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In 1861 Maryland was a Southern Border state, one of the border states (Delaware & Missouri were others) where slavery was dying a natural death, and in due time may have been abolished peacefully, gradually, as it was in the North.

And what is so often annoying about a lot of you Union appologists is the oft repeated claim that it would not have eventually died a natural death elsewhere.

I've read quite a lot regarding the issue of slavery in the United States since 1776, and there was an obvious social/demographic trend occurring. Slavery was slowly being recognized as immoral, and socially unacceptable.

This social pressure was never going to go away, and given enough time it would have eliminated slavery even in the deep South where it was profitable. Yes, abolition slowed as you went from states where slavery was not profitable to states where it was, but that is because there were conflicting pressures between economic and moral arguments.

People normally vote with their pocketbook, but eventually they can be persuaded to do the right thing.

DiogenesLamp: "And what is so often annoying about a lot of you Union appologists is the oft repeated claim that it would not have eventually died a natural death elsewhere."

Yes, that slavery was declining in Border States like Delaware and Maryland is obvious from the numbers -- both already had more freed blacks than slaves.

So pro-Confederates like yourself argue that means slavery must have died out naturally in Deep South cotton states as well.
Well... in a word, no.
And the reason is: it was precisely those highly prosperous and profitable cotton states which were, in effect, killing off slavery further north.

Because cotton and sugar, especially, were so profitable they generated huge demands for and prices of slaves, which is why so many were "sold down the river" from states further north.
Now, if you read Mississippi's Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union, you can see their devotion to slavery seems unlimited & unshakable:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world.
Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.
These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.
These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.
That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation.
There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin."

No reasonable person reading these documents, and many others (see for example DoodleDawg's post here) and considering the four years which followed, could conclude such people were in any way ready to abolish slavery generally.

DiogenesLamp: "I've read quite a lot regarding the issue of slavery in the United States since 1776, and there was an obvious social/demographic trend occurring.
Slavery was slowly being recognized as immoral, and socially unacceptable. "

Such recognition only happened in the North, where the press was free to express those opinions.
In Deep South states nothing like that was happening in 1860, nor would it be allowed to happen, ever, so long as the slave-holding planter class held reins of political power there.