Now, I know you really haven't thought this out cause you are way too bright for this: "even if it meant the feds buying up slaves from the South in exchange for a phase-out of slavery, and relocating them to the Plains states (such as Kansas) and granting them property"
What happens to the price of scarce goods? Without slave importation, each new emancipation would have driving up the price of the next slave, theoretically to the point that the government couldn't POSSIBLY have freed slaves as they neared the theoretical end point of zero, because each succeeding slaveowner would have started to say, "Well, if they are paying x for Bill's slaves, I'll charge y." The only answer was force.
Actually, that’s the problem right there. With respect to the South, the people (there) didn’t speak, the White Democrats spoke. White & Black Republicans weren’t largely silenced following Rutherford Hayes and rapidly stomped out up until 1900 (with little exception), making said states about as close to 100% Democrat one-party as you could get. Undemocratic entirely, and certainly not reflecting the will of those that should’ve been permitted a vote. MS & SC, for example, were Black majority at that time.
Clearly the North was willing to look the other way, because the few that might’ve had the will to carry out Reconstruction weren’t going to be able to do so. The 1876 election made sure of that. Tilden would end it, and Hayes wasn’t going to be allowed to continue it or his quite possibly fraudulent certification as President would never have occurred. It’s a black mark for Republicans at that point, because it would’ve been better off to have let Tilden win and have it be said the Dems officially ended Reconstruction, not a nice little “deal” by Hayes to get him the Presidency at the expense of selling out Black people (which is what it was).
Sometimes in this argument it sounds like I take both sides, I side with both Brooks in his actions against Sumner, all the while I agree with Sumner on the issue of slavery. You’d think some of our country’s best minds at the founding of our country could see where this was going to end up before long. How a well-intentioned and sensible institution as indentured servitude, paying off your costs for coming to America and learning a trade, transmogrified into permanent servitude exclusively fixated on one race should never have occurred. It’s sad that our giants like, for example, Jefferson weaseled out on settling this nightmare at the get-go, using the equivalent of so many modern liberals today with respect to the abortion issue, “Well, I’m personally opposed, but...,” which doesn’t matter, because if you’re not doing something about it in policy, it doesn’t much matter how you “personally feel.”
Residing in some of those states at the time, especially the Deep South ones, as a White person, I’d have felt like I was sitting on a ticking time bomb. How long did they think they could have it reach a point where they (Whites) were outnumbered and feel like they could maintain complete control ? You’d think Haiti would’ve been a big warning sign right there. If I’d had been a Southern Black with even a modest amount of knowledge of that (and there had to have been more than a few) with a revolutionary mindset, I’d have probably tried to set myself up as a Toussaint L’ouverture type. Obviously there were Whites that did have that fear that a large enough slave revolt was always possible, and that with the right leaders, they could be facing a disaster. They’re quite lucky such an incident of a major proportion didn’t occur prior to 1860.
Anyway, on my point about the federal government buying the slaves their freedom, I was just throwing out an idea. The costs, obviously, would’ve been stratospheric, but would it have been cheaper and easier than what the Civil War ultimately cost ? I don’t know. Obviously, in my opinion, better bucks and running into debt for this than bodies and bloodshed.
What’s amazing, too, is that the South, upon secession, could’ve won the war if they themselves had emancipated the slaves as the UK was suggesting, which would’ve immediately caused their intervention, and halted the war (and, then, of course, Lincoln would’ve gone down in history as the man whose election ended the United States as it was known). If I had been Jefferson Davis, I’d have signed the proclamation (of course, there would’ve been mass hysteria in the South), but reminded the White populous rather quietly, “Look, we don’t have to legal “retain” the institution of slavery. What you can have now is de facto slavery. We’re not going to give ex-slaves the right to vote or hold office or the like. Etc, etc.” Blacks then would’ve become essentially what they were from either after 1876, or definitively after 1900 when Jim Crow was firmly in place. De facto slaves without rights, and without DC to interfere, they could’ve remained that way for perpetuity (although even at that, you would’ve been back to other problems, such as revolts and the like).
Had that occurred, of course, the North then more than likely would’ve been forced to heavily militarize their Southern border to keep out escaping slaves (and you better believe they would’ve done it). Of course, in the end, such a situation would’ve left the USA and CSA as rather weak entities. What we would’ve looked like by the 20th century would’ve been vastly different. The USA would’ve looked like a type of Canada. The CSA, which by then would’ve extended themselves into the Caribbean and annexing perhaps all the way to South America, would’ve been much like, say, Mexico, with extreme poverty on one side and a small, wealthy elite that controlled most of the country and its politics. With those divided interests, its also highly unlikely either could’ve definitively reached the point of becoming THE world leader, and may have been scarcely prepared to face off against the regimes that rose in Europe and Asia (Hitler, Stalin, et al). The America entering into the 21st century might’ve been a fully subjugated territory of a foreign entity and third world nightmare. Something to ponder.