American Expansion without Slavery

Whenever one reads about American Expansion pre-Civil War, the internal debate is always over whether slavery would be allowed in the new territories.

Suppose, for whatever reason, slavery ends peacefully in most of the southern states in the early 1800s. Perhaps a later creation of the cotton gin.

Would American expansion be greater or less without the slavery debate?
 
Whenever one reads about American Expansion pre-Civil War, the internal debate is always over whether slavery would be allowed in the new territories.

Suppose, for whatever reason, slavery ends peacefully in most of the southern states in the early 1800s. Perhaps a later creation of the cotton gin.

Would American expansion be greater or less without the slavery debate?

Less, at least in the Southwest, as there'd be no need for the Southern states to rush in new slave states to counter the new free states being added from the Northwest Territory. In the northern territories, probably no change.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
A good POD would be Jefferson listening to the pleas of Thomas Paine and Joel Barlow when they pleaded with him to disallow slavery in the Louisiana Territory and fill it with thrifty German settlers instead. Indeed, Congressman James Hillhouse of Connecticut proposed an amendment outlawing slavery in the Purchase.

As it was, Jefferson said "No, we've got a sugar crop to think of," and allowed slavery to continue across the Mississippi.
 
just out of curiosity, how would the south go about farming cotton and tobacco without slavery? Would it be no major plantations and scads of small farmers growing small amounts? Or would you have major plantations with hordes of low paid workers? One problem is that tobacco and cotton quickly exhaust the soil, which is one of the major reasons behind the whole 'slavery has gotta expand' debate. So, if you had more small farmers, would they be forced to rotate crops frequently? Once industrialization comes along, the question is moot, but we're talking about the days of human/horse labor here...
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
just out of curiosity, how would the south go about farming cotton and tobacco without slavery? Would it be no major plantations and scads of small farmers growing small amounts? Or would you have major plantations with hordes of low paid workers? One problem is that tobacco and cotton quickly exhaust the soil, which is one of the major reasons behind the whole 'slavery has gotta expand' debate. So, if you had more small farmers, would they be forced to rotate crops frequently? Once industrialization comes along, the question is moot, but we're talking about the days of human/horse labor here...
Give the land to German settlers. They were the best farmers in America historically, and--given a little time--I'm sure they'd find some way to produce tobacco and cotton more efficiently than with slavery.
 
I think there'd be more expansion southward (I'm looking at you Cuba) without the slavocracy to worry about. California would still be desirable with or without slavery, both for Pacific harbors and farmland... I guess for gold too.
 
Would American expansion be greater or less without the slavery debate?

I'm not 100% sure, but I think American expansion happened in spite of slavery, not because of it... Manifest Destiny was both north and south. No slavery would mean that we would still expand, there just would be no debate about slavery in the new territories...
 
Could this possibly give even more of a push for the Tropic of Cancer border with a defeated Mexico, since there wouldn't be as much fear over just giving the land over to slave-owning statehood?
 
Could this possibly give even more of a push for the Tropic of Cancer border with a defeated Mexico, since there wouldn't be as much fear over just giving the land over to slave-owning statehood?

I doubt it. New England and the Mid-Atlantic was always more ambivelent about territorial expansion than the west and south. Witness Canada in 1812 - any annexationists really weren't from New England, who would have the most to gain and settle in.
 
I doubt it. New England and the Mid-Atlantic was always more ambivelent about territorial expansion than the west and south. Witness Canada in 1812 - any annexationists really weren't from New England, who would have the most to gain and settle in.

Agreed, and expansion into already heavily-populated territory would be the least popular and most dangerous of potential annexation goals.

Many posters on this site seem to have the idea that all polities prior to 1900 or so just wanted to gobble up any territory they were strong enough to take, without heed to how difficult it would be to rule, how well it fit the country's situation, or how it would have fit into the goals of the ruling factions of the time. This was not the case.
 
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