Force has been the justification and imprimatur of virtually every government and empire since day #1. Emphasize even the phrase, “Full force (of the law).” Whether it is right or wrong tends to depend upon your point of view over what is being “forced.”
As for how long it would’ve taken for enough people in the South to decide ending slavery was preferable, it’s hard to say for certain. There was already outside pressure, of course. The U.K. was supposedly standing ready to help the CSA, but only if they got rid of slavery at once. Here again, they could’ve had their country independent of the USA over this one thing, but that was a no-go. Another example of why the CSA was too much an amateur hour in the realm of nation creation.
Setting that aside for a moment, even if slavery were abolished by their own accord within a 20-50 year period, it’s almost certain that the CSA would’ve still kept ex-slaves in a second class status. Enfranchisement en masse ? No way. It would’ve been a great deal like the post-Reconstruction to 1960s Jim Crow era stuff, they’d have either had the choice to leave the CSA for the USA (probably risk getting killed crossing a VERY heavily fortified border along the Ohio River or inland, had the southern counties of IL-IN-OH seceded) or agreeing to an odious sharecropping arrangement, which was de facto slavery (or such as how some mining companies exploited their workers by not even paying them cash, but in scrip, and only able to redeem them at their ludicrously expensive company stores - a de facto version of White slavery, usually of newly arrived European immigrants).
So, again, this was a raw deal almost any way you slice it, at least for Blacks (and Native Indians who would’ve also been added to the mix via CSA annexations).
But to answer your question, was the war worth it in the end ? That it would lead to a massive Federal leviathan ? Absolutely not. If you were a slaveholder who saw his property destroyed ? No way. But if you were a slave in the Deep South who gained his freedom and (albeit briefly) enfranchisement ? The answer is self-evident. They and their ancestors had been waiting since slavery was enshrined in the old colonies for that day to come.
If they sought independence to gain economic advantage, as I believe they did, then giving away their economic engine to achieve independence completely defeats that purpose altogether.
Setting that aside for a moment, even if slavery were abolished by their own accord within a 20-50 year period, it’s almost certain that the CSA would’ve still kept ex-slaves in a second class status.
As did the rest of the nation for most of the subsequent history.
or agreeing to an odious sharecropping arrangement, which was de facto slavery (or such as how some mining companies exploited their workers by not even paying them cash, but in scrip, and only able to redeem them at their ludicrously expensive company stores - a de facto version of White slavery, usually of newly arrived European immigrants).
Interesting that you say this, because quite a few people have noticed the North's treatment of Immigrants, Coal Miners and Factory workers was not greatly different from that of Slavery.
So, again, this was a raw deal almost any way you slice it, at least for Blacks (and Native Indians who would’ve also been added to the mix via CSA annexations).
That was going to be baked into the USA cake no matter how it was sliced.
No way. But if you were a slave in the Deep South who gained his freedom and (albeit briefly) enfranchisement ? The answer is self-evident
No doubt, but they comprised about 13% of the population, and we should look at the whole people, not just a part. Some Northern men might have felt sympathy for these people, but would the average Northern man want to have sacrificed his Father, his brother or his Son for no better result than to improve the lot of people he mostly hated anyway? Is another 40 years labor for people you hate worth the bloodshed of your own family?
What did the Northern man get for his sacrifice? Potential Competition for his labor?
Of course this largely expanded labor pool did benefit one particular group of people. More or less the same class of people who today keep calling for more and more immigration to drive down labor costs.