Poll: When Would the CSA Eliminate Slavery

By What Point Would The Confederacy Have Eradicated Slavery?


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Alcsentre Calanice

Gone Fishin'
I have to wonder if the shithole that the CSA would soon become, faced with international pressure, boycotts, etc., would result in the CSA falling apart, and the individual pieces outlawing slavery - possibly as a result of rejoining the US or possibly on their own.

So the answer might be 'never', in that the CSA ceases to exist before slavery there does.

I wonder where this international pressure is supposed to come from. Of course there are going to be powerful international abolitionist and socialist opposed to the CSA's treatment of its black population, but there are governments that will be all to happy to treat and trade with the Confederate States, and if it's only to limit the Northern American influence on the Americas. Napoléon III's France comes to my mind directly, with its interests in Mexico and Panama, but of course also Britain itself.

Also, I can understand why you call the CSA a shithole, it was a racist country built on the enslavement of almost half its population; but it's quite dangerous to let your morale judgement impede on your historical assessment of the situation. As of 1861, the South is still very rich, and accounts for the majority of the American exports. Of course, economic decline will soon threaten the South, as agricultural products continue to lose value relatively to manufactured goods; if, however, cotton prices continue to rise, you might also see some kind of Dutch disease hitting the South, which is, arguably, worse than the first scenario.

But I assume that either of this scenarios won't afflict the South immediately. I'm not an economist, and can't develop detailed models of economic development, but I assume that an independent South would have 20-40 more years of prosperity before the disadvantages of a non-diversified kick it. So the South, or, to put if better, the slave-holding ruling class will have some decades to enjoy its independence. Scenarios that predict instant instability and disintegration of the CSA just aren't realistic in that respect.

Now, can the South avoid the eventual decline as the cotton price eventually falls - that is, can the South industrialize? I think this is more problematic than just asking: Can slaves work in a factory? Of course slaves can be made to work in a factory, and the southern gentry could, of course, invest in manufacture. But the lack of an internal market (remember the wealth is concentrated within the hands of a small ruling class, and up to 50% of the population don't even own themselves, let alone large sums of money to purchase consumer goods) might kill every attempt at industrialization - and while exporting manufactured goods might be an alternative, the South might have a hard to compete, lacking any industrial know-how, especially with USA (and probably Imperial Mexico) setting up trade barriers to protect their own industry.
 

Mr. House

Banned
can the South industrialize
Wasn't the C.S.A in OTL more industrially developed than say 1920s Italy? In a lot of ways the South would be ripe for foreign direct investment, just as it was in OTL and the United States was broadly. Capital respects rule of law. The laws in the C.S.A. and more broadly Antebellum South aren't just or moral but they did protect capital.

Not only that but the C.S.A. would still be right next door to the United States. Heck Northern Mexico is far richer due to trade with the United States than the Southern portion of the country. Assuming good trade ties between the two nations I would assume large levels of FDI present and industrialization would occur, although at a slower rate than OTL yes. Speaking of Mexico they were far poorer than the C.S.A. and less industrialized and have gotten richer and industrialized.

The real question is how much industrial development will occur, not if any will occur at all. I'd say less than OTL but far more than say OTL Mexico during any given year.
 
Most Europeans thought of slavery as abhorrent, and certainly a mass boycott movement of Confederate goods would develop. And the British would be happy to eliminate a competitor to Indian cotton

But why would any other power want to raise the price of Indian cotton - the likely result of boycotting an alternative source? Sentimentality about slavery is hardly apt to go that far.

Did anyone boycott Brazil when it still had slavery in the 1880s?
 
But why would any other power want to raise the price of Indian cotton - the likely result of boycotting an alternative source? Sentimentality about slavery is hardly apt to go that far.

Did anyone boycott Brazil when it still had slavery in the 1880s?

CSA wasn't only source nor even most important source of cotton. And even if nations doesn't boycott common people might do that. And Brazil is one most important coffee producer countries so these nations which consume much of coffee hardly would do that and even if nations which not consume much of coffee begin boycott Brazil it has not much effect.
 
