I mean, financially it wasn’t really a choice. Cotton wasn’t profitable without slavery. Inherit a cotton farm from your racist parents and capitalism would ensure the racism kept flowing.
That’s why we had to force the issue in the first place, the south needed the institution of slavery, and wasn’t just fighting to defend slavery because they thought it was neat, it was because they needed it.
No excuses, but when immoral behavior is profitable behavior, yes, people can get dependent.





Military behind lines can be pretty important because of delays in them receiving notices and their ability to do anything about it. Pretty much every legal notice gets a timeframe before things occur. Usually something like a month is sufficient, but for someone in military service, who have arguably the best excuse to not be able to do regular things for a whole month, the usual polite way to go about things is to wait for them to return home, and historically, courts have thrown out cases for people who didn’t do that, because it wasn’t a reasonable amount of notice.
No idea about the legalities of this particular case, but it is extra rude, getting a court date and losing by default for not showing up when you didn’t show up because another part of government mandated you be on a battlefield.