Could slavery have stayed debatable in the South

In OTL I think as late as 1830 Virginia considered abolitioning slavery. By 1860as I understand it saying that slavery was morally or economially questionable in most of the South was actually physcially dangerous.

Also in OTL a more and more people in the North of the United States felt that slavery was something between embarassing to (in my view the morally corect view) toally evil

I am aware that Cotton especially became economically crucial and many people felt it more or less required that African Americans be proeprty to do this successfuly. i also know that some slave risings or rumours of same caused a lot of panic.


What could have happened to make more white male Southerners think that there was at least a question mark about slavery

Would a modest Southern emmigration group and a small pure abolition movement have changed anything
 
Not with the pro-slavery faction having such total dominance.

So you need something where they're not able to acquire a stranglehold on discussion, politics, and everything else that would lead to the issue being explored.

Once it became an ideology (that slavery was a good thing) rather than merely economics...its hopeless.

:mad:

I don't know when that ideology started, but it has to be snuffed out before it has a chance to become used as the rationalization for slavery.

In some ways I think once it became blacks are slaves and only blacks are slaves, it is too late. The path to making it ideological started there whether it was intended that way or not.
 
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In some ways I think once it became blacks are slaves and only blacks are slaves, it is too late. The path to making it ideological started there whether it was intended that way or not.

That would be in the mid- to-late 1600's (i'm remembering around 1675.)
Prior to that the understanding in places like Virginia was that you could not enslave a Christian. When blacks started converting to Christianity in large numbers, the House of Burgesses changed the law, making it irrelevant if a slave were Christian or not. Understandable, since the House was entirely filled with rich slave-owners :mad:
 
You probably need the 1830s Virginia anti-slavery movement to succeed, a semi-successful slave revolt somewhere, and less productivity to cotton--maybe an early boll weevil?

Even with all these, though, I think you have to have some plausible alternate suggestion of what to 'do' with the ex-slaves in order to make ending slavery plausible.

The key to remember here is that an abolition type movement that primarly sees slavery as a moral wrong is implausible.
 
Outside of South Carolina, slavery was debatable right up to Fort Sumter. But regionalism trumps ideology; Georgians or the Missouri-able who oppose slavery are most likely to support their pro-slavery neighbors versus the Yankee horde, not side with a Yankee abolitionist against their neighbor (no matter how wrong and pigheaded said neighbor is). Remember that Virginia had a close vote on abolition in 1850; the idea is not dead or alien to the south.
 
Strange how "regionalism" conveniently lines up slave states where discussion of ending slavery is suppressed at every chance with slave states where...discussion of ending slavery is suppressed at every chance.

If there were any sizable number of genuine opponents of slavery who were also pro-Confederate as opposed to men making pious noises that meant nothing like the favorite Virginian of 90% of all Civil War fans, North and South, Union and Confederate, the Confederacy would look rather different than it was.
 
after the arw have a stronger abolition movement and you could see Maryland and/or Delaware become free then have a delayed cotton gen and a much worse war of 1812 have some new England states get occupied and slaves could be offered freedom with compensation to the owner and the issue might be more debated
 
My understanding is that slavery stopped being debatable because of the concentration of slaves in the deep south due partly to cotton production and partly to the mode of abolition in most of the north (gradual uncompensated emancipation, leading many northern slaveowners to sell their slaves down south before the deadline), combined with reactions to Nat Turner's rebellion. With a serious slave rebellion in recent memory, combined with most cotton-producing counties being majority-slave, deep southern culture started clamping down on any criticisms of slavery for fear that it might incite a slave revolt, and regional sympathies spread these attitudes somewhat beyond the deep south to the border states.
 
Pretty much, no or highly delayed cotton gin. Slavery was the sick man of America prior to its invention - it was bleeding money, and nobody, South or North, liked it.

I think a bit less Northern mercantilism, and a bit more development of Southern industrialization would have greatly weakened the economic arguments for slavery.

Also, what if the Southern governments didn't bother to assist in capturing escaped slaves? Probably ASB, but think of this way, if a dog or a horse runs away, does the government gather a search party to recapture it? Slaves were considered "property" then, so maybe a few Southern counties say "it's YOUR property, it's not our problem".
 
Agreed; no cotton gin would be a major step. Perhaps also no Nat Turner's Revolt? Before that Virginia was seriously considering a gradual manumission (anyone born after X date would be born free)
 
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