why did north oppose slavery
Answers
I'm trying to understand the causes of the American Civil War. Apart from the North not wanting the South states to secede, the desire to end slavery in the South is often stated as the major reason. However, from what I've read, Lincoln didn't intend to abolish slavery in the South when he became President.
Also, yes, I know that there was a difference in economic sources of wealth between North and South: North was industrialized, while the South was agrarian. However, it doesn't answer the question why would the North oppose slavery. Why oppose it, if you can make slaves work on factories? Didn't the North have to recruit Europeans to make up for work force deficit? Why wouldn't business/factory owners want some free labor? After all, they didn't mind opposing unions and paing their workers very little, so they would hardly care about being humanists.
Of course, I understand that slavery is morally wrong and all that. However many things are morally wrong and still exist. Slavery being wrong didn't stop the first slave traders from importing them from Africa and the first politicians of the USA from being OK with that, so it makes me reason that it was not just a matter of morality.