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To claim that slavery would have ended of its own accord by the mid-20th century is impossible to disprove but difficult to accept. In 1860, slavery was growing more entrenched in the South. Unpaid labor makes for big profits, and the Southern elite was growing ever richer. Freeing slaves was becoming more and more difficult for their owners, as was the position of free blacks in the United States, North as well as South. For the foreseeable future, slavery looked secure. Perhaps a civil war was required to end it.

The author is certainly right about the proximate cause of the Civil War, it was about slavery. Reading the words of those states that seceded make that point clear. But, the paragraph above reveals a complete lack of understanding about the eventual fate of the hideous practice. Slavery was gone in the Western Hemisphere and in European societies by the end of the 19th Century. It endures today in Africa and Muslim societies

Economics plays a large role in that fact. Industrialization is a major reason why. As manufacturing and mechanized agriculture began to gain sway, the economic foundation for slavery waned. While the cotton gin was probably an example that demonstrated the opposite effect, over time advances in industrial society would have produced cheaper methods of producing cotton than was possible with slave labor. Slaves were very expensive, and became much more so in the waning years. The Royal Navy had put a halt to the Atlantic Slave trade, so new slaves were only available through natural increase. That wasn't enough and prices as shown in bills of sale, estate papers, and wills reflect the supply and demand problem. With so much wealth tied up in slave labor, the South was not about to freely relinquish their fortunes. Look at what happened in Wisconsin when the Governor tried to get state employees to pay for part of their health. People get very worked up when their family fortune comes under threat.

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

                        -- A Linclon, destroyer of republics.