> All true. But also true is that the South would not have started the
> war if they had not felt Lincoln's policies would have doomed slavery.
> Dishonest Abe's policies were in a day to day sense very timid; but in
> another sense, because they denied the Southern slavocaracy the near
> absolute dominance they had over the American scene on issues
> affecting their interests, those policies were also radical.
Slavery was doomed, war or no war. Too much opposition existed in the States to allow it to continue for an extended period, simply because slavery made no sense in an emerging, industrial power (though there were those in the North who still made money off the plantation system). Apartheid, on the other hand, did make sense, which is why it existed for a century after the South's fall, facing no serious political opposition for a very long time.
Wars can and often do have many unintended consequences. The Civil War was no different.
Dennis