Once again i'm not saying that moralism is directly responsible for the civil war. I'm saying that christian abolitionism is a large part of the reason that the north was so against slavery. We can look back through time and divine out other accurate reasons for the civil war.
the first line of the Wikipedia page on Lincoln and slavery is " Lincoln often expressed moral opposition to slavery in public and private."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_and_slavery
Also Howard Zinn's expositions does not a primary source make. Hell he uses secondary sources. I unfortunately took the time to read some of his lovely peoples history of america. The relevant chapter. First this shit isn't even consistent with how a history text should be written. Maybe like a high school history text book, but it still lacks an adherence to the rigor expected. for example random unqualified statements such as "It was once thought that slavery had destroyed the black family". He doesn't actually bother to mention who thought this much less provide any evidence first nor second-hand. Even if this statement is true(and it probably is), he is ignoring academic convention. I love reading history overviews like these, but you gotta remember its a fun book that teaches you a little history and gives you its spin on the whole ordeal.
Or for example
this passage
"Behind the secession of the South from the Union, after Lincoln was elected President in the fall of 1860 as candidate of the new Republican party, was a long series of policy clashes between South and North. The clash was not over slavery as a moral institution-most northerners did not care enough about slavery to make sacrifices for it, certainly not the sacrifice of war. It was not a clash of peoples (most northern whites were not economically favored, not politically powerful; most southern whites were poor farmers, not decisionmakers) but of elites. The northern elite wanted economic expansion-free land, free labor, a free market, a high protective tariff for manufacturers, a bank of the United States. The slave interests opposed all that; they saw Lincoln and the Republicans as making continuation of their pleasant and prosperous way of life impossible in the future."
no primary sources no secondary sources. its like some random guy on reddit wrote it. These are not simple points to make and historians have devoted books to it in the past.
He even contradicts himself like 3 or 4 paragraphs apart
"Conservatives in the Boston upper classes wanted reconciliation with the South. At one point they stormed an abolitionist meeting at that same Tremont Temple, shortly after Lincoln's election, and asked that concessions be made to the South "in the interests of commerce, manufactures, agriculture."
He is simultaneously claiming both entirely un-sourced that
"The northern elite wanted economic expansion-free land, free labor, a free market, a high protective tariff for manufacturers, a bank of the United States. The slave interests opposed all that"
and that the boston elite wanted to end reconciliation "in the interests of commerce, manufactures, agriculture."
goo i cannot imagine this being used for anything more than babbys first history class and even then its probably not an appropriate choice. For the sake of completion i skimmed through some of his other works as well. Same shit.
May as well read faulkner's Absalom Absalom you'll get a better picture of the civil war than Howard Zinn can.