There is no way to know or prove it now, but I submit the reason there was no interest in compensation in return for ending slavery was because Davis and other leaders were using the issue for political advantage just as Lincoln was.
Without the slavery issue there wasn’t enough southern sentiment for secession. The tariff issue was festering but would not cause secession alone. Slavery was the hot button Davis and the other secessionist leaders needed to get the secession they wanted. It was also the issue Lincoln needed to justify war to stop secession.
It is hard to sit here 140 years later and say that the southern states was the only people in the world who wouldn’t accept compensation for their loss instead for fighting a war. The southern leaders should have proposed this rather than pushing for secession.
There is no way to know or prove it now, but I submit the reason there was no interest in compensation in return for ending slavery was because Davis and other leaders were using the issue for political advantage just as Lincoln was. But defense of slavery WAS the issue leading to secession. It was by far the single most important reason for the southern rebellion. No other reason has a fraction of the importance given to slavery in secession declarations, in speeches by secession commissioners, in editorials supporting secession. To say that slavery was merely an excuse is to ignore the obvious.
It is hard to sit here 140 years later and say that the southern states was the only people in the world who wouldn’t accept compensation for their loss instead for fighting a war.
In almost every case where slavery was ended, it was done by government action and in the face of determined opposition from the slave holders themselves. That is true for compensated emancipation as well as uncompensated. Why should we believe the south would have been any different? They had more to lose.