True enough, it is likely to have a revolution or be reaborbed into the Union or both by then.
If the CSA lasts that long.
So the CSA wouldn't even have the potential to undergo a fundamental revolution to shake off the shackles of slavery and industrialize at the same time because the slavery system is too embedded in their ethos?
I'll provide a counter-argument that resides entirely within the realm of Alternative History - the Confederacy does have the potential to undergo a fundamental revolution that sees both gradual emancipation and industrialization.
Featherstone and Rankins believe that butterflies don't fly in any pro-Confederacy ATL. Their arguments are good and sound (tho I don't know about God really appearing) but I believe represent the worst possible outcome.
They fly but they are based on what came before it. Barring revolutions societies don't change their fundamental assumptions. The only way the CSA changes significantly on the slave question is some revolution or other. Also people don't fight and die for one thing and give that up a mere 20 years later. That generation has to die out first and probably the next after that so you are talking 60+ years.
Thats entirely possible. There are no absolutes and no, not in 60+ years, probably within 30 minimum.
Too, slavery going away (constitutionally impossible though that may be) is not a panacea. Blacks are still going to be treated like subhumans since the society depends on their sweat and blood to exist, both economically and socially. Slavery and the plantation was romanticized well into the 1900s, so why the hell is that going to change when that ideology has proven triumphant over the mongrel hordes of industrial, abolitionist yankeedom.A considerable number of the 1830s-1840s generation was still alive in 1890 and voting. Their kids who heard about how they whipped the "Abolitionist Hordes" will be in their middle ages and voting. Slavery isn't going to go away THAT SOON.
Too, slavery going away (constitutionally impossible though that may be) is not a panacea. Blacks are still going to be treated like subhumans since the society depends on their sweat and blood to exist, both economically and socially. Slavery and the plantation was romanticized well into the 1900s, so why the hell is that going to change when that ideology has proven triumphant over the mongrel hordes of industrial, abolitionist yankeedom.
The Great Migration is going to look like a trickle compared to what blacks are going to do the moment they get the opportunity to cross the border. This is something that always seems to be ignored. A whole 1/3 of the Confederate population is treated as property; why on earth do we think they will tolerate that when the line to freedom has jumped from Canada to the Tennessee/Virginia border?
The Confederacy is a fundamentally paranoid state because it has given itself a titanically, horrifically difficult task; keep 1/3 of its population in chains (preferably visible) by any and every means necessary.
If I had to put a timetable to how slavery ends in the CSA I see it like this:
1880s/1890s: Boll Weevil crosses into Texas.
1890s/Turn of the Century: Upper South states abolish slavery.
1900s/1910s: A few Deep South states (Louisiana, Alabama, Florida and Georgia perhaps) abolish slavery.
1910s/1920s: South Carolina and Mississippi are the only remaining CS slave states, and economically they aren't doing well. Something could prompt them to abolish it as well.
That sounds like it would be a good scenario if it played out that way. I would anticipate industrialization occurs in much the same path.
How do you get around the fact that emancipation was banned by the CSA constitution?
You can't. There's only one option. At some point in the CSA's history, they're going to need to scrap the old constitution and draw up a new one; just like the US did with the Articles of Confederation.
You can't. You'll end up with factory slaves, which is far more expensive than the high-turnover wage slavery found in industrialization.How do you get around the fact that emancipation was banned by the CSA constitution?
You can't. You'll end up with factory slaves, which is far more expensive than the high-turnover wage slavery found in industrialization.
The boll weevil won't end slavery, it will just crush cotton. Slaveholders can still rent out their slaves--which are massive status-symbols.Constitutions are changeable. True, they don't turn on a dime, as they are reflections of the statusquo of the body politic. If states can no longer sustain their slave populations for whatever the reason (boll weavil or what have you), the slavocrats are going to end up biting the bullet, and if the South industrializes at rather breakneck speed, it'll really lower the hammer on them.
I'll provide a counter-argument that resides entirely within the realm of Alternative History - the Confederacy does have the potential to undergo a fundamental revolution that sees both gradual emancipation and industrialization.
Featherstone and Rankins believe that butterflies don't fly in any pro-Confederacy ATL. Their arguments are good and sound (tho I don't know about God really appearing) but I believe represent the worst possible outcome.
Then you rent them out as domestic servants, canal-diggers, railroad builders, street sweepers, forced labor chain-gangs, etc. If there is a job that whites are unwilling to do, then it is "nigger work." Remember that for much of history, slaves were not used for agriculture, but for service.Wouldn't that mean that if factory slaves are far more expensive that it would hasten emancipation? If they keep getting killed or injured in machines, they'd be too costly to maintain and replace.
Thats entirely possible. There are no absolutes and no, not in 60+ years, probably within 30 minimum.
Wouldn't that mean that if factory slaves are far more expensive that it would hasten emancipation? If they keep getting killed or injured in machines, they'd be too costly to maintain and replace.
Constitutions are changeable. True, they don't turn on a dime, as they are reflections of the statusquo of the body politic. If states can no longer sustain their slave populations for whatever the reason (boll weavil or what have you), the slavocrats are going to end up biting the bullet, and if the South industrializes at rather breakneck speed, it'll really lower the hammer on them.