according to numerous professors of that disciple of history, there were FEWER than 10,000 people in 1861 who cared about the plight of the slaves (NOBODY of course, asked the slaves!). imVho, the death of more than a million persons was a very steep price to pay to hasten the natural death of slavery!
and YES, i have a considerable feeling of disgust and sometimes hatred for the damnyankee apologists who think it was PERFECTLY acceptable that at least 92 innocent civilians in MY family (mostly elderly men, women and children, BTW- the adult males were off fighting with the CS forces.) were assaulted,battered,raped, robbed, had their property burned and were finally MURDERED, by uniformed yankee soldiers,only because they happened to be southrons and American Indians. MOST of the damnyankee apologists on this forum have at one time or the other openly stated that such atrocities by the damnyankees were OK, because after all it was "wartime and such things just happen".
for dixie,sw
However, it has been 150 years. It's time to let the hatred go. No one alive today was responsible for any atrocities committed then. I think you can make better headway in these arguments if you use historical evidence as your weapon rather than hostility.
It is difficult to say how long slavery would have lasted without war. One can only speculate on that. I agree with you that most southerners did not fight for slavery (have you read Gary Gallagher's book?) - they fought for their land.