The thought occurred to me that the independence of the Southern states in 1860 or thereabouts would not have been such a terrible thing, if the Civil War could have been thereby averted. Buy the freedom of the slaves, and replace their labour by bringing labour-saving technology to the plantations and farms and cities of the South. Better than losing a million men and creating 150 years of loathing...
So you want slavery to be allowed then? If the South would have become a nation unto itself then slavery would have been the law of the land and no matter what labor saving devices would have been made, none would prevent slavery from being a part of the way of the South. Servants, caretakers and on and on with the way slaves would have been used other than in the fields. No, I'm sorry to say, a war was enevitable with slavery being the main issue and the only way to ensure that freedom prevailed for those slaves.