Reply #130: The North held between 75% and 90% of the nation's wealth, depending on the metric.

[Occam Bandage]

The South was far more prosperous than it would have been without slavery, yes, but it was even then poorer than the North. It is true that American industry was nothing like it would be yet, but it was certainly not anything to trifle with. And during the war, the Northern dollar fell to 1/3 of its value against gold, while the Southern dollar fell to 1/12th and lower, so I'm not sure where "they had money and plenty of it" comes from. The South didn't manage to rack up many debts, true, but that's because they had neither trade nor industry, so there wasn't much opportunity to trade in debt. All the wealth they had was in the form of cotton, and frankly "King Cotton" didn't turn out to be much of a monarch. Neither Britain nor France nor Russia could be bribed with that stockpile for fear of losing their more valuable trade with the Union, and for fear of angering their public by backing a nation founded on slavery.

The Emancipation Proclamation was indeed a tactical decision, though not for the reasons you cited. The size of Southern garrisons didn't really change as a result of the Proclamation, and I can't think of a Southern general who ever halted an advance for fear of a slave rebellion. I mean, if Lee had retreated after Anteitam because of that, or Bragg after Murfreesboro, then I think there'd be a point, but both retreated because of tactical considerations, not because of strategic fear of slave revolts. However, the Emancipation Proclamation did galvanize a great deal of support for Lincoln among his own party, did suck all the wind out of the British confederate sympathizers, who nearly achieved recognition for the South beforehand, and did provide political cover for generals to (as they had been long requesting the authority to do) emancipate slaves in held areas, thus depriving the South of their productivity and asset value.

(Oh, and DE, MO, WV, and KY were also Union slave states)