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The first thing one learns from reading the books listed above is that America did not need a war to end slavery. Every other Western country that held slaves in the nineteeth century – which included Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Jamaica – freed them peacefully. The South would have done the same before the century was over. If anything, the fact that seven slaveholding states seceded from the Union when Lincoln was elected president would have sped up the process. As several of the historians above point out, many people in the North considered the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law to be an abomination, and the law would have been repealed if Lincoln had allowed the Southern states to go their own way. The Constitution of the Confederate States of American prohibited the importation of slaves (Article I, Section 9); with their supply thus restricted, and slaves now having a place to escape to, slavery in the Confederacy would have ended as it did elsewhere, without war.

This seems logically weak (especially if one puts oneself in the shoes of a slave in the 1850's South) and seems to be contradicted by the following:

With no corporate, property, or income taxes then in force, the government’s principal source of revenue was import tariffs; and the South, with the greater number of ports, paid 87 percent of the taxes that the federal government collected to fund its operations and pay government salaries. Lincoln was willing to let the South keep its slaves and enforce the Fugitive Slave Law so long as the Southern states remained in the Union and continued to pay its disproportionate percentage of taxes.

So (perhaps someone with more historical sense can help me here) on one side many countries were abolishing slavery, but on the other side were consuming goods made from raw materials which were produced by slavery condoning countries. As the latter became fewer and fewer, it seems to me that the economics in favor of their remaining slavery condoning states became stronger, not weaker, with the passing of time and the overall decrease in the number of slavery condoning countries. (I also suspect that other countries not listed, such as Haiti, had to undergo a revolution at some point to evolve politically, though of course Haiti continues to have massive problems with poverty, etc. today.)

I have relatives who fought on the side of the Confederacy so I would like nothing more than to believe the romantic notion that the South fought entirely for noble ideals. I also note that Lincoln was no political innocent, following in the footsteps of Hamilton and blazing a path for the cause of federal supremacy over more local rule. I believe that many Southerners, such as Lee, had noble ideals, but that there were many others who were crowded by economics, greed, or a combination, to benefit unfairly from the forced labors of others, and could have continued to do so indefinitely were it not for war. Therefore it seems to me a hard sell to convince anyone that the South could have freed its slaves of its own volition without Lincoln's war and power grabbing politics. In fact, it seems one could make the argument that if the South had modernized its politics and culture and freed the slaves of its own volition, Lincoln as a political force would not have been able to muster enough support to put himself in the presidency in the first place, and the federalist movement in the USA would have been at least delayed.

(An interesting question is would it have happened at all? -- I believe probably so, though to a lesser degree, brought about by other incidents such as WWI and WWII; although the US entry into both wars was somewhat predicated by artificial means, the general fact seems to be that there needs to be some mechanism to permit the US to defend itself effectively and quickly from sneak attacks, nuclear attacks, terrorist attacks, etc., and the old method of having Congress debate and resolve to declare war, then muster an army, etc.-- the 18th century model -- would have left the US defensively weak and open to attack by the early 20th century if not the late 19th century.)

A few passages from Richard Taylor's "Destruction and Reconstruction";

Chapter I. Secession

The history of the United States, as yet unwritten, will show the causes of the "Civil War' to have been in existence during the Colonial era, and to have cropped out into full view in the debates of the several Sate Assemblies on the adoption of the Federal Constitution, in which instrument Luther Martin, Patrick Henry, and others insisted that they were implanted, African slavery at the time was universal, and its extinction in the North, as well as its extension in the South, was due to economic reasons alone.

The first serious difficulty of the Federal Government arose from the attempt to lay an excise on distilled spirits. The second arose from the hostility of New England traders to the policy of the Government in the war of 1812, by which their special interests were menaced; and there is now evidence to prove that, but for the unexpected peace, an attempt to disrupt the Union would then have been made.

The "Missouri Compromise" of 1820 was in reality a truce between antagonistic revenue systems, each seeking to gain the balance of power. For many years subsequently, slaves--as domestic servants--were taken to the Territories without exciting remark, and the "Nullification" movement in South Carolina was entirely directed against the tariff.

Anti-slavery was agitated from an early period, but failed to attract public attention for many years. At length, by unwearied industry, by ingeniously attaching itself to exciting questions of the day, with which it had no natural connection, it succeeded in making a lodgment in public mind, which, like a subject exhausted by long effort, is exposed to the attack of some malignant fever, that in a normal condition of vigor would have been resisted. The common belief that slavery was the cause of civil war is incorrect, and Abolitionists are not justified in claiming the glory and spoils of the conflict and in pluming themselves as "choosers of the slain."

The vast immigration that poured into the country between the years 1840 and 1860 had a very important influence in directing the events of the latter year. The numbers were too great to be absorbed and assimilated by the native population. States in the West were controlled by German and Scandinavian voters, while the Irish took possession of the seaboard towns. Although the balance of party strength was not much affected by these naturalized voters, the modes of political thought were seriously disturbed, and a tendency was manifested to transfer exciting topics from the domain of argument to that of violence.

Chapter XIV. Criticisms and Reflections

Aggrieved by the action and tendencies of the Federal Government, and apprehending worse in the future, a majority of the people of the South approved secession as the only remedy suggested by their leaders. So travelers enter railway carriages, and are dragged up grades and through tunnels with utter loss of volition, the motive power, generated by fierce heat, being far in advance and beyond their control.

We set up a monarch, too, King Cotton, and hedged him with divinity surpassing that of earthly potentates. To doubt his royalty and power was confession of ignorance or cowardice. This potent spirit, at the nod of our Prosperos, the cotton-planters, would arrest every loom and spindle in New England, destroy her wealth, and reduce her population to beggary.

Extinction of slavery was expected by all and regretted by none, although loss of slaves destroyed the value of land. Existing since the earliest colonization of the Southern States, the institution was interwoven with the thoughts, habits, and daily lives of both races and both suffered by the sudden disruption of the accustomed tie. Blockaded during the war, an without journals to guide opinion and correct error, we were unceasingly slandered by our enemies, who held possession of every avenue to the world's ear.

During all these years the conduct of the Southern people has been admirable. Submitting to the inevitable, they have shown fortitude and dignity, and rarely has one been found base enough to take wages of shame from the oppressor and malinger of his brethren. Accepting the harshest conditions and faithfully observing them, they have struggled in all honorable ways, and for what? For their slaves? Regret for their loss has neither been felt nor expressed. But they have striven for that which brought our forefathers to Runnymede, the privilege of exercising some influence in their own government. Yet we fought for nothing but slavery, says the world, and the late Vice-President of the Confederacy, M. Alexander Stephens, reechoes the cry, declaring that it was the corner-stone of his Government.