[Colonel Kangaroo]

Slavery is and was wrong, I will never say otherwise, but I know that when I read the diary of my ancestor who owned and later freed 50 slaves (before he went to war), He treated his slaves as his own family. One, his personal servant took a bullet for him at Gettysburg, and another was hung by Union soldiers, because he was trying to protect the family property from Sherman's troops. Doesn't sound like these two were mistreated or unhappy. The reality is that most slaves were WORSE off after the war, having to fend for themselves. That doesn't mean I advocate the continuance of that system, but rather that emancipation would have been better if done in a gradual manner.

There were humanitarian and enlightened people in the South who saw the evil in the system. But the way the slavery fanatics were digging in and aiming to create a vast slave empire, I can't see any way that gradual evolution and human elevation from within Dixie would have succeeded. Emancipation was going to have to be forced from without the South and the instrument for change was largely going to be our very own Republican party.

[TexConfederate1861]

You are missing one small point. Slavery was protected by the law of the land at the time. Lincoln had no right to do what he did, morally wrong or otherwise.

Think of the lack of animosity between the races that would have existed if gradual emancipation had been done.