What if the Confederacy had been allowed to secede peacefully?

[Foxfyre]

But you guys are totally missing the point here. Slavery was an unconscionable abomination but it was not all that the South was. Slavery has absoluely nothing to commend it, but there are millions of black people living free, happy, productive lives in the USA because somebody dragged their ancesters over here on slave ships. Had that not happened those same American black people might not even be alive or the odds are strong that they would be living in abject poverty and constant oppression under some brutal African warlord.

So let's regain some perspective here okay? Slavery no longer exists. It would have ended without the Civil War just as it ended in Canada and Mexico, naturally and out of conscience instead of via government mandate. Slavery is not all that the South was, not all that southerners, black or white, were or are.

The OP provides a very interesting concept of what course two separate nations might have taken had the South been allowed to secede peacefully. Can ya'll step outside your racist and political correctness suits for just a few moments and consider that?

 

[Hoffstra]

My state abolished slavery in the 1820s.

The South would have likely kept it going through the 20th century.

 

[R.C. Christian]

I knew this thread would devolve into a slavery debate. Fail.

 

[Foxfyre]

I knew this thread would devolve into a slavery debate. Fail.

Well I tried. It's frustrating though.

 

[Toro]

But you guys are totally missing the point here. Slavery was an unconscionable abomination but it was not all that the South was. Slavery has absoluely nothing to commend it, but there are millions of black people living free, happy, productive lives in the USA because somebody dragged their ancesters over here on slave ships. Had that not happened those same American black people might not even be alive or the odds are strong that they would be living in abject poverty and constant oppression under some brutal African warlord.

So let's regain some perspective here okay? Slavery no longer exists. It would have ended without the Civil War just as it ended in Canada and Mexico, naturally and out of conscience instead of via government mandate. Slavery is not all that the South was, not all that southerners, black or white, were or are.

The OP provides a very interesting concept of what course two separate nations might have taken had the South been allowed to secede peacefully. Can ya'll step outside your racist and political correctness suits for just a few moments and consider that?

I think it's a fascinating intellectual exercise.

The South is more than slavery. But slavery played a big part in the South's society. You can't ignore it. At some point, it would have faded away. But given that legal barriers existed for 100 years after Emancipation, it's not unreasonable to assume that the CSA would have remained a racist state well into the latter half of the 20th century like South Africa.

South Africa is a better analogy than Canada or Mexico. Slavery existed but was never a big part of the Mexican or Canadian economies as it was in the South, nor were the populations of blacks as large as they were in the Confederacy. Slavery ended in the British Empire by decree from London and was implemented around the world with little resistance, unlike in the US which fought a bloody civil war over it. The populations of the British Empire accepted the end of slavery, if begrudgingly. The South tried to leave and hundreds of thousands were killed. In South Africa, where whites were a minority, emancipation was accepted but whites created a legal structure which stripped blacks of their rights. It's very reasonable to assume that the South would have evolved in a manner similar to South Africa.

It's also an interesting to exercise to wonder if the South would have remained a poorer, more agrarian society had it been allowed to leave. The South benefited from the flight of manufacturing from the North to the South in the 1960s and 1970s. Would that have occurred had the South been a separate country? Probably not, at least not initially, and certainly not in size as the South would have been subject to tariffs and trade barriers from the North. It can also be argued, however, that with the advent of GATT and the WTO, the living standards would have been closed between the North and the South given the South's more business-friendly culture, assuming the CSA would have been allowed to join. (South Africa was not.) But it's reasonable to assume Segregation would have been in place well into the 1960s or perhaps longer. Would large multinational companies have shifted production into a pariah state boycotted and shunned around the world, as South Africa was? Probably not.

 

[Hoffstra]

Trying to talk about The South being allowed to secede without also discussing slavery, is like talking about the Holocaust without talking about the Nazis.

