> 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.
Ha. The actual "proles" were among the most anti-abolitionist sectors of society. Have you ever heard of the Draft Riots?
And not only were the abolitionists overwhelmingly bourgeois but the high bourgeoisie had a disproportionate presence among them.
SA