What happened?

Dreaded quadruple post

Jabin said:

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I have just read that the Brits actually paid off slave owners as part of abolition in their country. They incurred massive debt to do so and that debt was only just recently paid off.

My question is whether serious consideration was ever given to a similar action here in the US? Although slavery is abhorrent, thinking that slave owners would simply abandon their most valuable asset was an obvious non-starter.

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A good book on the subject is McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom" The majority of slave owners believed that chattel slavery was preferable over, what they called, "Wage Slavery" . To them their "peculiar" institution was the best labor method for their society. With that in mind, no amount of compensation was going to change their thinking.