Paul, I am not very knowledgeable about US history details on slavery.
I know that slavery in European & Nth & Sth America was ended because
of cheap energy provided by coal & steam.
It also changed the farming system in England.

Bazz,

I think slavery wasn't officially ended in South America until the mid-20th century.

That's a hell of a long time since machines were introduced to replace human labour!

So I don't think coal brought down slavery in Brazil. Try reading a few more history and sociology books or aren't they good enough for you because you already know it anyway.

Misop,

Concerning slavery in Brasil, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery#Americas

" .... Slavery was legally ended nationwide on 13 May by the Lei Áurea ("Golden Law") of 1888. It was an institution in decadence at these times, as since the 1880s the country had begun to use European immigrant labor instead. Brazil was the last nation in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery.[ ....."

And interestingly, "The Republic of Ragusa [Dubrovnik, Croatia] became the first European country to ban the slave trade in 1416." (Op. Cit.)

Joe

FOULmouth,

I recall reading somewhere that slavery wasn't eradicated in a part of Brazil until mid-20th century and by the looks of the article I found today it is still being practised in Brazil:

http://brazilian.report/society/2019/11/28/precisao-documentary-face-modern-slavery-brazil/

Bazz, Lincoln was defiantly an anti-slaver, but he wasn't an abolitionist in the mould of a John Brown, there was no holy crusade on Lincoln's part to free the slaves. If things had gone to plan militarily for the North in the early part of the war then there would have been no need for the proclamation of 1863. The election of Lincoln was defiantly a blow for the traditional slave states and their desire to extend slavery into new territories, which Lincoln opposed. Southern allegiance to their individual states was a big factor in bring on the civil war. Most Southerners had no great affinity with the United States as such, but rather with their particular state.

Paul1405,

Lincoln did not like slavery but he was still willing not to introduce a bill for the emancipation of slaves if the South returned to the Union because he wanted a united America more than he wanted freedom for the slaves.

He gave the South a choice: Keep your slavery but without the hope of acquiring any future slave states and re-enter the Union OR don't return to the Union and have total warfare. The South chose the latter, lost the war, was forced to re-enter the Union, and has never got over it.