[Non-Sequitur]

Economically, slavery was almost at an end, even though the planters didn't want to admit it. The Industrial Revolution would have forced an end to slave labor.

Sheer idiocy. The industrial revolution had been going on for 35 years and slavery had thrived throughout. It wasn't almost at an end. There was nothing to replace it with.

[RegulatorCountry]

"There was nothing to replace it with."

And all the fields in the south lay fallow for decade upon decade, never to be harvested again, LOL. Ever heard of sharecropping?