Jeffrey Rogers Hummel

A question that is still debated by historians is whether America could have ended slavery without the violent and costly Civil War. Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, an economics and history professor at Golden State University in San Francisco, suggests that American slavery could have been ended by other means. Citing the experiences of the British West Indies and Brazil, where slavery was abolished without war, Hummel argues that President Abraham Lincoln could have let Southern states peaceably secede in 1861 and still have laid the groundwork for slavery’s eventual demise. An independent Confederacy that shared a long border with the free United States would have found it highly difficult to prevent slaves from running away or rebelling.

As an excuse for civil war, maintaining the State’s territorial integrity is bankrupt and...