The reason for the Civil war starting up isn't just because of slavery, although that was the base reason. Problems had been starting up for a long time. Women like the Grimke Sisters, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Dorothea Dix also helped in it's coming. Femenist reform movements angered many Southern Americans, as usually these movements also included the rights of black women, also.

Other reasons were that the economical differences between the North and the South didn't see eye to eye. In the North, free blacks would have been a good thing, as that would mean that blacks would get less pay in their jobs.

In the South, if blacks were set free, it would be econimic chaos. Imagine, if you will, the stockmarket crash after September 11th. The South losing all slavery would rival it.

Whole farms would die out, families that were once wealthy would go hungry, trade between countries would become much slower. And the white population (that didn't already know how, since not everyone in the South was wealthy) would literally have to re-learn how to grow crops. Abraham Lincoln wasn't concerned about the issues of slavery, although if he could have freed all blacks, he would have. But, something that needs to be pointed out is that he was the President. He had to try to   stop, the war, not keep it going.

In a way, Slavery as just an excuse for a war that would have broken out even if it hadn't existed. It was inevitable.