Taking property without compensation. For legally the slaves were property, whether we like it or not. Seems like amending the Constitution would have been better, especially in the long run, but in the short run too. I'd have probably "stolen" my loved ones, and killed those holding them, if I could. However as it is, my oath is to the Constitution and emancipating the slaves and preventing secession both violate the Constitution as it existed at the time.
As I noted in Post #275, the Confederates placed a value of $3 billion on their slaves -- equivalent to $58 billion in current dollars and $3 trillion as a percentage of GDP.
And how much did the war cost in those terms? Besides that was an opening price not a final value. Slaves were becoming uneconomical and a final price surely would have been less. It could also have been paid over time. Perhaps abolitionists would have donated part, even most, of the money to speed the process.
But where's Walt? Not like him to give up so early in the game. Or did he pass the keys to his spam library hall-of-shame to ravinson?
And how much did the war cost in those terms?
Given that federal government spending in 1860 totaled $63.1 million, what chance do you think Lincoln would have had to convince Americans to pay slaveholders anything close to $3 billion (over 47 times the annual federal budget)?
Civil War spending topped off at $1.3 billion in 1865, but that was after a great deal of wartime inflation, so even assuming that Lincoln could have raised enough money to buy off the slaveholders, you'd be hard pressed to prove that doing so would have been cheaper for Americans. Moreover, what kind of precedent would paying off "man stealers" set for the American government?
...emancipating the slaves and preventing secession both violate the Constitution as it existed at the time.
Lincoln didn't prevent secession. It had already occurred before his inauguration as President. What he in fact did was to break up an unconstitutional Confederation of states and defeat them in the unconstitutional war they started (see Art. I, Section 10). Lincoln believed that any Americans had a right to revolution for just cause. He just didn't believe that the election of a Republican was "just cause". Do you believe that a desire to preserve the institution of slavery was just cause for a revolution?
Lincoln emancipated negroes held in bondage by Confederates as a wartime measure. Even if you consider slaves "property", do you doubt that a President had/has the constitutional power to confiscate the property of people who have taken up arms against the U.S.? Lincoln also spearheaded the passage of the 13th Amendment, which constitutionally emancipated all negroes in America.