i'll be explicit if you didn't follow me: in a conflict between southern plantation owners that want to carry on the institution of slavery and keep the profits for themselves and northern bankers and industrialists that want to enter that market and generate new revenue streams for themselves, there isn't a lesser evil.

that is the real lie here: not that the south wasn't operating primarily to save slavery, but that the north had any meaningful interest in dismantling it. what the north actually wanted was a seat at the table - at the head of the table.