[quote=Diego Mamani]It’s an interesting exercise in counterfactual history. The human cost of the war was so large, that it makes us wonder whether allowing slavery to persist a little longer would have been an acceptable trade off.

The Union could have said to the South: OK, secede, but I’m not buying your cotton, and I’m not selling you anything either. Would the south had declared war to open markets to its products? Probably not: easier to trade with Europe, Latin America, etc.

My guess is that before long: (1) the Union would have been restored, and (2) slavery would have been abolished in the southern states.

Latest research puts the war’s death toll at 750,000. Too high a cost was paid by a country of 31 million.[/quote]

Except for the fact that Lincoln had no such option. He had to preserve the Union at all costs and when it became apparent that the Southern states were bent on secession, war was inevitable.

A common mistake, and one that clearly informs spdrun’s thinking, is that the Civil War was fought over slavery and thus slavery (versus abolition) was the primary driving force. It wasn’t. This was an inevitable collision between two cultures: the rapidly industrializing and modern North and the agrarian and antebellum South.

Slavery was a factor, but not the primary factor, thus the Emancipation Proclamation was not signed until 1863, well into the war.