CSA Gradual Emancipation

[DG Valdron]

The TL that I'm working on currently has the CSA giving up slaves by 1900 via industrialization. I'm trying to make it (or force it) to be as realistic as possible and not ASB at all. I've got a map, and the idea for a flag that works off of combining the Bonnie Blue and the Third National.

There was a fairly interesting thread on Confederate Industrialization. Pretty much all Confederacy threads tend to degenerate into generic shouting matches. But this one managed to stay on topic for a while, and there were some interesting notions bandied back and forth.

Ultimately, I don't think that the thread went into enough specific detail to effectively model the trajectories and evolutions of various industries and infrastructure, but there's enough there to get you thinking and allow you to follow up and develop your own ideas.

No link, sorry, but it's worth hunting around for.

 

[Wolfpaw]

Before the ACW slaves sold for $1000 each so every time one walks off a thousand 1860 dollars go with it.

To put it in perspective, that is around $24,000 in 2010 dollars.

 

[VirginiaHistoryTeacher]

There was a fairly interesting thread on Confederate Industrialization. Pretty much all Confederacy threads tend to degenerate into generic shouting matches. But this one managed to stay on topic for a while, and there were some interesting notions bandied back and forth.

Ultimately, I don't think that the thread went into enough specific detail to effectively model the trajectories and evolutions of various industries and infrastructure, but there's enough there to get you thinking and allow you to follow up and develop your own ideas.

No link, sorry, but it's worth hunting around for.

Thank you for being a helpful voice. I'm in the middle of creating a TL for an industrialized, emancipated Confederate republic. It's interesting how so many people think this is blatantly ASB. I guess I just have a difficult time suspending my own wishes for what I would've liked to see.

 

[Snake Featherston]

There was a fairly interesting thread on Confederate Industrialization. Pretty much all Confederacy threads tend to degenerate into generic shouting matches. But this one managed to stay on topic for a while, and there were some interesting notions bandied back and forth.

Ultimately, I don't think that the thread went into enough specific detail to effectively model the trajectories and evolutions of various industries and infrastructure, but there's enough there to get you thinking and allow you to follow up and develop your own ideas.

No link, sorry, but it's worth hunting around for.

IMHO the most likely trajectory is akin to that seen in Russia: an influential minority of the population, especially in the capital and its nearby environs, with the CSA's greatest industrialization being in Tennessee and Virginia, which puts its industry like Russia's rather closer to its border and hence more, not less, vulnerable in any shooting war. What industry there is comes primarily with state backing and foreign loans, leading to progress superficially rapid, increasingly in debt, and leading to a Russia-like pattern of a capital with precious little resemblance to the bulk of the economic-social system, with the CSA geared to cash crops that bugger its ability to sustain itself in the long term via food-agriculture.

This is more of an economic resemblance and from the chance circumstances of the CS industrial belt in the Richmond-Petersburg area than anything else, however. The CSA very obviously will not develop a reactionary, thuggish, military parade-fever obsessed dynastic autocracy.

 

[Revolutionary Todyo]

Some of the northern states emancipate their slaves around 1870-90 when the landowners realise that industry will be more profitable.

After that it's just a matter of time before the shithouse falls down.

 

[Snake Featherston]

Some of the northern states emancipate their slaves around 1870-90 when the landowners realise that industry will be more profitable.

After that it's just a matter of time before the shithouse falls down.

It would have to be Arkansas doing that, as both Tennessee and Virginia will probably use slaves to try to create an industrial center of their economy they can control, selling the excess to the Deep South.

 

[Johnrankins]

Some of the northern states emancipate their slaves around 1870-90 when the landowners realise that industry will be more profitable.

After that it's just a matter of time before the shithouse falls down.

Not a chance. 1870s is WAY too early as the war ended only in 1865. It took RE LEE for Virginia to vote for the Colored Troops Bill. Even then it took the state legistlature to instruct its senators to vote for it to pass the second time around. So only 5-15 years after this VA is suddenly going to emancipate its slaves?

 

[Johnrankins]

It would have to be Arkansas doing that, as both Tennessee and Virginia will probably use slaves to try to create an industrial center of their economy they can control, selling the excess to the Deep South.

Assuming the CSA keeps TN which means that the war would have to be won VERY QUICKLY and I don't see how emancipation could happen that quickly in a society in which it took RE Lee to vote for a bill that gave the CSA its best chance (Slim as it was) of surviving in 1865.

 

[Snake Featherston]

Not a chance. 1870s is WAY too early as the war ended only in 1865. It took RE LEE for Virginia to vote for the Colored Troops Bill. Even then it took the state legistlature to instruct its senators to vote for it to pass the second time around. So only 5-15 years after this VA is suddenly going to emancipate its slaves?

And even then the bill was passed on terms Lee and Jefferson Davis both knew no blacks would actually rally behind. I find it kind of tragic and ironic that they really did try for the Black and the Grey scenario using the same logic seen in that TL and it was a complete flop. Even more interesting is the question of whether or not blacks would have actually fought for the CSA in 1864 when they had the much simpler route to freedom of wearing Blue. Or even a USCT regiment fighting CSCT at some point.

But that requires the ASB forum and the inversion of the Guns of the South, as there's no means for this to happen in the CSA short of a Kaiser Karl-style reform long after it would have meant anything.

 

[Snake Featherston]

Assuming the CSA keeps TN which means that the war would have to be won VERY QUICKLY and I don't see how emancipation could happen that quickly in a society in which it took RE Lee to vote for a bill that gave the CSA its best chance (Slim as it was) of surviving in 1865.

