But slavery was abolished. So it wasn't just propaganda.
How long do you imagine it might have lasted without military conflict? Economic forces sufficed to destroy it in most of the hemisphere pretty much simultaneously ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline#1700-1800). Will you argue that the American South would have constituted some curious exception?
That would surely be the obvious conclusion. If you are appealing to some
> kind of common sense or viewpoint you should spell it out, because it is not
> common to me. Is it really the general view in America that abolition played
> no part in the Union's war aims? I find that hard to believe.
>
It seems pretty obvious to me that the Union chose war for all the predictable economic reasons (tariffs, etc.) and used abolitionism - which took on a life of its own - to rally the proles. It would be a strange war, indeed, in which the bourgeoisie actually came out and told us we were being sent to our deaths to enrich them. (And if Mr. Lincoln had been so dreadfully concerned with slavery, he might have paid more attention to it in Delaware and Maryland.)
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."