Slavery used in Civil War peace negotiations

As I sit bored to death in pre-calculus class I had an odd idea pop into my head.

What if in a timeline where the a South had garnered enough victories or the war lasts long enough to turn the American public against the war; the Union agrees to let the South secede on the condition that slavery is ended within a certain time period (say 10-20 years).

While this is most likely an outlandish proposal, it goes without saying that Lincoln could not be president when this deal is brokered. Either by him dying or losing reelection he could not be in the White House for a deal like that to even have the slightest chance of materializing.

But would they accept this and instead of slavery, pay African Americans very very small wages and use share cropping to essentially continue the practice?

Without slavery, could a great flight occur in such that African Americans leave the South for other parts of the world? (US)


Even if the Southern upper class is opposed to the deal, could the lower class (fatigued from an already incredibly destructive war in which they did the fighting) push them to accept this deal?

Would the south accept the deal only to never make the change and risk another invasion from their newly divorced other half?

Would the Southern Aristocracy and government give up slavery for the sake of having their own country to run as they see fit (subtracting the slavery) ?

Would a deal such as this allow the CSA to develop into a power over time?


What do you guys think? It probably is in the realm of ASB, I had just never heard this discussed.

Kevin C. Smith said:

I tend to think not. Any peace that returns the south to the Union, that overturns the reason for which they seceded in the first place, will not be accepted. However economically similar in circumstances, neither wage slavery nor indentured servitude is the same as hereditary chattel slavery.

And don't put any hope in poor whites. slavery gives them the indispensable ingredient for maintaining the position of their oppressors-someone that is below even them on the social scale. Humanity has spent pretty much its existence fighting for that principle.

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All true, but this wouldn't return the south to the Union. They're getting their independence for the cost of their peculiar institution.

And while not the same, wage slavery and indentured servitude and sharecropping could perhaps prove economical enough to make the switch at the very least arguable to the upper class.

And I was thinking of the poor whites forcing the upper class to accept the deal for the sake of ending the war and not losing for nothing.

I find this unlikely for several reasons. First Lincoln was fighting the war to preserve the Union, not end slavery (although that ended up being an end result of US victory). To negotiate an end to the ACW on Southern terms (full independence) you'd pretty much have to get rid of Lincoln as president in the 1864 elections, and by then he had already issued his (relatively meaningless, but problematic) emancipation proclamation. On the other hand the South (not just the aristocracy) saw the preservation of slavery as the entire raison d'etre of the Confederate States. Negotiate that away, even on a gradual basis, would have not been acceptable.

My thought is that the only viable "compromise solution" to end the civil war short of military victory by one side or the other might have been based around an agreement by the Southern States to lay down their arms and reinter the USA, with constitutional amendments that enshrined slavery as inviolable in states where it was already legal (as long as that was the desire of the governments of said states) and that possibly put broad limits on the Federal governments ability to enforce the federal laws in states against the will of the state governments, but also coupled this with an explicit prohibition of slavery to anywhere else in the US or its territories. This would in effect be a Southern victory while also meeting Lincoln's overt goal of ending the secession... maybe a "win-win" so to speak. Except for black Americans of course.

This is so unlikely as to almost warrant being put into the ASB category. The secession of the Southern was almost entirely about preserving slavery and extending it to the territories. The CSA would be giving up the main reason for existence. Also it was almost entirely controlled by planters who would never go for it.

In OTL it was only when Grant was knocking on the door of Richmond that a bill allowing the raising of Colored Troops was passed. Even then the bill didn't guarantee freedom at the end of the war if the CSA won. Even Jeff Davis saw the latter as ludicrous and stated no Colored Troops would be accepted unless freed. He was rightly worried that if they remained slaves they would simply be trained and go over to the Yankees at the first opportunity.

zoomar said:

I find this unlikely for several reasons. First Lincoln was fighting the war to preserve the Union, not end slavery (although that ended up being an end result of US victory). To negotiate an end to the ACW on Southern terms (full independence) you'd pretty much have to get rid of Lincoln as president in the 1864 elections, and by then he had already issued his (relatively meaningless, but problematic) emancipation proclamation. On the other hand the South (not just the aristocracy) saw the preservation of slavery as the entire raison d'etre of the Confederate States. Negotiate that away, even on a gradual basis, would have not been acceptable.

