What if the Civil War had not been fought?
When would slavery have finally ended in the USA? Would it have been as late as Brazil? (If, of course, you consider slavery in Brazil to have been abolished yet. See the link.) Or even later?
I hear a good many people on the Left who like to strike the pose of being “anti-war.” One wonders, given that slavery was the central issue that organized the states into unionists and secessionists, if these same people believe that the Civil War should not have been fought, and slavery should have been allowed to go on, penetrating further into the territories, etc.
I suppose it would depend on whether the Union stayed together, in an uneasy compromise, or if the Union had split, and no war had been fought to keep it together.
If the Confederate States of America had existed into modern times, how long might slavery have existed there? I imagine several decades, at least, given the entrenched nature of it, and the failure of the South to organize its economy around manufacturing instead of agriculture.
If the Union had stayed together but continued in the toleration of slavery, it seems that it would still be likely that slavery would have continued for a very long time.
Generally, the social/economic forces were less present, in the USA, that helped the moral imperative of ending slavery along in other places.
Dedicated “no war for any reason” activists of the Left should consider what price they might have been willing to pay for avoiding the war, in the human cost of slavery.
