You most likely understand that there are many different forms of "slavery" including metaphorical slavery, i.e., the Bible says we are "slaves to sin".
Many today are "slaves" to drugs or alcohol, others said to be slaves to their work, etc.
This article lists several types of slavery all of which are illegal today but still practiced where laws are not strongly enforced.
So here's my point: there's a long distance between 1860 chattel slavery and full voting citizenship, as illustrated by the 13th, 14th & 15th amendments.
Those produced the Southern reaction after 1876 when Union troops were withdrawn which effectively negated results the amendments intended.
gandalftb: "Please offer your ideas on what “slightly less obnoxious” means, gandalftb said, grinning ear to ear."
No humor in it that I can see -- Jim Crow, black codes, segregation, KKK-type enforcement all "slightly less obnoxious" than slavery itself.
You disagree?
You find them funny?
gandalftb: "Abolition was a minority view in most of the North where there was a widespread white supremacy notion."
No, rather abolition was the 100% majority view in the North, for their own states.
No Northerner wanted to return slavery to their own states.
But as for Southern states -- most Northerners, especially Democrats, believed in laissez faire, let Southerners do what they wished.
Yes, many Northerners, especially Republicans thought slavery a blight on the country which should be restricted as much as possible, but they were still the minority before 1860.
gandalftb: "There were in fact 67 Constitutional amendments offered, only Corwin was passed and ratified by 5 states."
Including one similar by Senator Jefferson Davis in December 1860, which is why we should call it the Davis/Corwin amendment.
Davis thought it would help hold Deep South states in the Union, but turns out he was wrong about that.
gandalftb: "He poses that the South’s primary concerns were: the expansion of slavery into the western territories and the return of fugitive slaves."
Sounds about right.
gandalftb: "In SC, 43% owned 57% to be precise.
My point was that any society changing that 57% to 0% will see war."
I stand corrected, had not before noticed that South Carolina and Mississippi's slave population outnumbered their free population.
As for abolition without war, maybe, seems to me that some central & south American countries also had huge slave populations.
Not known how many of those achieved abolition without civil war.
My guess is that after the US Civil War many such countries decided keeping slavery was not worth the bloodshed it might bring.
gandalftb: "???.” What do you call the many slave rebellions? Imagineering?
It would have gotten much worse, there were many John Browns getting started, ready to arm the slaves."
The last serious slave revolt was Nat Turner in 1831.
John Brown was a Northerner, there was no equivalent Southerner, and Brown's raid totally failed to rouse slaves to rebellion.
Of course there are many forms of psychological slavery that can be debated somewhere else.
This subject is physical slavery, people owning, buying and selling other people for money.
“effectively negated results the amendments intended” I hope you mean temporarily and in limited ways restricted the amendments’ intentions.
Your phrase was “slightly less obnoxious” and then you offer Jim Crow and the KKK as examples of “slightly”....... Yup, I’m still grinning ear to ear..... not at the oppression of blacks, but of the absurd notion that they are in any way slight alternatives.
“abolition was the 100% majority view in the North, for their own states” Agreed, I should have better explained that abolition in the slave states was not a majority view held by northerners, most of whom had no personal experience with slavery and considered it someone else’s problem.
“the Davis/Corwin amendment” may have succeeded, but the shooting started before it had a chance. Davis wanted slavery to be a nationally recognized power rather than a state by state choice.
In North America during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, there is documented evidence of more than 250 uprisings or attempted uprisings involving 10 or more slaves:
https://www.amazon.com/Negro-Revolts-United-States-1526-1860/dp/B000J0SMRY
My point is, it would have gotten worse. My family was heavily involved in helping slaves escape. They were willing to fight in the Civil War and did. I have no doubt that they and many others would have subversively supported slave rebellions.
John Brown raided an armory to steal weapons to give to slaves. He failed because he was irrational, a nut, and couldn’t attract enough followers for a general uprising. He also lacked an information network to inform slaves of his actions.