Nowhere, but that's not how the American constitution (or other federal constitutions) work. The constitution grants certain legislative powers to Congress, and the "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively."

So, because US Congress isn't granted the legislative power to ban slavery, it can't do it. This obviously changed with the 13th Amendment, but we're talking about the antebellum period here.

However, it does give it power over interstate trade. In theory, it could have banned slaves being sold across state borders. It never did but it did have the power to do so.
 
Constitutions can be amended.

That said, at earliest I can see it going in the 1910s. But in the meantime the CSA would go from being arguably richer if less industrialized than its morthern neighbor in 1860, to a dysfunctional, corrupt pariah state, especially as India becomes an alternate market for cotton. The CSA would probably suffer the resource curse in spades.

It was never "richer". It had a lower PCI and its wealth included slaves. It can only be considered "wealthier" if you consider free labor worthless.
 
As long as it existed they would have slavery. Chattel slavery still exists to a large extent in our timeline. Less stringent forms of slavery are the norm. In fact if you consider the modern modes of production to be effectively wage slavery, and I do, within our capitalist society then most labor is performed today under a type of slavery. Slavery under capitalist production is the norm. Now if you are asking about chattel slavery specifically it depends on how much the developed world cares about the internal affairs of the CSA. Given the developed world's track record of simply wrapping real politic concerns in the flag of humanitarianism I wouldn't expect intervention along those lines solely.

Last time I checked employees can change jobs. People do so all the time. Sometimes they are fired or laid off and sometimes they quit. I can't think of a single person I know who has the same job that they had when they were 16. Slaves can't do that.
 

Alcsentre Calanice

Gone Fishin'
However, it does give it power over interstate trade. In theory, it could have banned slaves being sold across state borders. It never did but it did have the power to do so.

Ok, that's true, but arguably the CSA could have done that too, if "impairing the right of property in negro slaves" is interpreted very strictly.
 
Ok, that's true, but arguably the CSA could have done that too, if "impairing the right of property in negro slaves" is interpreted very strictly.

I can't see how not being able to sell slaves across state lines wouldn't "impair the right of property in negro slaves". By definition, it would lower their value to a great degree. As far as they were concerned it would be like prohibiting the sale of automobiles across state lines. As far as the law was concerned property was property.
 

Mr. House

Banned
Last time I checked employees can change jobs. People do so all the time. Sometimes they are fired or laid off and sometimes they quit. I can't think of a single person I know who has the same job that they had when they were 16. Slaves can't do that.
I don't want to derail this thread and if you want to have a more extensive good faith discussion on this feel free to join me over in the Radical Left Party thread in Chat.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...eft-party-front.378757/page-382#post-18880810

Suffice it to say I don't see slavery as a binary in which a person is either free or slave. I'd say it is more accurately a bell curve with chattel slavery on one end and complete post scarcity financial/material independence on the other.

Regardless OP is seemingly asking about chattel slavery specifically not debt or wage types which we can debate elsewhere.
 
I used to think it was only plausible when not only the Civil War Veterans die off, but when their great-grand children are no longer of working age. Then I realized they can't win without Britain (however unlikely that help comes from and whatever reason it does) and the only thing that allows the South to exist is friendly relations with Britain, so I think it's "Whenever Britain wants and cares about it"
 
I could see Texas becoming independent again, LA and the border states rejoining the Union, and the rest going Red.

No matter how bad it gets, I don’t think they would rejoin the USA. Countries don’t normally fight a war of independence and then change their minds about it.

I don’t think the US would want them back, either.
 
My guess is post-1915, that is roughly two generations after CSA independence. Veterans of the war will be old men and the wartime politicians will be gone. There would be some international pressure but more importantly there would be internal political opposion based on white workers being denied industrial jobs by competition with industrial slaves. Chances are, many states will shift chattel slaves into something like low paid sharecropper labor
under oppressive apartheid type laws. Domestic "servants"as an upper class status symbol might go on indefinitely.
 
