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

quote:

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You act like the South was going to be willing to give slavery up. Either way you slice it the South rebelled and left the Union to keep people in chains. The attempt to white wash it or confront it with whataboutism is truly astonishing

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Ease up on the virtue signaling. You're reading me completely wrong, if you are in fact responding to me. I'm noting that they were not going to give it up even with the likelihood of it being on it's way out because mechanical agriculture was too far away and their economic stake was such that they would not let it go. I'm not stating a defense of slavery; I'm stating on aspect of why they held on to it so adamantly. The mere fact that the Southern economy was in tatters for decades after the war because a slavery-based cotton export industry was blown up supports that argument. Acknowledging the economic side does not deny the inhuman side. They go hand in hand. Far easier to justify a slave based economy to themselves when you prop up the idea that people enslaved are less than human.

And, yes, I do believe they would have given slavery up willingly as soon as mechanical agriculture was proven to be the cheaper and more lucrative option, but I don't believe that would have boded well for former slaves. At best, if a game changing event like the Civil War had not happened, former slaves would have been second class citizens that would not have been much better off.