Since I've ever studied and glanced over the civil war, a question popped into my head that has never been adequately or been explicitly answered or revolved, that is Why didn't the Union adopt the usage of slavery into manufacturing/heavy industry? We know that heavy industrialization and manufacturing was extremely labor intensive prior to the creation of machines, so why is it that the Union or factory companies have tried adopting slavery into working the factories rather than paying workers to do the labor prior to the civil war? It's true that slavery could have costed employers much in care, but wasn't manufacturing/factory-maintaining more profitable that agriculture with slavery in the deep south?
Hey there,
Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.
If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!