Best Way for US to abolish slavery (ideal scenario)?
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Well, since blacks STILL don't have equal treatment, I'm guessing some time in the 22nd century?
Compared to the 19th century, yes they do. C'mon, stop arguing over whether bald people actually do have hair. You knew what I meant.
I think a question like "what is the best scenario that is feasible" is an extremely complicated question, but I think a pre-colonial POD would be ideal in the sense that what would be best would probably be a society not structured like the OTL US on issues related to race in the first place.
The closer you get to OTL's US there, the more likely you'll have something at least similar to OTL's developments as far as how slow - if not necessarily a civil war like OTL.
The closer you get to OTL's US there, the more likely you'll have something at least similar to OTL's developments as far as how slow - if not necessarily a civil war like OTL.
Pre-colonial POD would mean no US as a country as we know it. It must be a reasonably recognisable USA so the POD should be post-independence.
A territory set aside in North America for freedmen early after the Revolution and the founding fathers agreeing to something like no new birth slaves in the territories after a set date. Meaning planters can move West, but slavery dies automatically in the region with time.
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There was actually a Land Ordinance proposed by Jefferson that failed (by a single vote) to ban slavery in the territories. If passed, Tennessee and Kentucky become free states. It's unlikely Georgia would give up its territory for further free states to be established so OTL Mississippi and Alabama remain slave areas. (Other slavery concessions may be needed to get the southern states to sign up to the Constitution but it would still be worth it).
Then delay the invention of cotton gin. Hopefully, the Deep South agrees to end slavery by the 1830s at a similar time when Britain was ending it if the economics was not favourable. This will force the Southern economy to diversify.
Then when slavery is abolished, AFTERWARDS you can have cotton gin be invented by 1840.
Less race tensions in the South and an industrialising economy hopefully causes Blacks to be considered regular citizens within a few decades even in the South.
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That's kind of the problem - IMO a US "as we know it" is going to have, even after slavery ends, a great deal of white resistance to truly equal citizenship happening. Jefferson may have had a tepid willingness to see slavery ended, but I am not aware of anything suggesting he would have accepted equal rights and status in practice.
Jefferson supported some rights for the VA freedmen not given to them OTL like the right to bare arms.
They didn’t get that right until the last year of the Civil War when Lee convinced the VA legislature to change the law for reasons of military necessity.
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I don't know from the context if that's supposed to be read where "No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." means all freedmen too, to be honest. "Every man is a freeman." is not a given in all societies even without it being based on racial grounds.
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Its possible the VA Supreme Court would have allowed for that distinction yes. Either way the words weren’t allowed in the final copy.
Having that apply as "yes, freedmen too" would be a step in the direction of the goal here, so far as what could have been, at least.
The actual text that made it in was…
“SEC. 13. That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free State; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.”
There was also an attack on the British added in at the last minute for in the words of the VA Constitution “prompting our negroes to rise in arms against us”.
Early in the war the VA response was by in large fear and to lock down tight on slavery related issues. Later in the war they seemed to knock themselves that they hadn’t utilized their black population enough and started thinking differently.
The Civil War saw something similar with a very reactive and fearful response of possible slave revolts early on and later on deciding they made a big mistake not utilizing their black population and reversing themselves.
By this metric a longer and harder Revolutionary war would be helpful in terms of slavery related issues.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
There’s something else you’ve got to keep in mind for this as well -- demographics.
OTL, the Philadelphia Convention’s decision to leave the Atlantic Slave Trade unmolested allowed for the young country to double its slave population in that same period; obviously the expansion of slavery to the west, and the increased demand for slave labor therein, did little to help matters. In 1790, they comprised nearly a fifth of the young republic; by 1860, the “colored” share of the overall population had “only” shrunk to 14%. It would fall below 10% in the early 20th Century, which incidentally could be considered the peak of “white privilege” in the country as such.
Now suppose this slave importation bonanza never happened, the institution never expanded westward, and slavery as a whole was abolished a generation earlier. And to top it off, the civil war is either avoided or significantly reduced in scope, meaning many more of these emancipations are coming by way of manumission - - meaning far fewer powerful white families self destruct their wealth, and “white power” as a whole doesn’t lose out economically since you don’t have “uncompensated” emancipation acting as a de facto loss of wealth for the slave holders (transmuting said “wealth” to the freedmen, since they now “own” themselves).
The result of all this may well be that America becomes “whiter” faster; similar to Argentina OTL, this could pave the way for rapid “blancization” by the mid 20th century. What this would mean for US civil liberties, economic growth, and the like -- well, this may just be my impression, but I can’t help but feel that the US would be “poorer”, in every sense of the word, when looking ay their long term prospects TTL. But maybe that’s just my feeling.
OTL, the Philadelphia Convention’s decision to leave the Atlantic Slave Trade unmolested allowed for the young country to double its slave population in that same period; obviously the expansion of slavery to the west, and the increased demand for slave labor therein, did little to help matters. In 1790, they comprised nearly a fifth of the young republic; by 1860, the “colored” share of the overall population had “only” shrunk to 14%. It would fall below 10% in the early 20th Century, which incidentally could be considered the peak of “white privilege” in the country as such.
Now suppose this slave importation bonanza never happened, the institution never expanded westward, and slavery as a whole was abolished a generation earlier. And to top it off, the civil war is either avoided or significantly reduced in scope, meaning many more of these emancipations are coming by way of manumission - - meaning far fewer powerful white families self destruct their wealth, and “white power” as a whole doesn’t lose out economically since you don’t have “uncompensated” emancipation acting as a de facto loss of wealth for the slave holders (transmuting said “wealth” to the freedmen, since they now “own” themselves).
The result of all this may well be that America becomes “whiter” faster; similar to Argentina OTL, this could pave the way for rapid “blancization” by the mid 20th century. What this would mean for US civil liberties, economic growth, and the like -- well, this may just be my impression, but I can’t help but feel that the US would be “poorer”, in every sense of the word, when looking ay their long term prospects TTL. But maybe that’s just my feeling.
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