Before the war it was becoming popular to rent or sell slaves to corporations. They built the railroads and mined coal to their deaths. Slavery wasn't going to die on its own.

Their plan was literally 'Britain needs our cotton'.

Problem:

India exists.

Second problem:

The US... had a navy. The Confederacy... basically did not.

Anyway, all ports blockaded, never seriously challenged.

... Just real 12D chess goin on, even a fucking HOI4 player would laugh at how stupid their plan was.

And then calling it the “war of northern aggression”

If you think THAT'S stupid, wait until you see what they start THIS one over.

"One of the most destructive wars in human history"

"One of" is doing some heavy lifting there.

One of the most destructive wars in history?

They weren't fighting over some mode of production.

Enslavers murder people in order to maintain their extreme privileged which is based on the violent control of people and resources.

Nothing much has changed since then.

It may be costly. It may be ineffective. And maybe I built my plantation in the least fertile place possible. And maybe I don't know shit about farming. And maybe, possible, having slaves is a constant loss to me and my civilization.

But damnit if I can't use slavery to justify my racism, how will I feel like a big important man?!

Monoculture is an antiquated form of agriculture.

Slavery is a barbarously cruel crime against humanity.

Perhaps people will say similar things about industrial meat production and billionaires in a few hundred years.

Would any one believe that I am master of slaves by my own purchase? I am drawn along by the general inconvenience of living without them. I will not — I cannot justify it, however culpable my conduct. - John Patrick Henry US Founding father

Welcome to industrialization

Industrialization in the form of the cotton gin was one of the main reasons slavery was so profitable in the South. What are you talking about?

While the rest of the world perfects wind and solar, the United States is fighting a bloody, expensive war for oil.

Same or different?

Nowadays, you just give an unemployed person the ability to be a "free entrepreneur" while using an app and boom, labor cheaper than slaves - no need to worry about silly things like keeping them (barely) fed and clothed when you can convince them it's their own damn fault for not working hard enough to feed themselves! Sure, you no longer "own" slaves and you can't actually whip them for silly things like wanting to be treated like a human, but hey, it's cheap!

Sarcasm aside, it does make me wonder if slaves in the 16th-19th centuries were anything like today's delivery workforce, where some have a modicum of knowledge about the shit situation they're in and want better wages and living/working conditions, while others in the same shit situation insist it's just because "you're not working hard enough bro!"

One of the most destructive? By what metric?

How destructive was it really to rank among the most destructive in history though ?

Truly white aristocrats who inherit all their wealth are a galaxy-brained racial elite.

Also, posted this in the other comment section:

Southern plantation farming was incredibly inefficient and utterly ruined the land it was practiced on - something that was recognized (and criticized) as early as George Washington. So they did build their plantations in fertile areas, but exhausted the soil and did very little to let it recover until George Washington Carver (unrelated) started spreading crop rotations around ~1900.

The aristocrats made a shitton of money relative to the average person, but they were much, much poorer - both individually and as a society - than the industrialized North. Northern farming, even, was much more efficient - but the Southern aristocracy perpetuated their system because control was more important than money. In the slavery (and sharecropping) system, the plantation class effectively ruled little fiefs of dependent ‘free’ farmers and unfree (legally or practically) Black labor, able to exercise wide-reaching control not just economically, but also socially, culturally, and politically. Given the choice between more luxury or more power, they chose more power, and used that power to perpetuate their sickened systems.