There is a popular conception regarding the cause of the Civil War, that the war was fought over the issue of slavery and that the North was battling to free the slaves. In fact, while there were some in the North who desperately wanted an end to slavery, this was not the primary cause of the war, nor was the abolition of slavery the primary purpose of the war from the northern point of view. Historians generally agree on this as they agree on many of the underlying reasons for the Civil War, reasons which were on the one hand economic, involving economic differences between North and South, and on the other political, with Abraham Lincoln pursing the war primarily to defend and protect the Union. An analysis of a number of texts on the subject of the Civil War and its causes indicates the different approaches taken by historians, different ways in which they present their material, and alternative theories they offer as to the cause of the Civil War.
Slavery had a role in creating tensions between North and South because of the efforts of northern abolitionists to stir up opposition to the institution for the half-century or so prior to the start of the Civil War, and historians do find that the anti-slavery sentiment was strong in the north, contributed to developing political tensions between North and South, and created special resentment against the North in the South.
John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr. in From Slavery to Freedom note that the antislavery debate started in the eighteenth century with the question of whether slavery should or should not be included in the Constitution, and the debate continued into the nineteenth century. For a time, the issue was less open as the South found new opportunities for the profitable employment of slaves and as the North became concerned with its own economic and political problems. Abolitionists as a militant force appeared around 1830, but by then most of the con...