issued on day 1. It was issued by the President of the United States against rebellious states under the confederacy. But he needed key Union victories before breaching the resistance of anti-abolitionist elements within the North, so he waited until after that victory, Antietam. By my read, like the war itself, it was at heart a statement of federal authority over all states within the erstwhile United States. It seems to me it was a political, and not a moral act - any reading of Lincoln's true views, though they evolved, cannot ignore his sentiments on the black race: Also, The Proclamation, in short, was issued in order to, and succeeded to, empower the Union; it stripped the confederacy of any hope of international recognition among its erstwhile soft supporters, particularly Britain. It worked to bleed the South of its uniform adherence to slavery (and the economic sustenance it provided, however inefficient), and consolidated Lincoln's power base at home.
At the time the South was alarmed by the anti-slavery platform of the Republican Party and Lincoln's election was the lightning rod for sucession. Here is a political cartoon from the era that depicts the agnst of Southerners. "Description During the campaign of 1860, cartoonists played up Abraham Lincoln's frontier image as a rail splitter. The rail he rides in this cartoon is that of the Republican Party's antislavery platform." http://images.indianahistory.org/cd...T=%20302&DMTHUMB=1&REC=1&DMROTATE=0&x=82&y=34
I would probably side with Pat Cleburn. His basic argument was: we need to free the slaves and allow them to fight the invading union army. I think slavery was coming to an end, slowly. Social structures don't change overnight unless violence is involved... The war was the violent catalyst to end it, so it was over by the time the war was over, regardless of who ultimately won.
Black Confederates serving in the Army of the South http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/blackcs.htm