On the Fact that (According to Historians Lochlainn Seabrook, Eli Evans, and Benjamin Quarles and the Web-Site, Southernheritage411.com) In January, 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis Sent His Secretary of State, Judah P. Benjamin, to Europe to Declare the South's Commitment to Abolition (In Exchange for Recognition) but Was Rebuffed Because the Plan Was for Gradual and Not Immediate Emancipation

Yeah, this was almost a year prior to the Thirteenth Amendment. And to all of the Yankee apologists who proclaim that was simply an act of desperation on the South's part, a) even if it was it shows that the South thought more of independence than they did of maintaining slavery and b) at the time that this offer was being devised in 1864, the South was still very much in the war. Yeah, there were maybe some preservational elements involved but it was a serious proposal and certainly far more magnanimous that Lincoln's bogus Emancipation Proclamation which didn't free a single slave.