It's interesting, there were presidential candidates who supported buying and freeing slaves. They were not considered mainstream and either ignored or killed.
To be completely fair and give the other side of the coin from Razor (not that he is wrong, just that there are other factors at play too), Bleeding Kansas had already been raging for 10 years by the time the election of Lincoln came around.
It gets forgotten about a lot because it wasnt as flashy as the Civil War that came right after it, but I am a Kansas native so I have grown up with it. And Bleeding Kansas showed one thing and one thing only: Neither side would be reasonable on the issue. The Pro-Slave advocates would lie, cheat, steal, and commit election fraud on almost comical scales if it meant keeping slavery operating in the US. And they would intimidate, shoot, and bribe anyone who refused to bend to their will. But at the same time, the Free-State advocates had been taken over by individuals who believed it was their destiny to wage a literal, Biblically-endorsed CRUSADE against the South to "Smite the heathens" for slavery, as it was a crime just as much against God as against man.
And you expect an English end to slavery, where the government just buys and frees all the slaves? When these are your factions? It was always going to end one way and one way only.
It's interesting, there were presidential candidates who supported buying and freeing slaves. They were not considered mainstream and either ignored or killed.
To be completely fair and give the other side of the coin from Razor (not that he is wrong, just that there are other factors at play too), Bleeding Kansas had already been raging for 10 years by the time the election of Lincoln came around.
It gets forgotten about a lot because it wasnt as flashy as the Civil War that came right after it, but I am a Kansas native so I have grown up with it. And Bleeding Kansas showed one thing and one thing only: Neither side would be reasonable on the issue. The Pro-Slave advocates would lie, cheat, steal, and commit election fraud on almost comical scales if it meant keeping slavery operating in the US. And they would intimidate, shoot, and bribe anyone who refused to bend to their will. But at the same time, the Free-State advocates had been taken over by individuals who believed it was their destiny to wage a literal, Biblically-endorsed CRUSADE against the South to "Smite the heathens" for slavery, as it was a crime just as much against God as against man.
And you expect an English end to slavery, where the government just buys and frees all the slaves? When these are your factions? It was always going to end one way and one way only.
It sounds like the Civil War was just like World War I. It wasn't the reason, it was the desire for war that pushed them forward.
Also a point to note: Britain at the height of her Empire could barely afford it. It took us one hundred and eighty years to pay off that one.
The US, at the time a far smaller nation, simply could not afford such an extravagance.
It's hard to justify a powergrab by a federal and executive body if you simply pay the owners for their property....