“the blame lies on both sides”......
You are exactly right, the north was wrong, the south was wrong and most of all slavery was wrong.
It was much simpler than most people think. It was all about the North controlling the South for their monetary gain.
While searching for my ancestors on census records before the war, I was surprised to see that the South was very prosperous. I was astounded at how many had wealth in excess of $50,000 and that was in 1850 in the area around Valdosta, Georgia.
The South could sell their products to England and Europe and get good prices. They then used that money to buy products made in England etc.
The North wanted to force the South to sell and buy from them by placing tariffs on trade between the U.S. and Europe. They might have even been specific as to what was taxed but I don’t know that.
The North used slavery as their weapon to create hatred toward the South. Never mind that these same New Englanders were perfectly happy to engage in the most evil part of slavery, the slave trade.
Every Southern state had banished the slave trade. So the New Engendars now had no profit from slavery at all and became abolitionist.