[DJlaysitup]

Slavery would have died out on it’s own as new farm equipment did away with the need for it. Thousands of men would have lived.

I've often thought how different it would have been had technological advancements in farm equipment moved faster. As the demand for human labor decreased there would have been less and less incentive for a planter to own a lot of slaves. If the government could have worked out some sort of monetary incentive for the landowners to free their slaves (who would then be worth less) - hundreds of thousands of deaths could have been avoided

Additionally, if this had been the case one could argue that race relations could have been better in the following years.

[Roccus]

I've often thought how different it would have been had technological advancements in farm equipment moved faster. As the demand for human labor decreased there would have been less and less incentive for a planter to own a lot of slaves.

Necessity is the mother of invention. They had the human labor, so no need for the invention. Actually one invention, the cotton gin, increased the need for human labor to plant, tend and harvest all the new acreage that could now be turned into profit.

[Vermont Lt]

Spoken like a true democrat. Let the government pay for your problems.