 

[Foxfyre]

But you guys are totally missing the point here. Slavery was an unconscionable abomination but it was not all that the South was. Slavery has absoluely nothing to commend it, but there are millions of black people living free, happy, productive lives in the USA because somebody dragged their ancesters over here on slave ships. Had that not happened those same American black people might not even be alive or the odds are strong that they would be living in abject poverty and constant oppression under some brutal African warlord.

So let's regain some perspective here okay? Slavery no longer exists. It would have ended without the Civil War just as it ended in Canada and Mexico, naturally and out of conscience instead of via government mandate. Slavery is not all that the South was, not all that southerners, black or white, were or are.

The OP provides a very interesting concept of what course two separate nations might have taken had the South been allowed to secede peacefully. Can ya'll step outside your racist and political correctness suits for just a few moments and consider that?

I think it's a fascinating intellectual exercise.

The South is more than slavery. But slavery played a big part in the South's society. You can't ignore it. At some point, it would have faded away. But given that legal barriers existed for 100 years after Emancipation, it's not unreasonable to assume that the CSA would have remained a racist state well into the latter half of the 20th century like South Africa.

South Africa is a better analogy than Canada or Mexico. Slavery existed but was never a big part of the Mexican or Canadian economies as it was in the South, nor were the populations of blacks as large as they were in the Confederacy. Slavery ended in the British Empire by decree from London and was implemented around the world with little resistance, unlike in the US which fought a bloody civil war over it. The populations of the British Empire accepted the end of slavery, if begrudgingly. The South tried to leave and hundreds of thousands were killed. In South Africa, where whites were a minority, emancipation was accepted but whites created a legal structure which stripped blacks of their rights. It's very reasonable to assume that the South would have evolved in a manner similar to South Africa.

It's also an interesting to exercise to wonder if the South would have remained a poorer, more agrarian society had it been allowed to leave. The South benefited from the flight of manufacturing from the North to the South in the 1960s and 1970s. Would that have occurred had the South been a separate country? Probably not, at least not initially, and certainly not in size as the South would have been subject to tariffs and trade barriers from the North. It can also be argued, however, that with the advent of GATT and the WTO, the living standards would have been closed between the North and the South given the South's more business-friendly culture, assuming the CSA would have been allowed to join. (South Africa was not.) But it's reasonable to assume Segregation would have been in place well into the 1960s or perhaps longer. Would large multinational companies have shifted production into a pariah state boycotted and shunned around the world, as South Africa was? Probably not.

It is important to remember that the Civil War was not fought to end slavery. It was fought to prevent the South from seceding from the Union. So let's keep slavery in its proper context in the discussion.

But it is precisely because I believe world opinion would have put pressure on the new "Southland" re slavery that those of conscience would have ended it fairly shortly after emancipation of the country. The slave owners simply would not have had sufficient clout to overrule the other 3/4ths of the country and, with no war to polarize Southland and create deep resentments, even hatred, of the North, I doubt there would have been long lived tensions between the two country.

The northern textile manufacturers would so covet Southern cotton and other other products that don't grow well north of the Mason Dixon line, and the South would so covet manufactured goods from the North, that would have taken care of any punative tariffs. The two countries would need each other as much as the various states need each other now.

And because the issue of slavery would no longer exist, and the North would have incentive to want the South with its warm water ports long growing season and rich oil fields, I'm pretty sure the two countries would have worked out any other states rights issues and would have agreed to remerge within a few decades of secession or sooner.

It is if there was no reunification that is the fascinating concept to speculate on though. And I'm pretty sure if that had happened, Mexico would have become much more heavily involved.

 

[R.C. Christian]

I blame Eli Whitney.

 

[Hoffstra]

It is important to remember that the Civil War was not fought to end slavery. It was fought to prevent the South from seceding from the Union. So let's keep slavery in its proper context in the discussion....

The South seceded because they were afraid the USA would eventually make slavery illegal.

And they didn't want their "property" taken away from them.

 

[R.C. Christian]

But anyway, this entire thought process dedicated to wondering "what if", is not nearly as entertaining to me as the real deal.