I agree. I was just pointing out that two of the other Northern CS states gain more from attempting to expand their existing slave-based industry than actually abolishing the institution. An interesting question that could be asked here but almost never is in CSA threads is what precisely happens to slavery in the US post-Civil War.....as at least some of this impacts the potential development of relationships between the two states.

 

[Johnrankins]

And even then the bill was passed on terms Lee and Jefferson Davis both knew no blacks would actually rally behind. I find it kind of tragic and ironic that they really did try for the Black and the Grey scenario using the same logic seen in that TL and it was a complete flop. Even more interesting is the question of whether or not blacks would have actually fought for the CSA in 1864 when they had the much simpler route to freedom of wearing Blue. Or even a USCT regiment fighting CSCT at some point.

But that requires the ASB forum and the inversion of the Guns of the South, as there's no means for this to happen in the CSA short of a Kaiser Karl-style reform long after it would have meant anything.

My guess is if it happened earlier most of the Blacks would be given a gun and promptly desert to the Union Army. Why would they believe that the CSA would EVER keep its word? They knew the US Army was CERTAIN to free them but the CSA was uncertain to really do so at best.

 

[Snake Featherston]

My guess is if it happened earlier most of the Blacks would be given a gun and promptly desert to the Union Army. Why would they believe that the CSA would EVER keep its word? They knew the US Army was CERTAIN to free them but the CSA was uncertain to really do so at best.

There's a question, though, of what happens if they get in the Union army during the period when black soldiers in *that* army were striking from unequal pay. I mean they might actually expect and go along grudgingly with that from Richmond and be astonished enough just to be able to keep and bear arms legally as soldiers trained to shoot at white people in a slave system, but from Washington? The idealism applied to Lincoln's Administration and the degree to which the segregated units were far short of that idealism even then might create some interesting political shenanigans.

I could see Richmond trolling Washington with this, too, and using this kind of thing as a means to actually fill in some of its tactical-intelligence vacuums.......in the ASB scenario that this ever actually happened in the first place.

 

[VirginiaHistoryTeacher]

So, long story short, in the opinions of those here, the industrialized and emancipated Confederate TL that I'm currently writing is ASB?

 

[Johnrankins]

So, long story short, in the opinions of those here, the industrialized and emancipated Confederate TL that I'm currently writing is ASB?

Pretty much, yes. Societies simply don't change that quickly. Slavery defined Southern Society by 1860 and they just fought a war to preserve it. They aren't suddenly going to turn around and do what they just fought a war to prevent.

 

[Johnrankins]

There's a question, though, of what happens if they get in the Union army during the period when black soldiers in *that* army were striking from unequal pay. I mean they might actually expect and go along grudgingly with that from Richmond and be astonished enough just to be able to keep and bear arms legally as soldiers trained to shoot at white people in a slave system, but from Washington? The idealism applied to Lincoln's Administration and the degree to which the segregated units were far short of that idealism even then might create some interesting political shenanigans.

I could see Richmond trolling Washington with this, too, and using this kind of thing as a means to actually fill in some of its tactical-intelligence vacuums.......in the ASB scenario that this ever actually happened in the first place.

It wasn't actually striking it was refusing to accept any pay instead of an unequal one. That outrage was gone by late 1864.

 

[Snake Featherston]

So, long story short, in the opinions of those here, the industrialized and emancipated Confederate TL that I'm currently writing is ASB?

Yes, but it can still be posted in the ASB forum *as* ASB, and done well it can actually be very entertaining. ASB =/= to bad story or a bad TL, and if actually done there deliberately and done well it can be as good as any TL on the forum. Simply post it in the ASB forum as opposed to pre-1900 and there's no problem.

 

[Snake Featherston]

It wasn't actually striking it was refusing to accept any pay instead of an unequal one. That outrage was gone by late 1864.

Except that if the CSA by whatever handwave adopts this in time to actually alter the war it has to be done either in 1863 or in 1864. Now, imagining what the CSA might do in 1863 if it removes the major obstacle to recognizing it just in time for Chancellorsville and the Gettysburg campaign.......

But fortunately this scenario doesn't happen outside the Crack!TL anyhow.

 

[VirginiaHistoryTeacher]

STUPID question: It's VIOLENTLY ASB to have a Confederacy with 26 states and a Union with 26 states...right??? (Now I feel like a troll )

 

[Snake Featherston]

STUPID question: It's VIOLENTLY ASB to have a Confederacy with 26 states and a Union with 26 states...right??? (Now I feel like a troll )

Eh, if it's in the ASB forum the degree to which it's ASB doesn't really matter. Some of the TLs there, in fact, are what I call Crack!TLs, that is to say that they're purely for fun and not intended to be serious at any point in the first place. Posting it in the pre-1900 and post-1900 forums requires at least some pretense of plausibility. ASB is more anything goes.

 

[DG Valdron]

So, long story short, in the opinions of those here, the industrialized and emancipated Confederate TL that I'm currently writing is ASB?

Don't sell yourself short yet. My advice, go back, do the research, make your case. Sifting through threads can be a useful thing to do to get ideas and assess both positives and blind alleys.

But in the end its your timeline, do the work and give'er.

For what it's worth, as an example - I've been doing 'The Land of Ice and Mice' about an Arctic Circle Inuit Agricultural Civilization. If I can make a case for that with some reasonable persuasiveness, then anyone can do anything.

The point is, research, read, think. Don't just give up because someone says no.

If the bar is set high, then that just means that you have to climb high.