[Non-Sequitur]

You say compensated emancipation was an option and I would ask how? Ending slavery in any way, shape, or form would have required a Constitutional Amendment. I think that we can both agree on that. With 15 slave states that would mean that you would most likely have had at least 30 votes in the Senate against any amendment ending slavery. THere is no way that any such amendment would have gotten the necessary 2/3rds votes it needed. And that would have been against ending slavery under any conditions, compensated or otherwise, because the slave states saw no reason to end it. Why should they? Plantation agriculture was the source of their prosperity and that industry was fueled by slave labor. So a Constitutional resolution was out of the question.

So the south went to war. And once the war was ongoing then what use was a compensated emancipation plan? Even though Lincoln proposed it on more that one occasion as a chance to bring southern states back into the Union it never had a chance to succeed. The southern states were not about to drop their rebellion and rejoin the Union. And then after the Emancipation Proclemation who would he have compensated? All slaves in the areas in rebellion were immediately free, at least legally. Why compensate for someone that was already free.

So I would be interested in your view of how your compensated emancipation plan would have worked?

[4CJ]

You say compensated emancipation was an option and I would ask how? Ending slavery in any way, shape, or form would have required a Constitutional Amendment. I think that we can both agree on that.

Compensated emancipation could have been offered via Amendment, or simply by federal legislation (as long as slavery was not outlawed). I think many slaveowners would have agreed to that - those that wanted slaves could contine, and those that wanted to emancipate their slaves could do so - without losing a fortune in the process.

The southern states were not about to drop their rebellion and rejoin the Union. Even when Lincoln offered "permanent" slavery. Considering their refusal, that ought to indicate that states-rights were more important.

So the south went to war.

No, Lincoln went to war. He refused diplomatic solutions and compensation for federal property within Confederate territories. Would the US have allowed the British to maintain their forts and garrisions on our property?

All slaves in the areas in rebellion were immediately free, at least legally

No - not legally. Lincoln himself understood his actions to be illegal, and SCOTUS ruled in ex parte Milligan Justice Davis said:

The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government.

If it was illegal before the war, it was illegal during he war. It still took a constitutional amendment.