My thought is that the only viable "compromise solution" to end the civil war short of military victory by one side or the other might have been based around an agreement by the Southern States to lay down their arms and reinter the USA, with constitutional amendments that enshrined slavery as inviolable in states where it was already legal (as long as that was the desire of the governments of said states) and that possibly put broad limits on the Federal governments ability to enforce the federal laws in states against the will of the state governments, but also coupled this with an explicit prohibition of slavery to anywhere else in the US or its territories. This would in effect be a Southern victory while also meeting Lincoln's overt goal of ending the secession... maybe a "win-win" so to speak. Except for black Americans of course.

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The EP relatively meaningless? Maybe in the immediate sense but even in the fairly short term it wasn't . The EP meant that in the future the Union Army was an army of liberation for Blacks. All slaves in the areas the Union conquered the slaves were freed. Slaves came in droves when the Union Army was in the area. Slave owners were complaining that their slaves were getting "uppity" whenever the Union Army was close.

What if Lincoln were to die before the issuing of the EP? Removing him and his conviction to keep the union together from the equation. Preferably from illness instead of assassination for this discussion.

Would the South's leadership really rather lose and face the possibilities of executions and treason, if they could just give up the institution and win?

SargentHawk said:

What if Lincoln were to die before the issuing of the EP? Removing him and his conviction to keep the union together from the equation. Preferably from illness instead of assassination for this discussion.

Would the South's leadership really rather lose and face the possibilities of executions and treason, if they could just give up the institution and win?

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The problem is that by the time the South is desperate enough to consider it the war is practically over. IIRC it was literally days before Grant took Richmond before the South passed the Colored Troops Bill which didn't even guarantee freedom for Colored Troops after the war.

The war can probably only end in two ways:
1) CSA is defeated and the union saved

2) CSA is allowed to go its own way

If the unlikely case of the latter, the US probably cares VERY little about slavery in CSA afterwards. Ending slavery may have become a driver in the war, but it was only from the perspective of ending slavery IN THE US -- if the US has to acknowledge that the CSA is independent, the US really doesn't care about slavery in CSA any more than it cares about slavery in Morocco, Nigeria, or wherever.

Additionally, if the US is having to acknowledge CSA independence, they're probably not in a great position to negotiate terms and ending slavery in a now-independent country isn't near the top of the things to negotiate about. Instead, they'd probably be negotiating about borders, reparations, prisoners, trade deals, etc. The US wanting to end slavery in an independent CSA is a bit like the CSA telling the US it should stop using the Electoral College or get rid of the 7th amendment.

SargentHawk said:

As I sit bored to death in pre-calculus class I had an odd idea pop into my head.

What if in a timeline where the a South had garnered enough victories or the war lasts long enough to turn the American public against the war; the Union agrees to let the South secede on the condition that slavery is ended within a certain time period (say 10-20 years).

While this is most likely an outlandish proposal, it goes without saying that Lincoln could not be president when this deal is brokered. Either by him dying or losing reelection he could not be in the White House for a deal like that to even have the slightest chance of materializing.

But would they accept this and instead of slavery, pay African Americans very very small wages and use share cropping to essentially continue the practice?

Without slavery, could a great flight occur in such that African Americans leave the South for other parts of the world? (US)


Even if the Southern upper class is opposed to the deal, could the lower class (fatigued from an already incredibly destructive war in which they did the fighting) push them to accept this deal?

Would the south accept the deal only to never make the change and risk another invasion from their newly divorced other half?

