IMHO, that problem would've been corrected regardless of who won; it was no longer a sustainable macroeconomic proposition, even by then.
Lots of "ifs" as concerned the freed slaves; Lincoln was supposedly for the idea of repatriating them (or some of them) to Africa; Mr. Booth put an end to that. It was thought to be a shaky proposition monetarily, but was supposedly discussed. Had he not been assasinated, who knows how things would have turned out. If the CSA had won, who knows how things would have turned out. The actual results certainly put the clamps on state's rights, regardless of the effects on any demographic.
One has to wonder at the fairness of being conscripted to fight for the rich landowners. The slave owners were exempted from the draft, while impoverished sharecroppers had to get out there and fight. The Southern Gentleman sipped mint julips from a rocking chair on the veranda, listening with concern to the cannon and rifle fire in the distance.
As I see it, one of two things would've happened: either the Confederacy would've ended it, or it would've destroyed their economy and the states would've been forced to abolish it as they re-entered the Union. Either way, it would've been ended.
Slavery was profitable on the microeconomic scale, but it was already having a negative impact on the South's economy as a whole, even before the Late Unpleasantness Between the States. (IMHO, one major reason that the North's industrial-driven economy was so far advanced over the South's primarily agrarian economy was that a lack of free labor forced innovation in manufacturing.) It certainly killed any possibility of the South winning, as was well explained in the movie Gettysburg--the European powers could not support a country that had legal slavery.
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Actually, that's not quite true. Southern land owners often raised and equipped their own units at their own expense. Among the Southern "elite" a man who would not fight was not considered a man, and immense social pressure was brought upon these people. Initially, plantation owners were exempted because they were vital to the South's economy. However, by mid war, all able bodied Southern men were called upon to fight.
In the North, it was the wealthy Yankees who hired "substitutes" to fight in their place or paid $300 to get out of the draft.
Civil rights and slavery are two separate discussions. The Yankee industrialists didn't give a flip about civil rights--they only cared about the unfair competitive advantage of free labor. Economics would've driven (and, in reality, did drive) the end of slavery, not any 20th century notions about civil rights.Pretty bold statement considering it took a century after the civil war for equal rights to be protected by law.
Civil rights and slavery are two separate discussions. The Yankee industrialists didn't give a flip about civil rights--they only cared about the unfair competitive advantage of free labor. Economics would've driven (and, in reality, did drive) the end of slavery, not any 20th century notions about civil rights.
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