Most experts agree that slavery would have gone the way of the Dodo by 1880 or so. It wouldn't have remained economically feasible after the industrial revolution.
Most experts? I'd be interested in hearing about them. And I wouldn't include stand watie in that category.
It wouldn't have remained economically feasible after the industrial revolution.
The Industrial Revolution had been ongoing for decades before the rebellion, and with the exception of the cotton gin had left plantation agriculture untouched. Cotton harvesting was a complex process, dealing with open cotton bolls and closed bolls, separating the stems and leaves from the cotton bolls, and separating the cotton itself from the boll. True mechanization of cotton harvesting would not become common until the 1940's.
And that doesn't include the slaves that weren't in the field. The millions of slaves that were domestic help. How would the industrial revolution impact them?
Name some experts from say 1860 who said that. Or even some from 1880 who said that.
It wouldn't have remained economically feasible after the industrial revolution.
The industrial revolution didn't hit most of the south, at least the prediminant crops of the agricultural south, until well into the 20th century.