Would the Southern Aristocracy and government give up slavery for the sake of having their own country to run as they see fit (subtracting the slavery) ?

Would a deal such as this allow the CSA to develop into a power over time?


What do you guys think? It probably is in the realm of ASB, I had just never heard this discussed.

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Possibly. Since secession was a Jeffersonian revolution against federal overreach that favored the north, the confederates would have little issue with a peace that ends slavery. Manumission could occur by 1870.

The opposite sounds more likely to me - the reforging of the Union in return for slavery being protected constitutionally.
(Remember, Lincoln said his primary objective was to preserve the Union - with or without slavery).

NolanFoster said:

Possibly. Since secession was a Jeffersonian revolution against federal overreach that favored the north, the confederates would have little issue with a peace that ends slavery. Manumission could occur by 1870.

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What time line are you from? In this one the secessionists made it clear that slavery was the main issue, ALL the secession ordinances that listed a reason listed slavery as one of them, the first act of the CSA was to make all US law CS law as long as it didn't interfere with its constitution, and the differences between the US constitution and the CS one is minimal outside of slavery. http://www.jjmccullough.com/CSA.htm

Saphroneth said:

The opposite sounds more likely to me - the reforging of the Union in return for slavery being protected constitutionally.
(Remember, Lincoln said his primary objective was to preserve the Union - with or without slavery).

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That might work if the guarantee applied only to areas where slavery was already legal. However, that WAS offered before the war and rejected. Lincoln said so more than once. The South wanted to spread slavery into the territories. Unless the North was willing to do that, and it wasn't, the South would secede which it did.

Johnrankins said:

What time line are you from? In this one the secessionists made it clear that slavery was the main issue, ALL the secession ordinances that listed a reason listed slavery as one of them, the first act of the CSA was to make all US law CS law as long as it didn't interfere with its constitution, and the differences between the US constitution and the CS one is minimal outside of slavery. http://www.jjmccullough.com/CSA.htm

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Slavery was a secondary issue. Next you're going to tell me the American Revolution, the Nullification Crisis, and the Texan Revolution were about slavery as well. The slavery issue doesn't matter as long as the South's grievances about internal improvements and tariffs are addressed. They'll gladly enter back into a federal union that George Washington would recognize as such. That's why they refused the northern attempts at compromise that focused on slavery.

NolanFoster said:

Possibly. Since secession was a Jeffersonian revolution against federal overreach that favored the north, the confederates would have little issue with a peace that ends slavery. Manumission could occur by 1870.

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By Federal overreach did you mean...the suppression of the Personal Liberty Laws, the very intrusive Fugitive Slave Act, the Dredd Scott Decision, suppression of anti-slavery mail, slave catcher raids into Northern States, Federal refusal to recognize the first anti-slavery constitution in Kansas, refusal to prosecute illegal slave importers, etc., etc.?

Because yes, the Federal government continually overreached its authority...BUT on the behalf of the slavocracy, not against it!

And no, slavery was not dying in the South. In 1859, the year that last good records come from, slave values were at an all time high. There were entire plantations in the border states that had become "breeder plantations" in order to sell excess slaves to the Deep South. Slavery was being introduced into industrial work and mining. Numerous southern states were introducing re-eslavement bills to make free black residents the slaves of poorer whites so that even more people partook in the slave system.

Please learn a bit about actual Southron history before pretending to know something about the era.

Benjamin

NolanFoster said:

Slavery was a secondary issue. Next you're going to tell me the American Revolution, the Nullification Crisis, and the Texan Revolution were about slavery as well. The slavery issue doesn't matter as long as the South's grievances about internal improvements and tariffs are addressed. They'll gladly enter back into a federal union that George Washington would recognize as such. That's why they refused the northern attempts at compromise that focused on slavery.

