ACW Butterflies

With a PoD in 1841 right after the Amistad case, would it be possible to avoid the ACW, or was it set in stone? I have heard 2 camps on this, one that the ACW is a product of a series of Specific Events, and another that the fuse was lit many years before it happened. Both positions have marit imo, but I am curious to hear what our dear friends at AH have to say about it.
 
As far as I can see, the ACW's chief cause (with slavery linked to it by an umbilical cord) was economics. The Southern economy was linked to plantation agriculture. The North was industrializing at breakneck speed. Given that industry returns far greater profits in a shorter time than agriculture, I don't see it being abandoned or slowed. Getting the South to industrialize at the same rate would probably be the only way to avoid the ACW. Slavery and States' Rights issues would continue, but without economic difference, they'd be settled, most likely within a decade.
 
Of course the conflict is in the air, but would it always lead to secession?
There are bound to be some zillion timelines out here without an ACW and a PoD much later ...
 
I personally think the Democratic Party not splitting in 1860 would've avoided it.

At the very least it would delay the issue 4-8 years. But if it could be avoided by the 70's and 80's when the whole of the world was really stepping down upon slavery, I think you could see a system of gradual empancipation in the US.
 
The obvious PoD seems to be an extremely liberal federal policy as to slavery,
e.g. continue with slave- and free states well up to the Pacific.
OK, it's doubtful whether that works, and it's certainly not the model you're looking for,
but it's imaginable ...
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
I personally think the Democratic Party not splitting in 1860 would've avoided it.

Maybe not. Even had all the votes of Breckinridge and Bell gone to Douglas, Lincoln still would have won the electoral college, getting 169 electoral votes instead of 180 as IOTL (though he would have lost the popular vote by a huge margin). Of course, this doesn't take into account the whole host of butterflies that would be introduced by a unified Democratic candidacy, but it's something worth considering.
 
The butterflies emanating from a unified Democratic Party wouldn't keep Lincoln from the White House. The political trend leading the north to a more liberal policy was too strong: the industrialization mentioned above.
 
What if the POD for the South to abolish slavery is more from external sources than from internal (northerners).

What if the British Empire begins to place bans on importing goods starting in 1841, that is cotton from areas where it is made by slave labor. France and other Euro countries follow suit after slavery is abolished in their possessions in the 1840's.

Would this POD lead to manumission of slavery in the South in the 1850's thereby avoiding the ACW? The South might see the need to modernise as well. Would this lead to sectional harmony as the North would act as a middleman to buy for the Northern textile factories cotton and then sell the excess to Europe, this would be done while the South is figuring out how to manumit its slaves? The Northern traders might also try to shut the northern abolitionists up as the North would be taking advantage of the South's plight.

This would also leave the expansion of slavery past the Mississippi a mute point as there would probably be no rivalry for Kansas and no heated debates over the land obtained from Mexico.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Why would the south give up their slaves? Slave labour farming was the most profitable industry on the planet, showing greater rates of return than even rail.
 
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