Where do you stand?

Jason Kuznicki at Positive Liberty asks:

If you were alive in the 1850s, would you support a plan for gradual emancipation of the slaves? Would you argue, perhaps, that current slaves must remain as slaves, but that all children would be born free after a certain date--to be negotiated, no doubt, by the masters? Would you support compensation for slave property, or a new, limited legal protection for all slaves generally?

I think that these were supposed to be rhetorical questions, but I don't think that the answers are as obvious as Jason considers them to be. I'm curious about what positions people actually think that they'd take.

(See here for more on my position on slavery)