[hari]

My suggestion is that England's moves to abolish slavery is threatening to send England and America to war again. England, along with the majority of politically correct Western Europeans at the time were quite oppossed to slavery continuing. So I don't think of it as a stretch to think of slavery as serving as the straw that might break the camel's back in another war. Especially if you assume bitter feelings on either side of the pond. America, of course, loves it's slaves. Or the slave holders do anyways.

I recently read that slaves used to eat more than 5,000 calories a day. Think of how much food that is. They probably worked harder than most of us realize and harder than most of us can imagine. The popular idea at the time was that freetrade and salaries would encourage freed slaves to work even harder. But no one would work that hard given the option to choose. So yeah, two very different ideas are at work here and could easily lead to war, not between north and south, but between America and England. The question is where the North stands in this mess, does the north side with its compatriots to the south? Or with like minded Brits? It's a good question, and probably room enough to add plenty of fun to the game. Don't forget the role that the civil war played in making America what it is. It might actually be more fitting to have a parallel civil war serve as the war that leads to independence.

I hope that's helpful. My other idea probably isn't: Asian Dwarves!!!!!