I used to think it was only plausible when not only the Civil War Veterans die off, but when their great-grand children are no longer of working age. Then I realized they can't win without Britain (however unlikely that help comes from and whatever reason it does) and the only thing that allows the South to exist is friendly relations with Britain, so I think it's "Whenever Britain wants and cares about it"

The power for GB to do that will go down over time. It can only do so with the cooperation with the US. If the US ever decides too much time has gone by than GB's efforts are doomed.

The CSA would still be over 3000 miles away, would be almost as large as Napoleonic France, and a near technological peer. It would be behind the US and GB but not by THAT much. It would have a population of millions. GB can't do it alone.
 
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remember nazis had slave labor for their factories, and the south could have done the same.

I still believe my point is that the CSA, which was explicitly founded on slavery as its core principal, would abolish slavery after suffering a communist revolution of some sort.
I agree the Confederacy was constructed to put the needs of an elite few over those of the majority of the population. Historically those were the nations that fell to communist revolutions. I personally think that if a Communist revolution were to happen the union would send troops in to prevent a communist Nation from arising on their southern border.
In order to save themselves the Confederate ruling elite what have to make serious concessions to the union or just be outright annexed. No matter what the result slavery is finished.
 
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I wouldn't count on the Confederate Constitution to be a be all to end all protector of slavery. The slaveocrats were massive hypocrites in just about every way you can think of. I have zero difficulty seeing them able to amend their constitution if it fits their purposes.

The slavocrats were massive hypocrites, but they were very consistent in supporting their own interests, regardless of whether it was good for the country as a whole. No slavecrat would have the purpose of giving away their own property. They will never vote for abolition. They might vote for something that wasn't defined as slavery, but was slavery in practice, if they thought that would fool foreign countries into supporting the Confederacy. They might vote for compensated emancipation, but I am doubtful that the Confederacy would be able to afford it.

If there was any credible movement to amend the Confederate Constitution in a way that allowed some states to end slavery, I'd expect the more slaveocrat dominated states to expel the would-be free states or, failing that, to secede from the Confederacy.

I agree that the CSA ending slavery before OTL's Brazil is indeed implausible, but I would draw the line at slavery being kept purely as a social convention. Economics was one of the biggest reasons the slaveocrats fought to own people after all.

There were two social elements to most of the white Southerners support of slavery. The first was no matter how poor you were, you were at least better off than a slave. Prejudice and pride would not be enough to sustain slavery indefinitely, but it would delay slavery's end by years, if not decades, after slavery became economically unviable.

The other social element was fear of retaliation from freed slaves, which most white southerners thought would result in the murder of most southern white males and the rape of most southern white females. That fear could be overcome in areas where slaves were a tiny fraction of the population, but states like Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, where 40% or more of the population was slaves would endure economic disaster rather than risk the riot and massacre that they believed would follow freeing the slaves.

There's far more insidious but equally oppressive if not overt ways to keep the Confederate African population down. I've always pictured a Confederacy surviving into the 20th century heading down the road of apartheid/serf like laws essentially tying 'free' Blacks to the land and permanently preventing them from voting, much like sharecropping and the apprenticeships was slavery in all but name post Civil War. It seems like the most valid tactic the Confederacy would have adopted to 'have their cake and eat it too' if they were looking to better their image abroad.

I agree that if the Confederacy ever ended slavery, it would be replaced by something at least as bad as apartheid or OTL's Jim Crow laws.
 
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Most Europeans thought of slavery as abhorrent, and certainly a mass boycott movement of Confederate goods would develop. And the British would be happy to eliminate a competitor to Indian cotton

A full boycott of the Confederacy is going to require a lot of nations, many of whom are not especially friendly towards Britain, to join the boycott. I am doubtful that an international boycott would be attempted and even more doubtful that it would succeed. While the British would like to see competitors fail, a boycott of Confederate cotton won't make up for the fact that Indian cotton was significantly inferior to Confederate cotton.
 
The people who think the British are going to boycott Confederate cotton need to explain why and why those reasons didn't apply to the US before the war. That's why the boycott idea was never convincing to me. All indications were that the UK and CSA would have enjoyed very close relations.
 
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