Well you will admit Lincoln was in the great compromise camp and willing to go the status quo.
I guess my question is this ....if the Supreme Court had not stuck their nose in this in other words no Dred Scott or similar ruling....
And Congress had continue to handle issue of “the peculiar institution” as they had..as Lincoln, in his Cooper Union address say they had the right to do under the Constitution....
What would have been the eventual outcome in regards to slavery?
Lincoln himself, using the fact the Constitutions had a provision banning the importation of slaves to point out from day one the framers of the Constitution wanted and thought a federal right to slowly dry up slavery...else why the interfering in legal importation of slaves if was the same as any other trade???...
Because slavery was not normal business it was a uniquely “peculiar institution”..acknowledged by all as such ....hence the nickname “peculiar institution”
Lincoln wanted to end slavery. He just recognized that he (and Congress) had no power under the Constitution to do so.
The core principle of the Republican Party was no expansion of slavery. Lincoln never wavered from that.
Since southerners demanded expansion, there really wasn’t much room for compromise. In fact, a compromise had been in effect for 30+ years, 1820 to 1850 (or 54). It was overturned by southerners working with northern collaborators.
For some obscure reason, both sides believed that if slavery were kept within its existing bounds it would gradually withr away. I’ve never really seen this as a fact, but it was certainly believed to be.
The problem for the South was that it had reached its natural expansion. Plantation slavery simply wasn’t practical anywhere else in the territories. Possibly a few slaves could have raised hemp in eastern KS, as they did in MO, but that was about it. And northern antislavery types outcompeted the South in KS, despite the presence of MO just across the border. (A portent the South should have pondered deeply.)
No, if slavery had to expand to survive, as most southerners fervently believed, it could only expand southward. Mexico, Caribbean and the rest of Latin America.
I suspect that if there had been no abolitionists in the North, the South would have started demanding expansion south as their price for remaining in the Union. As with the infamous and embarrassing Ostend Manifesto.
The problem is that given the tech of the time the only way to carry out such invasions would be by sea. The sea was controlled by the Royal Navy, serving a violently anti-slavery UK. It seems highly unlikely to me Britain and the RN would have stood aside and allowed slavery to expand south from the USA. Also that conquest and exploitation of these areas would not have been nearly as fun and profitable as southerners expected. As William Walker discovered.
A fina point. The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate trade between the states. I see no major constitutional reason it couldn’t have prohibited interstate trade in slaves.
I’ve never seen this discussed, but it would have been a devastating blow to the institution. The Border and Upper South states had an economy based to a considerable extent on exporting slaves down the river. While Deep South states needed the fresh labor to expand production.
Penning slavery up within the southern US might not have destroyed it, but penning it up within each state might very well have.