No doubt, but that hardly answers my argument. I did not argue that there were no strong anti-slavery sentiments in the North. I argued that the North fought an essentially imperial war, using these sentiments as a justification of that war. Likewise, there are strong democratic sentiments among the US public today, but these are not the reason why Bush sent troops to Iraq or why Clinton ordered the bombardment of Yugoslavia.
The point I was trying to make was that hoping, then or now, that the Federal Entity in Washington (FEW) can bring about social progress by dispatching its troops against some particularly abominable enemy is socialism of fools. I tried to argue that by pointing out that FEW military interventions did not result in the social progress attributed to them, and if they did, this was usually a result of other factors, such as "communist challenge."
I made that argument in response to a posting arguing that the US is unlikely to face any serious external challenge in the next 30 or so years. The point was to show that the US might be more vulnerable to internal challenges resulting from its fucked up social order. From that view point, any centrifugal tendencies challenging the FEW is a good thing and deserves progressive support. The point is, however, that the Lefties must shed their knee-jerk tendency to see the FEW as the force of progress. It is not, despite its few grossly overrated interventions in the South.
Wojtek