Confedrate States without Slavery
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Anaxagoras
Banned
Entirely ASB. Preservation of the Union was always the paramount Union war aim.
Assuming a handwavium, though. . . they would take the deal in 1865, but not before.
Maintaining slavery was the whole point of the Confederacy. It was the entire reason for their existence. Give up slavery and the Confederacy has no reason to exist.
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What if I told you that the north fought the war exclusively to maintain the union and never would have made this offer?
I'd say you were wrong. The North fought primarily to preserve the Union, but ending slavery became a part of the war relatively early on.
Oh yes of course and the German Empire took elsass-lothringen because it was full of germans and Britain declare war in WW1 to defend Belgium.
To deny that ending slavery became incorporated into the Union objectives, as a secondary objective, after the primary goal of restoring the Union, is to ignore history. Its to ignore all the anti-slavery measures the Union engaged in during the war, from the decision to deem escaped slaves to be contraband, to the Emancipation Proclamation, to the Thirteenth Amendment (passed by Congress before the war was over). If the sole goal of the Union, to the exclusion of all other considerations, was the restoration of the Union, then they would have taken no efforts whatsoever against slavery.
They did.
The Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment show otherwise.
Not that I disagree, but one could view those measures as being a way to simply hurt the Confederacy rather than aid the slaves.
In any case, to echo others for the OP, rather than concerning ourselves with the Union side of things, the entire reason the CSA declared independence was to keep their slaves. I don't really believe 'states rights' had much to do with it, except in the interest of the states having the right to keep their slaves. So if you remove the entire reason for the CSA wanting independence, then why would it want independence? In other words, the Confederate government, such as it was, is going to say, "No."
Your right it is just purely coincidence that all these anti slavery measures enacted during the war just so happened to damage the confederates position at home and abroad.
How silly of me.
Are you seriously suggesting that the Thirteenth Amendment, which was pushed during the war and exclusively freed Union slaves, was exclusively done to combat the Confederate rebels?
Im saying it was only pushed when it was exclusively to improve the unionist position abroad and thus damaging the confederates position abroad.
It was pushed by individual generals since almost the beginning of the war. General Butler established that escaped slaves counted as seized contraband and came under US law which immediately freed them. This was de facto emancipation for any slave who could make it to union lines where Butler commanded. Additionally, many Republicans and even a few Democrats warned during the secession crisis that if the South did break away slavery would no longer be protected there by US law and could be done away with at the barrel of a gun - making it clear that everyone at the time knew what was at stake. If anything, Union leadership held their abolitionism at bay in an attempt to achieve a negotiated peace and to appease the border states.
The Emancipation Proclamation only applied to the 'rebels' and was to destabilize the south.
Saphroneth
Banned
It would perhaps be correct to say that measures such as the Emancipation Proclamation - and the government propoganda around their adoption - drove public opinion, as much as the inverse. Certainly a drastic shift in public opinion is reported by those who were present at the time, where in 1861 the difference between Union public opinion and British public opinion on free black men was like night and day, while by 1864 black freedmen were making admiring comments on how much things had changed.
It would also be right to say that two sides at war often come to have the inverse of the belief of the other. The Union started out waging war to restore the Union, but by the end of the war it had become a war to destroy slavery as much as anything; the Confederacy seceded over slavery, but came to view independence as their overriding objective by the end.
It would also be right to say that two sides at war often come to have the inverse of the belief of the other. The Union started out waging war to restore the Union, but by the end of the war it had become a war to destroy slavery as much as anything; the Confederacy seceded over slavery, but came to view independence as their overriding objective by the end.
Weren't the 2 most popular songs among union troops by the end of the war specifically about greeting the slaves?
The Emancipation Proclamation could only be applied to the rebels because that was the extent of Lincoln's war powers.