No Civil War - when is slavery abolished?

[Alcsentre Calanice]

We had some threads about slavery in a surviving CSA. Many said that slavery would've survived in the south long after the end of the Civil War, because slavery was the whole raison d'être of the Confederacy.

But what if, despite Lincoln's election, the south didn't seceded (maybe the southern states realize that they couldn't win such a war and never start it).

a) How will a Lincoln presidency look like without the war?

b) Will Lincoln be able to abolish slavery?

c) When will slavery be abolished in the US (by constitutional amendment or by any other means)?

- Between 1861 and 1865 (during Lincoln's [first] term)

- Just a bit later than OTL (after 1865)

- Later than OTL

- After 1888, when Brazil abolished slalvery in OTL

- Or during the 20th century

 

[Balanced Integer]

Lincoln wasn't interested in abolishing slavery. His interest was purely in keeping slavery out of the western territories, the so-called Free Soil movement that was one of the unifying aspects of the Republican Party. Without a Civil War, I don't think you see Lincoln moving towards emancipation.

Personally, I think that slavery lasts until the South starts to industrialize. If the UK starts growing its own cotton like they did in the 1860s IOTL, the South starts to see demand for its main cash crop dwindle. This could be the impetus to industrialize, forcing a question about what to do with the slaves.

 

[water123]

My thought is that the south will hold on to slavery until growing crops is simply too unprofitable. Maybe have factories outproduce them. Also, the US could form "slave colonies" where if you want to not have crushing internal tariffs and taxes on slave made goods, you have to go over there where you are surrounded by people who hate you for enslaving their kinsmen.

That, or simply sometime in in the 80's or 90's or even 00's if the movement for slavery is strong enough, after Slavery has become so unpopular that it is barely used, especially after southern land is worked so much that anyone who wants to make money owns a factory, congress simply makes a law against it and sends troops to the worst areas.

That, that, or the US just straight up kicks out South Carolina, says if you want to own slaves you have to move there, and annexes South Carolina after it inevitably collapses.

 

[CalBear]

Realistically?

Never. Without the 13th, 14th, & 15th Amendment there is now way it happens, not in all of the South. Some states (DE, MD, KY, VA) would likely have seen de facto emancipation by the 1880s. AR, TN, TX might be done before the turn of the Century.

The "Deep South" (AL, GA, FL, LA, SC) would have retained slavery well into the 20th Century, if not the 21st. Slavery is a serious money maker, even in a more modern society (assuming you have the lack of moral standards to allow it) since you can literally rent out people to do work, even in a factory (which was done prior to the ACW). Ending slavery means a MASSIVE transfer of wealth (actually a plain loss of wealth). People don't like surrendering 60%+ of their total net worth.

 

[Alcsentre Calanice]

Realistically?

Never.

But isn't it possible that once 3/4 of the states are free states the union simply abolishes slavery with an Amendment?

 

[CalBear]

But isn't it possible that once 3/4 of the states are free states the union simply abolishes slavery with an Amendment?

Possibly.

The issue will be getting the 3/4 majority. Even in the states that de facto abolished slavery there would be plenty of Congressmen and Senators who wouldn't vote to eliminate the institution, along with conservative Northerners who would be against the "theft" of property by the government (remember the wealth factor).

 

[Sceonn]

The rest of the world will see it ended anyway. Diplomatic isolation will see to it. It isn't simply about the US, and the nation will have given up moral high ground at all levels of diplomacy. There will be great hatred directed towards the US from Africa, and if we assume that communism will rise anyway because Japan had already set upon Meiji Restoration, then the USSR will hands down dominate in Africa.

 

[CalBear]

The rest of the world will see it ended anyway. Diplomatic isolation will see to it. It isn't simply about the US, and the nation will have given up moral high ground at all levels of diplomacy. There will be great hatred directed towards the US from Africa, and if we assume that communism will rise anyway because Japan had already set upon Meiji Restoration, then the USSR will hands down dominate in Africa.

How does the end of the Japanese Shogunate lead directly to the Soviet Union?

Not saying the diplomatic issue is entirely wrong, but the Meiji period = communism totally loses me.

 

[Sceonn]

How does the end of the Japanese Shogunate lead directly to the Soviet Union?

Not saying the diplomatic issue is entirely wrong, but the Meiji period = communism totally loses me.

