Quote: The vast majority of Southerners did not own slaves, yet they fought, in large numbers, to keep slavery.
I have spent a great deal of time reading the journals/letters of civil war soldiers as well as the lyrics of their songs. "Slavery" is almost never mentioned as part of the cause on either side. The South was fighting for their "freedom" from what they considered an oppressive central government. The north was fighting against "treason."
The north was so committed to freeing the slaves that when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation entire regiments deserted. In 1864 during the NY Draft Riots the rioters lynched blacks.
