They have twisted themselves into the most convoluted verbal gymnastics over this to others avoiding the question completely because they know the answer. No. The South would not have ended slavery. Heck, they would have been free to expand further west like they had wanted to.
Then you clearly do not read what I write, because I have been saying slavery would have ended within a range of 20 to 80 years, and I have said this many times in these discussions. Does that mean the South would have ended slavery? YES!
When the economic benefit fell below the value of the societal approval for ending it , slavery would have quietly disappeared.
Heck, they would have been free to expand further west like they had wanted to.
And here we go again with this debunked claim. You couldn't grow high value cash crops in the territories. Slavery wasn't going to "expand" because it couldn't.
All of that "expansion" crap was just propaganda.