Started a war. Extended their enlistments for the duration of it. Drafted a lot of them.
You are apparently unaware of the ongoing manumission of slaves in the decades leading up to the war.
Yes, I am. Want to enlighten us?
You are also failing to take into account economic trends and resource depletion that was fast rendering slavery-based agriculture economically untenable.
How so?
When they discovered that they couldn’t stay rich with slavery, they’d have dumped it like a hot potato.
And replace it with what?
“And how did he ‘send them?’
Started a war. Extended their enlistments for the duration of it. Drafted a lot of them.”
1. Samuel Clemens didn’t seem to have any problem deserting. Most confederates were loyal; were it otherwise, confederate armies would have melted away.
2. The first draft wasn’t needed for a year, which tells us there was significant volunteerism.
“Yes, I am (unaware of the ongoing manumission of slaves). Want to enlighten us?”
This isn’t a great article, but it’s a place to start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manumission
Better would be to have a friend with family traditions that stretch back that far.
“How so?”
Intensive agriculture was ruining the land. Planters had to keep moving west. Further, the improvement of the steam engine and the cotton gin was reducing the need for labor. Mechanization and low-cost free labor would have been the only path for Southern agriculture. The adoption of crop rotation and other agricultural advances would also have been required.
“And replace (slavery) with what?”
For two things, mechanization and low-cost free labor. Above and beyond that, who can say? So much of the South’s human capital was squandered in fighting Lincoln’s war; who knows what genius died at Antietam or in the Wilderness? How could we even guess what didn’t happen, what wasn’t invented, as a result?