Please remember those slave ships were primarily sailing out of Northern ports and when the Northern states decided to free their slaves, they freed about 15-20% and sold the rest of them to we Southerners. Who knows had those Northern states been threatened with the loss of their investment in their human property, they might just have seceded or done some other crazy thing. I don't agree with George's position that the South would have seceded without slavery, but I also don't believe my Northern brothers have any room for gloating over the defeat of a region that was trying to defend its right to sell or be compensated for property it had legally accumulated. I believe the fears of economic disaster by the uncompensated freeing of the slaves and the unleashing of an uneducated and predatory underclass were justified, especially for the middle and lower class whites.

Jim