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I can't disagree more. This is revisionist even from a Southern perspective. I agree, there were other reasons the Southern states were dissatisfied with the direction American political and economic was taking. But fears that slavery would be restricted or legislated away under an abolitionist administration was THE reason southern states seceded from the US in 1861. They said so themselves in their founding documents. To claim otherwise is willfully wrong.

SargentHawk said:

As I sit bored to death in pre-calculus class I had an odd idea pop into my head.

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If you're doing an engineering or science degree, calculus and precalculus are going to be some of the easiest core classes you will have. Please do yourself a favor and pay attention. You will need a lot of the knowledge from precal and Cal1 when you go into a numerical/computational methods class or a controls class later on. Having early A's will help you later on. Best wishes.

NolanFoster said:

Slavery was a secondary issue. Next you're going to tell me the American Revolution, the Nullification Crisis, and the Texan Revolution were about slavery as well. The slavery issue doesn't matter as long as the South's grievances about internal improvements and tariffs are addressed. They'll gladly enter back into a federal union that George Washington would recognize as such. That's why they refused the northern attempts at compromise that focused on slavery.

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Actually I'd argue that slavery was a major cause of those other revolutions/crises, but that the CSA's separation was unique in being primarily about slavery.

benjamin said:

By Federal overreach did you mean...the suppression of the Personal Liberty Laws, the very intrusive Fugitive Slave Act, the Dredd Scott Decision, suppression of anti-slavery mail, slave catcher raids into Northern States, Federal refusal to recognize the first anti-slavery constitution in Kansas, refusal to prosecute illegal slave importers, etc., etc.?

Because yes, the Federal government continually overreached its authority...BUT on the behalf of the slavocracy, not against it!

And no, slavery was not dying in the South. In 1859, the year that last good records come from, slave values were at an all time high. There were entire plantations in the border states that had become "breeder plantations" in order to sell excess slaves to the Deep South. Slavery was being introduced into industrial work and mining. Numerous southern states were introducing re-eslavement bills to make free black residents the slaves of poorer whites so that even more people partook in the slave system.

Please learn a bit about actual Southron history before pretending to know something about the era.

Benjamin

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Also the same South that issued internal passports, took over private industries such as salt and alcohol, that required railroads to operate at a loss and required shippers to carry government goods for free during the Civil War.

NolanFoster said:

Slavery was a secondary issue... That's why they refused the northern attempts at compromise that focused on slavery.

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The alternative is, of course, that they didn't think that a constitutional settlement was a sufficiently strong guarantee for slavery. After all, if the North can elect a more-or-less anti-slavery president (anti-slavery by Southern standards, at least, even if not sufficiently so by British ones) then some day they might be able to pass constitutional amendments. If it helps, the fact that the South refused pro-slavery compromises and the North avowedly disclaimed anti-slavery motives confused some contemporary British observers as well.

The problem with the premise is that the North cares more about union than slavery, and the South is pursuing independence primarily in the interest of slavery. However, I can actually see it being used in a very specific set of circumstances. If the European consensus on mediation that Gladstone said was essential is achieved, and Britain, France, Russia, Austria and Prussia offer non-binding mediation to both powers, and the domestic situation in the North is such that they at least have to show willing, then the negotiations themselves are going to be an absolute nightmare- not least on the slavery front:
“Then comes the difficulty about slavery and the giving up of runaway slaves, about which we would hardly frame a proposal which the Southerns would accept, the Northerns to agree to, and the people of England would approve of”. (Palmerston to Russell, 3rd November 1862).

This is going to entail long nights of arguing in French about the right of asylum and the requirement to extradite fugitives- it's the sort of question that a liberal country like Britain (particularly following the Orsini and Anderson cases) and autocratic countries like Russia and Prussia are unlikely to see eye-to-eye on. Under these circumstances, the Union proposes the compromise solution suggested here, to run alongside its own programme of compulsory compensated emancipation. The Confederates walk out of the mediation, and the Union restarts the war having improved its status in the eyes of foreign powers.