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The North didn’t go to war to end slavery. True. It went to war to preserve the Union. It won that fight. The South most certainly did. And it lost that fight. Why couldn’t the South have ended slavery on it’s own prior to 1861? And if the South had won the war would it have ended slavery?

Actually, the DEMOCRATS went to war to EXPAND slavery.

The REPUBLICANS were formed to prevent the EXPANSION of slavery.

There were plenty of pro-Slavery democrats in the North.

Just as there were many anti-Slavery Republicans in the south.

Virginia for example. When Virginia seceded.

The anti-slavery Virginians in the west seceded from Virginia.

West Virginia is the only State formed by secession.

The North didn’t go to war to end slavery... The South most certainly did.

Here is that cognitive dissonance again. You are saying they left the Union to preserve slavery, which would have been preserved anyways had they remained in the Union.

How does that make sense to you?

Was the slavery they had out of the Union some sort of super duper extra-slavey type of slavery, or was it the same old boring sort of slavery they had while they were IN the Union?

I feel like i'm talking to Yogi Berra.

The North didn’t go to war to end slavery. True. It went to war to preserve the Union. It won that fight. The South most certainly did. And it lost that fight. Why couldn’t the South have ended slavery on it’s own prior to 1861? And if the South had won the war would it have ended slavery? The South didn't go to war to preserve slavery. Slavery wasn't threatened. If anybody thought it was, the North offered slavery effectively forever by express constitutional amendment to draw them back in. They turned the offer down. As to the second question why "couldn't" the Southern states have ended slavery prior to 1861. They "could" have of course. Only about half of the western world had at that point. Connecticut did not abolish slavery until 1854. New Jersey had "apprentices for life" who were not free to leave in 1861. Its not like everybody in the the Western world had gotten rid of it yet so the Southern states were hardly alone in that. As to your third question, would slavery have ended in the Southern states had they gained their independence. I would ask where in the West did it survive for long after 1865? Russia still had Serfdom and Cuba and Brazil still had slavery but even Brazil by the early 1880s had gotten rid of it. Industrialization killed off slavery over the course of about 75 years everywhere in Europe and the Americas. The laws of economics applied in the Southern states just as they did elsewhere so of course it would have ended and ended before too long there too.