‘He needlessly precipitated a war that killed a large percentage of the young male population.’
yeah, he never should have forced those eleven states to secede from the Union...
‘Slavery would have been outlawed in the south any way in 10-15 more years.’
do you seriously think the slaveowners who pushed so hard to expand slavery westward, thought the death of slavery was imminent...?
1. There were 8 times as many anti-slavery associations in the south than the north.
2. Outlawing slavery was already being widely discussed in state legislatures.
3. Only 3% of white southerners owned slaves. They were really expensive (young male was around $100,000 in todays money) so only the rich could afford them. One of the flash points was slavery but the main issue was state’s rights. The 97% who didn’t own slaves did not fight for rich people to own slaves - not by a long shot. They fought for states rights.
Slave owner does not = ‘southerner’. It is important that you disabuse yourself of that notion.