Re: compensated emancipation.
The war eventually cost the federal government roughly $12B, counting pensions, medical care, etc. It cost about $6B over the course of the war.
The South spent something like $3B during the war, not counting the cost of the destruction nor the value of the slaves, which would probably have brought it to something near the Union total or even higher.
All the slaves in the Union, in 1860, were worth something like $3B. Total war cost, something like 8x or 10x that amount. Thus, with hindsight, it would have made a great deal of financial sense to work out a plan for compensated emancipation.
There were, however, multiple problems.
Slaveowners weren’t interested. During the early days of the war, Lincoln repeatedly proposed gradual emancipation to loyal slave sates, with assistance for compensation from the federal government. They repeatedly rejected any such notion.
We need to keep the amounts involved in some perspective. $3,000,000,000 to buy all the slaves versus $60,000,000 in the federal budget of 1860. That’s 50x the federal budget. What would 50x the federal budget be today?
Most of the money for compensation would be paid by northern taxpayers, most of whom considered slavery evil and would be unwilling to pay immense sums in taxes to pay off slaveowners. A very similar reaction to most Americans today rejecting reparations for descendants of slaves.
Nobody expected the war to last so long or cost so much.
Finally, people are odd. They can’t find money to repair a roof or do preventive maintenance on their car, but somehow they always find money (usually in much larger amounts) to repair the damage. That’s pretty much what happened here.
IOW, people aren’t always “logical.” I know that comes as a huge shock to us all!
On another level (this discussion has me thinking), look at the fuss about the confederate flag. I'd much rather the focus were on stopping ISIS and Boka Haran from enslaving people today.
Maybe the Confederate flag and other symbols of pasts that are imperfect are needed in order for us to pay attention to those same horrors still existing in the modern world. Maybe the elites don't want us thinking about our slave past while they bring in labor and accept goods from countries where the workers live in horrific conditions.
Erasing and not discussing the past chains us to the same mistakes in the present and future.