No reason really, just trying to clarify that Meiji Japan and Russia will still clash. thus we could still end up with Communist Russia. Although it is redundant, as the US civil war will have little effect on the global politics till WWI.

I was driving to a communist Africa being possible, but ran out of steam.

 

[Mikestone8]

BTW what counts as "abolition"?

I have a very interesting dvd Slavery By Another Name, which recounts in grim detail how the institution continued in thinly disguised form down to about WW2. Typically this was done by getting Blacks convicted (in highly biased courts) of various petty offences, and then dishing out harsh sentences.

BTW this did not lead to any diplomatic isolation of the US. The rest of the world seems to have barely noticed.

If the South goes through the motions of abolishing slavery, but replaces it with something like the 1865 Black Codes, could we see a purely cosmetic change, where in legal theory only the worker's labour contract is bought and sold, rather than the worker himself - but the worker notices precious little difference?

 

[James XI]

Possibly.

The issue will be getting the 3/4 majority. Even in the states that de facto abolished slavery there would be plenty of Congressmen and Senators who wouldn't vote to eliminate the institution, along with conservative Northerners who would be against the "theft" of property by the government (remember the wealth factor).

Yeah, many would be opposed to slavery itself, at least nominally, but pull a Lee and defend it in conjunction with some other 'higher' cause. I'd not say it's never abolished, but if any kind of conflict is proscribed, it sure might take a long while. Amazing considering that almost everywhere else it went earlier and peacefully...obviously not the USA's proudest moment.

 

[Jared]

Short version: not until well into the twentieth century, if at all.

Getting rid of slavery would need three-quarters of the states to pass a required constitutional amendment. There's still going to be enough slave states holding onto slavery to make it impossible to abolish until then. There were fifteen slave states in 1860. If they all retained slavery, it would need a total of 60 states in the Union - which hasn't happened even today.

Could some of those slave states abolish slavery. Yes, maybe - eventually. But honestly, even the border states are going to hold onto slavery for a very long time, if not forever. Support for slavery had become a cultural thing even when the actual institution had become moribund. Delaware had been "on the verge" of abolishing slavery for decades, but it never did. A sufficient population of antislavery immigrants might make a difference to that, but Missouri was about the only state vulnerable to having sufficient immigrants to change its demographics. Even then, those immigrants might acculturate over time, as immigrants often did.

And this is assuming that there aren't any more slave states. Given that the means of how the ACW is avoided has been left mostly unspecified, it would probably mean at least some compromise to keeping slavery in some territories. A partitioned part of New Mexico and *Oklahoma are both possible slave states in the future, which would only make things worse.

 

[anotherlurker]

What would be the actual use for slaves today? The Nazis learned just how useful forced labor was in their factories - sabotage, fauly parts, extremely low productivity etc, it would be no different today. And that's not even touching post-industrial work which requires a high level of education unachievable by a slave. Someone looking out for his profits would have to actively avoid using slaves anywhere in his supply chain to maximize efficiency.

 

[Mikestone8]

What would be the actual use for slaves today? The Nazis learned just how useful forced labor was in their factories - sabotage, fauly parts, extremely low productivity etc, it would be no different today. And that's not even touching post-industrial work which requires a high level of education unachievable by a slave. Someone looking out for his profits would have to actively avoid using slaves anywhere in his supply chain to maximize efficiency.

Then why (see my last message) did it persist in thinly disguised forms for eighty-plus years after it had supposedly been abolished?

 

[anotherlurker]

Then why (see my last message) did it persist in thinly disguised forms for eighty-plus years after it had supposedly been abolished?

Did they get arrested into slavery and put in front of highly complicated industrial machinery or a computer to write some papers or were they pressured into unskilled labor which you'd normally pay a teenager 4 $ an hour to do? Keeping tabs on slaves doing the last one is more costly than the economic gain from the work they do - forced slavery as a way to get work done is simply too expensive in a modern environment - you need one educated worker to watch over several slaves, the economic output of the educated one is 0 while it would be several times high than the output of the slaves if he would actually do productive work, then you get into the issue that the state with a slave population needs expensive and unproductive institutions to uphold slavery, to catch fleeing ones, to get new ones etc!

Besides the amount of work in the "low skills" cathegory is preciously low, as the jobs become rarer the lower class of the country employing slavery comes into conflict with slaves for jobs, this is not different than the situation today what with all the "immigrants taking our jerrrbs!!!". I suppose there is the issue that the lower classes tend to "vote against their interests" but that ends as soon as there's no more bread on the table for the jobless free worker.