 

[Foxfyre]

But anyway, this entire thought process dedicated to wondering "what if", is not nearly as entertaining to me as the real deal.

Whatever floats your boat. I love 'what if' exercises based on thngs that could have happened. I think people learn from them and expand their horizons of knowledge a bit in the process.

 

[Foxfyre]

It is important to remember that the Civil War was not fought to end slavery. It was fought to prevent the South from seceding from the Union. So let's keep slavery in its proper context in the discussion....

The South seceded because they were afraid the USA would eventually make slavery illegal.

And they didn't want their "property" taken away from them.

Try to focus Hoffstra. The South seceded because of the infringement on their state's rights, not just because of slavery. They didn't believe they needed the North. But it doesn't really matter WHY the South seceded. The Civil War was fought because it did. Lincoln had no intention of freeing the slaves had the rebel states not attempted to secede. In fact the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the rebel states and not in five slave states that did not secede. Emancipation in those remaining five states would not happen until 1865 when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified.

Now we all acknowledge that slavery existed. There isn't a soul anywhere around that thought slavery to be a good thing or that it should have been legal. Not one of us sees it as anything other than an unconscionable, unjustifiable, horrible thing. That is settled. Agreement on that is a done deal.

So please, let's focus on what would have happened if the South HAD been allowed to secede and be its own country. The new country would have consisted of eleven states with the possibility that the other five slave states could have chosen to join them at some point.

 

[oldfart]

I knew this thread would devolve into a slavery debate. Fail.

Well I tried. It's frustrating though.

You missed a few nuances. The usual scenario has Lincoln winning the election of 1860, the lower South succeeding, the Crittenden Amendment going nowhere, just as actually happened. The historical sequence then was the firing on Fort Sumter, the call for volunteers, and the succession ordinances in the upper South. If you want a plausible alternative to the Civil War, you have to avoid the call for volunteers, and I don't see how that happens unless the CSA decides to wait out Sumter. This is unlikely but possible.

An alternative scenario (which I think would have been more probable) would be if Buchanan had evacuated federal installations as states passed succession ordinances, leaving no opportunities for armed conflict on federal properties in the South.

Both scenarios leave a strange situation with two sets of negotiations taking place. The first would be the Southern peace delegates which were sent by the South to Washington to settle issues such as postal services and intersectional trade. Note that by this time the upper South had rejected succession in a series of votes. The second set of negotiations would have been between the Republicans representing the North and the Breckenridge Democrats representing the border states and upper South (a total of eight states that remain in the Union and a bit larger than the Confederacy would have been).

The issue of slavery in the territories would be moot, as the Union would clearly abolish it. The issue so many say was the cause of the Civil War disappears without a whimper from the South. I expect that emancipation would be a hard sell, just as it was in the border states in 1862. But it clearly would be on the road to extinction in the upper South. Since the CSA would then be a foreign nation, the importation of slaves from the lower South to the upper South would be forbidden. The Fugitive Slave Law would be repealed (remember that when a state exits the Union, the Union no longer has to honor any of its legislative or judicial acts), probably to be replaced by a vigorous federal effort to stop the illegal importation of slaves. This would have been ruinous economically to South Carolina and parts of Georgia, which were dependent on exporting slaves to other states. If this seems farfetched, just read Lincoln's First Inaugural where he makes these very arguments!

I think its reasonable to assume that the Confederacy would have been at least as attracted to foreign filibusters as they were in the actual timeline. But there would have probably been British and international support for a Union policy forbidding the spread of slavery by armed annexation. The CSA would have been a pariah nation, a rump of what we think of as the Confederacy without Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, Maryland, Kentucky, or Missouri (and no Delaware!); economically crippled by the loss of markets and a tariff regime, deprived of any hope of expansion, and no alternative but to turn itself into a garrison state. This would not have been South Africa, it would have approached Rhodesia.

