[quadrant]

I agree, but it doesn't matter, as people are quite capable of living with contradictions. They have an extraordinary ability to forget their own sins while castigating others. The North’s hands were very dirty with regard to the slavery issue. Without reciting a history of the issue, the North entered voluntarily into a political alliance with a groups of states that considered slavery an integral part of their economies.
Only an imbecile would believe that the South would voluntarily abandon the institution. Slaves were the South’s main financial asset. Southerners considered slaves as personal property. As general rule, people do not surrender property without compensation, which most Northerners were adamantly opposed to paying.
The South’s best political course was to stay in the Union - unless driven out by force - to demand that Lincoln support a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right of states to control the issue, to agree to confine slavery to its historic boundaries, to insist that any scheme of emancipation require full compensation, that the emancipated slaves be required to leave the South, and that citizenship be controlled by the states.
Anything short of this was political suicide, which is what happened.

[stand watie]

actually, you are HALF right (which certainly beats being NOT correct).

the TRUTH is that slave-OWNERS, north & south, were "garbage", imVho. they ultimately got what they deserved =RUIN!

nonetheless, the TRUTH is that neither region CARED enough to do anything to end the slave trade, as too many powerful people/institutions, NORTH & SOUTH, we heavily invested IN the slave trade. essentially ALL of the "financial end" of 'the flesh trade" was IN the north, including shipping/leasing/transportation/purchasing/etc. MANY northern banks/financial institutions/trading companies/insurance companies/railroads/shipping companies were involved. it was ABOUT $$$$$ & nothing more than that.period. end of story.

thankfully however, slavery was DYING by 1860. the SMART people knew it;only the "willfully blind" did not know that.

the Industrial Revolution was coming to agriculture & slavery was on the threshold of being UNPROFITABLE! (slavers cared about NOTHING but profit. steam-powered engines & teams of mules/oxen/horses are CHEAPER to feed/clothe/house than slaves.) absent profit, slavery would (absent the war) have ended & soon.

my GUESS is that slavery would have died out within a generation & more likely within 5-10 years, based on my reading.

given that a LARGE portion of the MILLION dead of the WBTS were Blacks (both slave & free), ending slavery a few years earlier than it would have naturally ended,seems a REALLY high price for a few years of "status quo".

free dixie,sw