[Venturer]

How can you consider what the world would be like if the Civil War had not existed?

You can have a theory, but only that.

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.

[0.E.O]

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.

That is your theory. And you base it on...?

[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.

[TheGunny]

in that case it would have still existed and exist in different forms and for different reasons.

[jdege]

How can you consider what the world would be like if the Civil War had not existed?

It's easy enough. I read what the advocates of slavery wrote about what they wanted to do, and assume they were telling the truth.

And I look at what they did do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacking_of_Lawrence.

[ncpatriot]

"Slavery would have died out on it’s own"

how long? ...5, 10 yrs