 

[Foxfyre]

I knew this thread would devolve into a slavery debate. Fail.

Well I tried. It's frustrating though.

You missed a few nuances. The usual scenario has Lincoln winning the election of 1860, the lower South succeeding, the Crittenden Amendment going nowhere, just as actually happened. The historical sequence then was the firing on Fort Sumter, the call for volunteers, and the succession ordinances in the upper South. If you want a plausible alternative to the Civil War, you have to avoid the call for volunteers, and I don't see how that happens unless the CSA decides to wait out Sumter. This is unlikely but possible.

An alternative scenario (which I think would have been more probable) would be if Buchanan had evacuated federal installations as states passed succession ordinances, leaving no opportunities for armed conflict on federal properties in the South.

Both scenarios leave a strange situation with two sets of negotiations taking place. The first would be the Southern peace delegates which were sent by the South to Washington to settle issues such as postal services and intersectional trade. Note that by this time the upper South had rejected succession in a series of votes. The second set of negotiations would have been between the Republicans representing the North and the Breckenridge Democrats representing the border states and upper South (a total of eight states that remain in the Union and a bit larger than the Confederacy would have been).

The issue of slavery in the territories would be moot, as the Union would clearly abolish it. The issue so many say was the cause of the Civil War disappears without a whimper from the South. I expect that emancipation would be a hard sell, just as it was in the border states in 1862. But it clearly would be on the road to extinction in the upper South. Since the CSA would then be a foreign nation, the importation of slaves from the lower South to the upper South would be forbidden. The Fugitive Slave Law would be repealed (remember that when a state exits the Union, the Union no longer has to honor any of its legislative or judicial acts), probably to be replaced by a vigorous federal effort to stop the illegal importation of slaves. This would have been ruinous economically to South Carolina and parts of Georgia, which were dependent on exporting slaves to other states. If this seems farfetched, just read Lincoln's First Inaugural where he makes these very arguments!

I think its reasonable to assume that the Confederacy would have been at least as attracted to foreign filibusters as they were in the actual timeline. But there would have probably been British and international support for a Union policy forbidding the spread of slavery by armed annexation. The CSA would have been a pariah nation, a rump of what we think of as the Confederacy without Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, Maryland, Kentucky, or Missouri (and no Delaware!); economically crippled by the loss of markets and a tariff regime, deprived of any hope of expansion, and no alternative but to turn itself into a garrison state. This would not have been South Africa, it would have approached Rhodesia.

An interesting scenario and I'll think about it, but at face value I just don't see it that way. I see it as Israel and Judah dividing into two countries with philosophical disagreements, but still one people not at war with one another. And because the two countries needed each other, I see much more cooperation than you do in your scenario. I think slavery would have been abolished naturally as the strong Christian influence in the South would have demanded it.

But ultimately the victor of the war gets to write the history to its own advantage, so we probably will never know all of the nuances and underlying dynamics that were in play.

 

[thanatos144]

But you guys are totally missing the point here. Slavery was an unconscionable abomination but it was not all that the South was. Slavery has absoluely nothing to commend it, but there are millions of black people living free, happy, productive lives in the USA because somebody dragged their ancesters over here on slave ships. Had that not happened those same American black people might not even be alive or the odds are strong that they would be living in abject poverty and constant oppression under some brutal African warlord.

So let's regain some perspective here okay? Slavery no longer exists. It would have ended without the Civil War just as it ended in Canada and Mexico, naturally and out of conscience instead of via government mandate. Slavery is not all that the South was, not all that southerners, black or white, were or are.

The OP provides a very interesting concept of what course two separate nations might have taken had the South been allowed to secede peacefully. Can ya'll step outside your racist and political correctness suits for just a few moments and consider that?

I think it's a fascinating intellectual exercise.

The South is more than slavery. But slavery played a big part in the South's society. You can't ignore it. At some point, it would have faded away. But given that legal barriers existed for 100 years after Emancipation, it's not unreasonable to assume that the CSA would have remained a racist state well into the latter half of the 20th century like South Africa.

