VP Beast Butler?

[Thomas Thorne]

Could compensation for emancipation/manumission (what's the difference between those two terms?) have turned the tide?

Emancipation is government action which frees slaves. Manumission is the act of private persons freeing one or more of their own slaves.

The South was incapable of freeing its slaves in 1861 because it could not imagine any other technique than slavery to ensure subordination of African Americans. The alternative was freed slaves or rebellious slaves destroying Southern civilization. What made John Brown's attack on Harpers Ferry so frightening was that it reinforced the prevalent Dixie paranoia enshrined in Jefferson's quote "we have a wolf by the ears and dare not let go."

Tom