Smarter abolitionists use biological warfare against the cotton crops using various insect pests. They spread tobacco mosaic against the tobacco farmers of the border states.
Australia goes into cotton in a big way starting about 1835, and it keeps the price of cotton down. California secedes from Mexico on schedule, but the locals don't want slaves. Cotton is what the Californians grow if they don't strike it rich in the gold fields. Irrigated land is proof against boll weevil since you just turn off the water and wait a year. They don't have to worry about slaves hiding plants in the woods and keeping a breeding population going.
The South tries to get it declared a slave state and Fremont takes California out of the Union, taunting the Southerners to come and do something about it. They try sending an expedition across two thousand miles of desert, not very successfully. All the Californian armed Indians in the Southwest gang up and see that there are no survivors. California keeps them armed to make sure that Texas stays on their side of the border. The Colorado and Salt Lake Basins are a giant Indian reservation that gradually acquires more population as the other Indians migrate into it and grow cotton.
Since there is little competition from the southern US, the price is high enough to induce competition from India and other countries. Slaves become a drug on the market and it is obvious that slavery is dying out. This helps convince the slave owners to give it up, and there is no centralising war to make the Federal government strong.
Australia goes into cotton in a big way starting about 1835, and it keeps the price of cotton down. California secedes from Mexico on schedule, but the locals don't want slaves. Cotton is what the Californians grow if they don't strike it rich in the gold fields. Irrigated land is proof against boll weevil since you just turn off the water and wait a year. They don't have to worry about slaves hiding plants in the woods and keeping a breeding population going.
The South tries to get it declared a slave state and Fremont takes California out of the Union, taunting the Southerners to come and do something about it. They try sending an expedition across two thousand miles of desert, not very successfully. All the Californian armed Indians in the Southwest gang up and see that there are no survivors. California keeps them armed to make sure that Texas stays on their side of the border. The Colorado and Salt Lake Basins are a giant Indian reservation that gradually acquires more population as the other Indians migrate into it and grow cotton.
Since there is little competition from the southern US, the price is high enough to induce competition from India and other countries. Slaves become a drug on the market and it is obvious that slavery is dying out. This helps convince the slave owners to give it up, and there is no centralising war to make the Federal government strong.