Some cared about slavery, but by and large, the Southerners only cared about slavery because most Southerners were just a notch above slavery themselves. They didn’t want the slaves released to compete with them for jobs.
That’s what I’m saying. The poor Southerners did not want to compete for jobs with about 4 extra million available workers. However, that would have been a good situation for northern industrialists who would have wanted a never ending supply of workers for their industries they owned in the South.
All of the plantation "jobs" were held by slaves. Southerners had to scavenge work elsewhere. Freeing the slaves would have made little to no impact overall because if they left the plantation, those jobs would open up for others looking for work.
The northern folks were the ones wanting to keep the slaves in the south so they didn't come up north and start taking their jobs. The LAST thing they wanted was to "free" the slaves as this would be one of the results. After the war, there had to be a justification made for killing 750,000 young men in the prime of their lives. The real reason, continued economic raping of the south by the north, would never fly. That's when "ending slavery" became the "reason". Yea, right.
Some cared about slavery, but by and large, the Southerners only cared about slavery because most Southerners were just a notch above slavery themselves. They didn’t want the slaves released to compete with them for jobs.
******what jobs pray tell, oh i am going to fill out an application to farm with a plow behind a mule get the picture.
Compete with them for jobs? The forced labor already accomplished that by locking people out of jobs and stifling the existence of a labor market. So, yes, they were impoverished in the South - and slavery helped to accomplish that.