South Africa is a better analogy than Canada or Mexico. Slavery existed but was never a big part of the Mexican or Canadian economies as it was in the South, nor were the populations of blacks as large as they were in the Confederacy. Slavery ended in the British Empire by decree from London and was implemented around the world with little resistance, unlike in the US which fought a bloody civil war over it. The populations of the British Empire accepted the end of slavery, if begrudgingly. The South tried to leave and hundreds of thousands were killed. In South Africa, where whites were a minority, emancipation was accepted but whites created a legal structure which stripped blacks of their rights. It's very reasonable to assume that the South would have evolved in a manner similar to South Africa.

It's also an interesting to exercise to wonder if the South would have remained a poorer, more agrarian society had it been allowed to leave. The South benefited from the flight of manufacturing from the North to the South in the 1960s and 1970s. Would that have occurred had the South been a separate country? Probably not, at least not initially, and certainly not in size as the South would have been subject to tariffs and trade barriers from the North. It can also be argued, however, that with the advent of GATT and the WTO, the living standards would have been closed between the North and the South given the South's more business-friendly culture, assuming the CSA would have been allowed to join. (South Africa was not.) But it's reasonable to assume Segregation would have been in place well into the 1960s or perhaps longer. Would large multinational companies have shifted production into a pariah state boycotted and shunned around the world, as South Africa was? Probably not.

It is important to remember that the Civil War was not fought to end slavery. It was fought to prevent the South from seceding from the Union. So let's keep slavery in its proper context in the discussion.

But it is precisely because I believe world opinion would have put pressure on the new "Southland" re slavery that those of conscience would have ended it fairly shortly after emancipation of the country. The slave owners simply would not have had sufficient clout to overrule the other 3/4ths of the country and, with no war to polarize Southland and create deep resentments, even hatred, of the North, I doubt there would have been long lived tensions between the two country.

The northern textile manufacturers would so covet Southern cotton and other other products that don't grow well north of the Mason Dixon line, and the South would so covet manufactured goods from the North, that would have taken care of any punative tariffs. The two countries would need each other as much as the various states need each other now.

And because the issue of slavery would no longer exist, and the North would have incentive to want the South with its warm water ports long growing season and rich oil fields, I'm pretty sure the two countries would have worked out any other states rights issues and would have agreed to remerge within a few decades of secession or sooner.

It is if there was no reunification that is the fascinating concept to speculate on though. And I'm pretty sure if that had happened, Mexico would have become much more heavily involved.

It was about slavery. The separated because Lincoln a known abolitionist was nominated.

 

[thanatos144]

This subject shows the absolute failure of our education system. Only a fool thinks slavery had very little to do the Civil War. Yes it was about economics a economy built on slavery . There was no War of Northern Aggression it was a war of Southern petulance. In order for there to have been no war the Confederates have to not have attacked Fort Sumter. If there was no war there would have been no United States of America most likely be some Baltic state of some socialist or communist dictator much worse than the one we have now.

 

[TNHarley]

our COTUS probably wouldnt be trampled on like it is.

 

[TNHarley]

innocent people wouldnt have gotten slaughtered just for speaking against a tyrannical gov't

 

[editec]

No, because it's a false premise.

Why? The Soviet Union industrialized in part because of slave labour used to build the industrial capacity of the nation. Do we not discount this when we measure the economic performance of the USSR or do we whitewash it and say it doesn't matter?

The insinuation being that the north did not have slaves post 1861. Law was written, sure. But they were gradual measures. Furthermore, northern states certinaly did not extend the franchise to blacks post abolition.

That's true but it misses the point. This isn't about racism or voting. It's about the economy. In 1860, the South's economy was based upon agriculture, which was reliant almost entirely on slave labour. The north was industrializing, which was dependent upon wage labour. The vast majority of labour in the North at the time of the Civil War was based on wages.

