What was the real reason slavery was abolished?Was it economic self-interest?
Beware of looking for “THE real reason”. This assumes that there can only be ONE reason, and that the rest is all excuses, smokescreens, etc. But why assume this?? The culture within which slavery existed was a COMPLEX one, the PEOPLE were varied and complex. Why should we expect the reasons for major shifts, political actions, etc. to be reducible to one simple “real” reason? In fact, economic factors DO influence people, society and political decisions in many ways. But that hardly justifies trying to reduce everything to the “REAL economic reason(s)” as some like to do (common in Marxist circles, for example) and ignore other reasons that are FAIRLY important, AS important or even MORE important (depending on the specific situation). While it is true that ‘pure, principled abolitionism’ was a minority position, and the “free soil” arguments had a large economic component, we cannot and should not downplay or dismiss the fact that the anti-slavery sentiment of many free-soilers inclu
