[DJ Taylor]

A similar outcome could have happened if George Mcclellan had won the presidential election of 1864. Mcclellan, a Democrat, campaigned against Lincoln on a peace platform that would have readmitted the Southern States to the Union and would have given the South until 1900 to gradually phase out slavery. The North was weary of the war at that time, and Mcclellan came within a hair’s breadth of winning that election.

[Nowhere Man]

A similar outcome could have happened if George Mcclellan had won the presidential election of 1864. Mcclellan, a Democrat, campaigned against Lincoln on a peace platform that would have readmitted the Southern States to the Union and would have given the South until 1900 to gradually phase out slavery. The North was weary of the war at that time, and Mcclellan came within a hair’s breadth of winning that election.

Add to that, in about a generations time, you would have had the internal combustion engine and electric motor technologies come online which would have been a further nail im slavery's coffin.