So to ask for all people or white people from a standard of living context of the south is moot. As Bro said, the south had a very wealthy culture following the cotton boom. The north, being more industrialized, (contrary to other assertions) saw standards of living in shambles. Textiles being the obvious go-to as a point of reference...or shall we say, sweat shops.

I took a full year honours course in economic history of North America in college 20+ years ago, and I recall that the standard of living in the South as not being anywhere near the standards of living as the North. However, I cannot find my old textbook so I can't confirm that. So I might be wrong. However, I did find this from Gavin Wright entitled Slavery and American Economic Development

"Contrary to depictions off the slave South as a propserous economy devastated by war and abolition, these essays locate the root of postebellum regional backwardness firmly in the antebellum era. That era was indeed propserous for the slaveowners. But if we evaluate regional performance using a consistent measuring rod appropriate for a free society, such as the value of nonslave wealth per capita, we find levels in the South just over half those of in the free states."

Also, the idea that an agrarian society was generally wealthier than an industrialized society contradicts economic history to this day. The progress of economic history throughout the world has followed a similar pattern:

agriculture --> manufacturing --> knowledge base.​

Agriculture generally is subsumed by manufacturing because manufacturing is higher value-added, which requires higher productivity, which means higher wages. Historically, workers flock from the farm to the city to work in manufacturing because they can earn a better living. This happened in Europe and the UK, it happened in America, it happened in the Asian Tigers, and is happening in China today. That the South was somehow immune from this pattern and different smacks more of historical revisionism designed to reinforce confirmation bias of those in the South.

It also reinforces the Marxist argument that American capitalism was built on slave labour. In fact, our understanding of economic progress and the critical importance of productivity in the development of capitalism contradicts the argument that the South was a richer society, or at least would remain so. Economic wealth is driven primarily by productivity growth, not by slave labour as the Marxists claim. We empirically know that productivity is the driver of higher wages and returns on capital, and thus drives economic growth. Slavery reinforces the discredited Marxist theory of The Surplus Value of Labour. It's odd that self-proclaimed libertarians cling to this notion of the Confederacy being richer than an industrializing society.

But again, maybe I'm wrong. Feel free to show that I am.

I think we're getting hung on on the phrase "richer than".


It is my understanding that yes the plantation owning economy (in aggregate) was very very wealthy.

The fact that the South paid the lions share (I have read it was about 80%) of all tariffs is a pretty good indicator of the enormous wealth (but NOT the distribution of same) in the anti-bellum South.

But the South's wealth as it regards CAPITALIZATION (wealth invested in means of production) was vested in HUMAN FLESH.

So, if the south's CAPITALIZATON was in human flesh, and the value of that AS CAPITALIZABLE wealth was threatened when slavery itself was threatened?

Then the wealth of the South depended entirely on SLAVERY being legal and EXPORTABLE, too.

By exportable, I mean migrating and taking your propetry (your capitalization, i.e., your slaves) our of the current slave states.

THIS is what was threatened by Abolition...about 75 % of the economy of the South

THIS is why the SOUTH went to war against the Republic. That is why had the Republic let them go, they're have stiull be war sooner rather than later.

They know perfectly well their continued wealth depended on slavery and its expansion, too.

Thge CSA planned on expanding from sea to shioning sea no less than the Republic did.

The CSA had to be crushed.

Ending slavery was the most effective way to do that.

 

[Foxfyre]

I think it's a fascinating intellectual exercise.

The South is more than slavery. But slavery played a big part in the South's society. You can't ignore it. At some point, it would have faded away. But given that legal barriers existed for 100 years after Emancipation, it's not unreasonable to assume that the CSA would have remained a racist state well into the latter half of the 20th century like South Africa.

