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The idea the north would try to ban slavery in the south just because they were jealous of the benefits it provides doesn't make much sense. Why wouldn't they just institute slavery themselves? Way easier than starting a war
Lincoln was a white supremacist, as the vast majority of people back then were. But the fact the slaves fled north is kind of an indication in and of itself that it was still preferable to the south.
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The business and factory owners profited more by exploiting immigrants in massive debt cycles and failed mortgages and forcing them to buy horrific food and cheap quality clothing and bedding and so on at insanely jacked up prices. Compared to buying slaves and feeding and housing them and keeping them healthy enough to work and overseeing them the canning industry and all that around it got a better deal with constant influx of fresh labor.
They free labor argument may not have been valid but they made it none the less.