Ummm excuse me, but we were talking about a what if, that would have happened before the war. Not after.
Remember? A what if they brought in slaves illegally to replace those that would have been sold as in Paul’s idea?
But if you want to ask about after, then I would assume that it would be because they lost the war and the northern solders were there for a few years during the reconstruction.
No, I think you’re missing my point. In both cases (by war or purchase), slaves would have been freed. They were freed, but slavery was not reintroduced. It is only logical to assume that if slaves were freed by some other means, the same thing likely would have occurred. The North occupied the South until the early 1870s, but quickly left. The South remained a predominantly agricultural region until at least after World War II. My question still stands, if as you and another poster claim, it would be so easy to illegally purchase and use slaves, then why wasn’t slavery reintroduced in the 1870s?
How are these scenarios different? It is not enough to say one is “before” and one is “after” the war. In both instances slavery would have been illegal; you argue that being illegal doesn’t mean that it isn’t still practiced on a wide-scale basis. Why did one thing happen in the scenario that did occur (i.e., no reintroduction of slavery), but I should believe that something totally different (i.e., the reintroduction of slavery) would have occurred under similar circumstances in the second scenario? Now, I’m not even saying that such a purchasing agreement could have been reached in the first place. However, if it was reached, *why* should I believe that Southerners would have broken the agreement and illegally purchased new (I would assume, kidnapped) slaves?