re: Abraham Lincoln radically changed the nature of the Civil War on this day 161 years ago

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The majority were owned by the wealthy, sure, but it definitely wasn't "only."

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Beyond ownership, you also have to acknowledge that many smaller farmers who couldn't own slaves used slave labor by renting them from plantation owners. Normally this was done via a percentage of their crops that year.

At a principal level, the idea slavery would have died out even when mechanical farming became the norm is a bit optimistic. The landed gentry would have still kept their slaves for housework and a lot of other labor that tractors couldn't do.