South Africa is a better analogy than Canada or Mexico. Slavery existed but was never a big part of the Mexican or Canadian economies as it was in the South, nor were the populations of blacks as large as they were in the Confederacy. Slavery ended in the British Empire by decree from London and was implemented around the world with little resistance, unlike in the US which fought a bloody civil war over it. The populations of the British Empire accepted the end of slavery, if begrudgingly. The South tried to leave and hundreds of thousands were killed. In South Africa, where whites were a minority, emancipation was accepted but whites created a legal structure which stripped blacks of their rights. It's very reasonable to assume that the South would have evolved in a manner similar to South Africa.

It's also an interesting to exercise to wonder if the South would have remained a poorer, more agrarian society had it been allowed to leave. The South benefited from the flight of manufacturing from the North to the South in the 1960s and 1970s. Would that have occurred had the South been a separate country? Probably not, at least not initially, and certainly not in size as the South would have been subject to tariffs and trade barriers from the North. It can also be argued, however, that with the advent of GATT and the WTO, the living standards would have been closed between the North and the South given the South's more business-friendly culture, assuming the CSA would have been allowed to join. (South Africa was not.) But it's reasonable to assume Segregation would have been in place well into the 1960s or perhaps longer. Would large multinational companies have shifted production into a pariah state boycotted and shunned around the world, as South Africa was? Probably not.

It is important to remember that the Civil War was not fought to end slavery. It was fought to prevent the South from seceding from the Union. So let's keep slavery in its proper context in the discussion.

But it is precisely because I believe world opinion would have put pressure on the new "Southland" re slavery that those of conscience would have ended it fairly shortly after emancipation of the country. The slave owners simply would not have had sufficient clout to overrule the other 3/4ths of the country and, with no war to polarize Southland and create deep resentments, even hatred, of the North, I doubt there would have been long lived tensions between the two country.

The northern textile manufacturers would so covet Southern cotton and other other products that don't grow well north of the Mason Dixon line, and the South would so covet manufactured goods from the North, that would have taken care of any punative tariffs. The two countries would need each other as much as the various states need each other now.

And because the issue of slavery would no longer exist, and the North would have incentive to want the South with its warm water ports long growing season and rich oil fields, I'm pretty sure the two countries would have worked out any other states rights issues and would have agreed to remerge within a few decades of secession or sooner.

It is if there was no reunification that is the fascinating concept to speculate on though. And I'm pretty sure if that had happened, Mexico would have become much more heavily involved.

It was about slavery. The separated because Lincoln a known abolitionist was nominated.

Lincoln did believe slavery was morally wrong, but he was not an abolitionist. He made it clear in his campaign speeches that his goal was not to abolish slavery. He respected the Constitution that supported the concept of slavery.

Lincoln thought slavery should end and black people should be be free, but he didn’t believe blacks should have the same rights as whites as he made clear in the Lincoln/Douglas debates. In their fourth debate, at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858, Lincoln said: “I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races,. . . .” In the same debate he opposed blacks having the right to vote, serve on juries, hold elected office, or marry whites. But he did believe black people should have he same right as white people to be free, to be happy, and to improve their condition in life. He was definitely a product of his culture.

Lincoln supported the notion of colonization or returning the majority of black people to Africa or send them to Central America. Like Jefferson and Henry Clay, he saw colonization for black people as the solution to the slave problem and a way for black people to have a new start.

Freeing the slaves in the rebel states was mostly a military strategy:

As much as he hated the institution of slavery, Lincoln didn’t see the Civil War as a struggle to free the nation’s 4 million slaves from bondage. Emancipation, when it came, would have to be gradual, and the important thing to do was to prevent the Southern rebellion from severing the Union permanently in two. But as the Civil War entered its second summer in 1862, thousands of slaves had fled Southern plantations to Union lines, and the federal government didn’t have a clear policy on how to deal with them. Emancipation, Lincoln saw, would further undermine the Confederacy while providing the Union with a new source of manpower to crush the rebellion.

But the Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves in the five slave states that did not rebel against the Union.

5 Things You May Not Know About Lincoln, Slavery and Emancipation ? History in the Headlines