The 19th century was a time with high demand for low skilled labor existed because of rapid industrialization in the West demanding ever more basic resources while the world markets were not yet free to trade whatever anyone needed and wanted and technology was not yet advanced enough to automate/mechanize mining and agriculture and to genetically engineer crops for extremely high outputs. An illiterate farmer who never left his village working on the tiny family farm he inherited from his father back then was a viable actor in the economy, today he's not because the nature of the economy has shifted massively in favor of efficency and high skills.

 

[cerebropetrologist]

Getting rid of slavery would need three-quarters of the states to pass a required constitutional amendment. There's still going to be enough slave states holding onto slavery to make it impossible to abolish until then. There were fifteen slave states in 1860.

There are tactics that could be used against this, though. Federal backing for schemes of compensated emancipation, whether national or state-by-state, would only require a simple majority, assuming you can muster enough Northern representatives behind it and strike down any subsequent attempts to revoke the law. Demographic factors, plus slave-owners who judge emancipation to be the more lucrative option when the markets turn bad, may shift enough states from slave to free-ish to enable an amendment to pass. There's also a chance that the more risk-averse slave-owners might look at the possibility of uncompensated emancipation and conclude it's better to cash out while they can.

I'm not saying it's likely, given the Republican/Northern antipathy towards free black labour, and it still wouldn't be a quick process. However, it could move the timetable up from your suggestion.

 

[Mikestone8]

Besides the amount of work in the "low skills" cathegory is preciously low, as the jobs become rarer the lower class of the country employing slavery comes into conflict with slaves for jobs, this is not different than the situation today what with all the "immigrants taking our jerrrbs!!!". I suppose there is the issue that the lower classes tend to "vote against their interests" but that ends as soon as there's no more bread on the table for the jobless free worker.

The 19th century was a time with high demand for low skilled labor existed because of rapid industrialization in the West demanding ever more basic resources while the world markets were not yet free to trade whatever anyone needed and wanted and technology was not yet advanced enough to automate/mechanize mining and agriculture and to genetically engineer crops for extremely high outputs. An illiterate farmer who never left his village working on the tiny family farm he inherited from his father back then was a viable actor in the economy, today he's not because the nature of the economy has shifted massively in favor of efficency and high skills.

Not just the 19C. Cotton-picking wasn't mechanised until after WW2. It's only in the last half of the 20C that this starts to have a big impact, and more especially in the last quarter of it. That implies that an extra century of life for slavery (explicit or disguised) is at least possible.

 

[Skallagrim]

If we're talking de facto, as @Mikestone8 has described, I agree with the people who think that severe abuses (regularly tantamount to slavery-by-any-other-name) could have lasted well into the 20th century.

But if it's de jure, "official slavery", I'm with the people who point at diplomatic concerns. Slavery was decidedly going out of style. Although much-maligned nowadays for their colonialist attitudes, European powers were, during the 19th century, going out of the way to end slavery in those very colonies. Often against the wishes of the native slave-owners. However twisted the notion of "the white man's burden" was, most European powers had also begun to see it as their duty to end slavery. They had all abolished it in their home countries, the international trade had become taboo even earlier, and only very rarely did Western powers allow slavery to be continued by the native population in their colonies.

Of course, there was deep hypocrisy there. Other, less 'over-obvious' abuses were still going on freely without ever being questioned (at least until the twentieth century rolled around). But the notion of actual, (dis)honest-to-god slavery being propped up by a major Wesrern power? That would have led to very icy relations. The United States don't want to turn into a pariah state. If nothing else, it's just bad for business. (Those same Southern plantation owners were mighty fond of international trade. Remember how so many confederate ideologues were virulently opposed to tarriffs?) Some solution would have been brokered. It would have been a dirty deal, that would have allowed for lots of horrid abuses to remain... but officially, slavery would have vanished from the Western world before the dawn of the twentieth century. Propriety satisfied, the rest of the world would then have ignored what continued to happen unofficially.

 

[606jae]

If the war is avoided because of the Crittenden compromise being accepted then it could never been done away with

 

[Youngmarshall]

If the war is avoided because of the Crittenden compromise being accepted then it could never been done away with

It wouldn't be the first law in which permanent turned out to be somewhat less than permanent.