How long would Slavery Last in a Victorious Confederacy?
- Thread starter aspie3000
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dcharles
Banned
I always thought that the potential for political radicalization in the CSA is huge. I think that's a really underestimated factor in this debate, and I think it would be the driving force behind emancipation.
Richard Russell proposed a national black person resettlement program as an adjunct to the Civil Rights and/or Voting Rights Acts in the 1960s. He was an asshole.
But the short answer is yes, they would say exactly that.
dcharles
Banned
Industrial concerns almost always rented their slaves IOTL, and they did it for all of the reasons you say it would be unwise to buy slaves outright.
Impressment was a power which was activated and utilized in wartime. It wasn't random impressment, but rather, there was a specific justification for seizing someone's property, and there was at least technically, some level of commitment or understanding that this property would eventually be returned. It's unlikely to be employed arbitrarily.
A state which could exercise its power arbitrarily at whim, would, at the very least, run afoul of that part of the constitution which would preclude them from depriving members of other states of their property.
Yes but getting from that to having the South industrialize after starting as a plantation economy is a bit of a stretch. My problem is that I can't see a process in which an industrialized market economy manages to grow in a society like the CSA, at least not without foreign investment.
The USA would use up the Californian and Pennsylvanian oil faster without Texan oil added in. I'm not sure when it would be a problem--but whenever it does become a problem, the shortage is a bigger problem for the CSA; I'd expect that the USA would find an excuse to take it. Look what's happened to areas the USA can reach easily, that also have something the USA wants...
I could see slavery changing over time. Some people keep house slaves, or pleasure slaves (unofficially, but prostitution always happens everywhere.)
Eventually, slaveowner corporations might come on the scene, and farmers, factory owners, and more lease slaves for set periods. No one really asks what happens to the old slaves, but routine "transfers" account for why slaves' relatives end up moving away. With no one really interacting with these people long enough to see them as people, atrocities can happen even more than in OTL.
I can even see the military using slaves for such purposes as hauling munitions, stoking boilers, and more. And some people will forget that someone with nothing to lose, is taking no real risk to kill someone deserving of it.
With what? Almost all of the capital is tied up in either land or slaves, both of which presumably crash along with cotton prices. There's a severe shortage of capital to diversify an economy in.
You mean like Ecuador? Or any number of other export oriented, single crop/product economies? Nope, they don't. Your basic resource based/export economy doesn't really diversify when the bottom drops out. Instead, it goes through hard times, there's massive pressure on middle and working classes, and if everyone's lucky, they find another export oriented single crop to rely on. They don't bounce though.
For the same reason that the United States is crapping its collective pants over illegal immigrants? It seems that Americans don't like surplus population being dumped into the labour market.
Mind you, in OTL during the great migration, a lot of northern cities welcomed black immigration from the south. So much so that white populations in the South were terrified of losing their pool of cheap manpower, and would employ all sorts of violent tactics to keep their blacks from escaping. So this might well happen anyway.
Hmmm. Were there any Angus Reid polls on people's attitudes at the time? How about Ipsos?
Because that's worked so well as poor Canadians, Japanese, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, etc. surpass the standards of living of poor white Americans. Have a lot of poor Americans questioned whether they benefit, or are they just patsies for the 0.01%. Who voted for Trump anyway?
Never happen. The Confederate economy is massively dependent on cheap labour from slaves. Basically, it's economy is tied up in agricultural lands, with mass labour based cash crops. That's only viable with cheap cheap labour. You don't let that walk away if you can help it.
The only way the CSA would allow emigration of slaves is if the rest of the world decided to purchase them. That just wouldn't work.
Besides which, there's plenty of precedent in the 18th and 19th century for mass emigrations. Britain or France, or Belgium or the Netherlands, might well have places to put and uses for millions of semi-educated, semi-skilled, Christian ex-slaves.
And another thing. Expelling ex-slaves to USA is more plausible than you think. CSA is already brutal enough to enforce slavery, its gonna have more tools to deal with unwanted population.
The easiest way, is to simply quietly cooperate with underground railroads.
And there is way for CSA to speed it up, a risky way to force the issue, if they feel lucky.
Every once in a while, CSA drops two hundred ex-slaves in no-mans land between two barbed wires. They predictably try cross into USA, rather than try to re-enter CSA. Now what?
You're gonna extradit them? Back to country where they'll get re-enslaved? Your owns abolitionists, will effectively support here the CSA they hate so much, they'll fight tooth and nail to not send them back.
"CSA are evil we hate them, and that's you can't send those people back there, you monster!"
What are you (USA) gonna do? Give guards standing orders to open fire on refugees? Crack down on underground railroad? Declare war? Build a wall?
They didn't declare war in last couple decades, even though South keept slaves all this time since ACW, so why would they declare war now, when all that changed is that underground rail-road is bringing in more ex-slaves?
All CSA has to do, is to pretend it's actively trying to stop refugees from escaping the CSA, and to stop the refugees with be political suicide for any Northerner: "You want to bring back fugitive slave act!?".
Cue happy Dixie rubbing his hands together.
USA will eventually, put it simply, quietly accept the expulsions.
When official narrative is that underground railroad are heroes, and that refugees are victims escaping Dixie-inflicted slavery?
I don't think so.
You can have narrative that Dixie are evil and must stop enslaving blacks, or you can mow down black refugees with maxim guns.
But not both.
The Dixie evil slavers might disappear once people get tired of an influx of labor, which happens every 3 generations or so.
It wouldn't take a major butterfly to make that weariness of influx stick around a little longer than as a transient phase
Now that's just trolling. You want to correct someone (as slaves obviously don't get paid for their services you're right), don't put your correction inside the quote box
Yes. I don't think USA is gonna devote its entire existence toward forcing CSA to end slavery.
Hatred of south will cool down to:
"We don't like them or what they do, but it's not like we must do anything about them as long as they don't bother us".
I don't think its guaranteed that US will try to actively force CSA to end slavery, beyond some speeches so empty and impotent as any UN resolution. Northern Warhawks might take presidency+congress and demand do-over of ACW, but it's hardly guaranteed.
I think you're projecting current American values, which seems to amount to 'Murka for Murkans and build that wall!'
Twouldn't necessarily be so. Look at the United States receptiveness to Cuban and Vietnamese refugees.
A couple of hundred slaves end up in no-man's land? Wow. Giant propaganda coup. Movies, books, interviews. 200 is a drop in the bucket. You could put them all on speaking tours to show how utterly shit life is in the Confederacy, the brutality, the horror, the utter inhumanity.
Every single escaped slave will be a nail in the CSA's coffin. An indictment of a psychotic and brutal society that must be opposed at all costs.
Think about the sanctions on South Africa, the revulsion against Israel's policies. Now factor in thousands of X-slaves as living monuments, signposts, causes.
It's not about being paid. Slaves don't have any ability to freely consent. Any sexual use of a slave is, by definition, rape.
Just for the record, I offer an apology for any offense. No one has asked me to apologise. But I feel that I gave offense where I didn't particularly intend to, and made the point inappropriately. Warmest regards.
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Well, I never thought of it this way but... now that you mention it, wouldn't this just be "someone else's problem" if your analogy is correct?