"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization."Hardly the statement of people who think the institution is fading. More like a statement of an inability to even imagine a world without slavery.
Hindsight is 20/20, and what you've shown is historians writing a century after the war. What I want to see is one southern leader, in the 30 years before the war, saying that slavery was a dying institution. Here's what Georgia said, in their Declaration of Causes of Secession: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization." Hardly the statement of people who think the institution is fading. More like a statement of an inability to even imagine a world without slavery.
They were not blind to what was happening in the rest of the world. That is not what Georgia said by the way. That is Alexander Stephens.