In addition:

1. I’m not aware that slaves were ever used in northern factories to any significant extent if at all. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that the end of slavery in the North pre-dated significant industrialization. Pennsylvania passed its first (VERY) gradual emancipation law in 1780. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts found slavery unconstitutional under the Commonwealth’s 1780 Constitution (still in effect, much amended, and written primarily by John Adams). Vermont (originally part of New York) abolished slavery in its first (1777) Constitution before Congress passed the legislation formally admitted it into the Union as the first new (14th) state in 1791.

2. The tariffs closest to the beginning of the secession winter were (1) the Walker Tariff of 1846 passed with Southern Democrats dominating all branches of government and which lowered to tariffs to rates barely high enough to produce the revenue to run the government and without being protective, and (2) the Tariff of 1857 which slashed tariff rates even further to the extent that, rightly or wrongly, many Northerners blamed it for the Panic of 1857 and the ensuing depression that hit mostly non-slave states. There were tariffs that actually gave some measure of protection to significant Southern products, especially hemp and sugar. Furthermore, in the antebellum period, tariffs were how the government raised revenue for its very limited operations.

3. The war did not begin as an effort to free the slaves. The war began due to secession which was an effort by the rebel slave states to PROTECT slavery from the perceived threat to the institution from the election of a Republican as President and an increased number of Republicans in both houses of Congress. The initial war objective of the US government was to preserve the Union; ending slavery, in part to eliminate its divisive effects, only became a war objective later. Northern attitudes on race were complex. In the case of Illinois, it was a free state not due to its own initiatives but due to the provisions of the Northwest Ordinance, passed by the Congress under the Articles of Confederation and ratified by the first Congress under the Constitution that covered it when it was a territory. Furthermore, the southern part of the state, known as Little Egypt, was heavily settled by migrating Southern whites.

4. I don’t know anyone on this blog or among Civil War historians who use membership in the SCV as a litmus test on character.

You are asking a number of interesting questions about Lincoln and race in the North. Where did you get your 10,000 black slaveowners from? Please provide the source. On Lincoln I would recommend starting with David Donald’s biography, _Lincoln_. You may also want to check out Eric Foner’s new study of Lincoln, race and slavery, _The Fiery Trial_. The book also goes into great detail into some of your other questions re: slavery in the North. On Sherman I recommend John Marszalek’s, _Sherman: A Soldiers Passion For Order_. Happy reading and thanks for the comment.

Everyone is biased in the way we look at and interpret sources. The issue for me is whether the individual can apply a certain historical method.