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My own study of slavery suggests to me that Southerners were justified in fearing that slaves, like all men, want to be free, and would resort to violence in order to achieve it.

But in truth, freedmen copied white society to the best of their ability.

In Louisina, which had a sizeable component of freedmen, contemporary commentators noted that the more blacks formed societies similar to that of whites, the more many whites hated and feared them.

I think that many - certainly not all - whites hated to think that blacks were human beings just like they were, because that would be too horrible. Dehumanizing them was the only way. If you believe that the person you mistreat is little more than an animal, then you can look at yourself in the mirror, or pray to God in church, without hating yourself. Frances Kemble, a plantation owner, for example, did not believe that slave women had family feeling for their children, and did not suffer when they were sold.

Yes, that's human nature.

But I've collected dozens of stories sympathetic to blacks, freedmen and slaves, written by Southern whites in the ante-bellum period, so I know that many whites knew that blacks were human beings just like them except for the color of their skin.

It's also human nature to fear revenge and God's judgment.

It is also only fair to point out that southerners (and northerners) constantly had the object lesson of Haiti before them. There really had been a race war and incredible atrocities on all sides, although southern whites understandably focused on the atrocities committed by blacks on whites.

The end result was that Haiti, in the 18th century probably the wealthiest spot on Earth, was by mid-19th century about halfway to its present hellhole condition. Not a good example of how to free slaves without a race war resulting.

Lincoln sympathized strongly with slaveowners, as do I. They were trapped in a society that they had not themselves designed.

What I have little patience for is those who, rather than agreeing that slavery was an evil that it was difficult to get rid of, tried to turn it into a positively good thing. Any such attempt is as close to pure evil as I can think of. And this philosophy was increasingly dominant in the South.

BTW, S.M. Stirling wrote a series of alternate history books in which the "slavery is a good thing" philosophy is carried to its logical conclusion. It's called the "Draka" or "Drakon" series, or something like that. They're quite interesting, although horrifying.