I said “IF”. Of course they didn’t do that. It would have been a good ploy for them just as the Emancipation Proclamation was a wartime strategy for A Lincoln. It certainly wasn’t a humanitarian gesture.
You might well have said, "If the confederacy had developed nuclear weapons and an air force they would have won." That would have been just as likely.
It would have been a good ploy for them just as the Emancipation Proclamation was a wartime strategy for.
The confederacy decided it was better to die with slaves than win without. It was their choice, and probably one of the best indicators that slavery was, indeed, by far their single most important reason for rebelling.