So what if the war was about slavery?

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Those that would deny the justice of the South's cause frequently seem to say something along the lines of (1) that the war was a war over slavery and (2) slavery was wrong, therefore in the conflict between North and South the North was justified and the South wasn't. Even if we grant those two premises (although I think the first premise actually rests on the shallowest of after-the-fact false pretenses), so what? For the sake of discussion in this thread, I'd like to grant both those premises. And if we do, how is the North's cause justified even then (and the South's not)?

If two parts of the union disagree over a major social/moral issue, and if we grant that one part of the union is right -- of course, in the midst of the controversy everyone is going to believe that he's right and the other side is wrong, so these premises are of no real value in the real world, but even if we grant the premise for the sake of discussion -- does it necessarily follow that the part of the union on the right moral side is justified in going to war to force its right morality on the other part of the union?

What if the states on the right moral side constitutionally obligated themselves (or their grandfathers did) to protect the immorality at issue in various ways, to make what someone might call a "covenant with death"? Should they abide by that covenant? Should they collectively secede from that covenant? Should they abstain from personal involvement with that covenant (to refuse to personally take any oath to uphold that covenant and refuse any office dependent on such an oath)? Should they take such an oath deceitfully and then violate it? Are there other options?

Or even if there were no constitutional obligations to protect the immoral practice in any way, when are wars justified to end immoral practices? Are wars to end immoral practices any more or less justified if they're waged between states of a union versus against any other random place? Would the US, for example, have been justified in proceeding to conquer Cuba after conquering the South on the same grounds as in the two premises at the top of this post?

So what if the war was about slavery? Would the fact (if it were a fact) have any bearing on the question of which side had justice on its side in the war?
 
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