Abolition of 19th C Slavery

I want to address this one because it seems to hint at a disconnect that's going on in your view of history.

Lincoln's actions in a state of perceived desparation and his actions in a state of actual desparation will be no different - because the difference between the two is hindsight he did not possess at the time.
If someone thinks they are in desperate states, they cannot tell if they really are or not - if they could, they would not think that way.

Actually, there was no disconnect at all, and nothing I have seen has ever suggested that Lincoln felt desperation of any kind at that time, or believed that the country was, either; and in fact, the source I used rather strongly suggests that Lincoln felt at least some degree of confidence in doing what he did, particularly given the timing(the Union did just win the Battle of Antietam, after all).

I would respond in general to the points in your post - some of which are substantive, indeed - but this one made me unsure if you're understanding what I meant.

It would seem that the main issue here, more than anything, is that we come from two apparently substantially different perspectives.

What this tells us is that at the vote of 1784 there was one vote in the debate, but that later on there was only one southern delegate to the congress willing to vote for the ordinance.
Now, if we tally up the delegates present...
The First Continental Congress had fifty-six delegates present:

2 New Hampshire
4 Massachusets
2 Rhode Island
3 Connecticut
9 New York
5 New Jersey
8 Pennsylvania
3 Delaware
5 Maryland
7 Virginia
3 North Carolina
5 South Carolina


Now, of these the southern states - if we count only those south of the Mason-Dixon line - have 23 delegates.
1/2 of 56 is 28, so this should have been passed easily unless some of the northern delegates were also pro-slavery - and if Pennsylvania also counts as "southern" then the southern states had 31 delegates and hence a clear majority.


I'm not sure how Jefferson's ordinance can have come down to one vote unless the South was universally against it and so were several delegates from the North. But this also points to another problem - if the measure was defeated by one vote it was presumably 28 v 27 with someone missing. But if this NJ man is added back in, it's 28 v 28 - deadlock.
So it would be, at the very least, two and not one votes (assuming the one-vote story is correct - I'll take it as fact, but I do know that there's at least one case of the official language supposedly turning on one vote and that's not true.)

Perhaps, but this would seem to assume that a 28-28 deadlock would automatically prevent it from passing at all-and I've never seen evidence for that, as far as I've read regarding the workings of Continental Congress.

That said, though, I don't find it that difficult to come up with a POD in which the proviso turns out slightly differently-perhaps with abolition put off until 1810 or 1825 instead of 1800, which would allow for a 29-27 or greater vote in favor of the proposed legislation, which would sidestep any particular problems that might come up with a tie vote anyway.
 

CalBear

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Yet, despite not having a dog in the fight, you continue down the same path.

BTW: I have enough Southern kin to know exactly what "Bless your heart" means.

Kicked for a week.
 
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