Culture after early emancipation

In the 1950's-70's Elvis Presley became known as the King of Rock and is known today as inspiring the genre. But Rock and Roll actually started out as a Black music genre. It didn't become popular until Elvis came along because of segregation. The reason why Elvis was able to bridge the racial barrier was because he was White, but had the charisma of a Black musician.

So let's say that the Jefferson Plan passes and slavery is outlawed for all future states and slavery itself is banned sometime in the 1840's after gradual emancipation. How would American culture develop from earlier emancipation? I imagine that Blacks would probably just be assimilated with the White community but I could be wrong. Any ideas?
 
interesting topic I don't know enough to surmise but we could probably assume at the least that everything would sort of slide back 20-30 years. Music is very reflective of the times, I mean listen to anything from the 60s and you have to ask about Vietnam and social issues. RocknRoll and the Blues that it was derived from is very dependent on the experience of Jim Crow and Reconstruction.

Side Note:

What was Jefferson's Plan? I consider myself fiarly well read on the Founding but I don't recall any concrete plan ever laid out by Jefferson or any Founding Brother for that matter. Most of the schemes started cropping up in the 1840s and 1850s, IIRC. I'd love a source if you got it. My current TL is dealing with this issue and I would love to read whatever you got. thanks.
 
Side Note:

What was Jefferson's Plan? I consider myself fiarly well read on the Founding but I don't recall any concrete plan ever laid out by Jefferson or any Founding Brother for that matter. Most of the schemes started cropping up in the 1840s and 1850s, IIRC. I'd love a source if you got it. My current TL is dealing with this issue and I would love to read whatever you got. thanks.

I don't have an internet source but there is a thread about here.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=134448
 
I don't have an internet source but there is a thread about here.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=134448

Ok I gotcha, the plan for the states. It was as I remember basically a plan to divide the NW territory (OTL: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, etc) into an undetermined (according to thread:10-12) equal sized states. Additionally, the states would have publicly funded schools and basic infrastructure (IIRC, this was in American Sphinx). The plan didn't say anything about slavery, per se, but the logic as the thread states is because of the yeoman-tenant farmer being the primary langholder instead of large cash crop plantation, slavery withers away.

One thing to note is in the time frame of this discussion (early 1780s), Jefferson is in France and must have been communicating with someone in the Confederation Congress (Madison? one of his Randolph relations?) and related this plan through them. Not a big deal but Jefferson wasn't there to general things which was a big deal later on.

How does this relate to the end of slavery? well it shrinks the size of slave states and leaves it up to the individual states therefore eliminating any 1-1 compromise (the Missouri Compromise that came out of the Senate in 1820). Nice butterflies there.
 

Glen

Moderator
Blacks are still going to be considered rather 'lower class' compared to whites ITTL, at least initially. Picking cotton is hard work, and expect in the South this still to be the main profession of the black man. Share-cropping will probably develop quite early. However, its still better than being property. Expect more ambitious blacks to head west to the territories, though they'll face competition from whites and half-breeds there as well.

Blacks may join Nativist parties to help block immigration which they will see as a threat to black livelihood.
 
It woud be interesting to see whether there would be any, and if so what kind, of political unrest in the *USA's mid-19th century. But yeah, politics would be totally changed by this; if the Whigs hold of the hordes of rampaging butterflies, they (or their analouge) might just survive in TTL. Some other interesting aspects would be westwerd expansion and centralization, which would probably be slower in TTL
 
Blacks are still going to be considered rather 'lower class' compared to whites ITTL, at least initially. Picking cotton is hard work, and expect in the South this still to be the main profession of the black man. Share-cropping will probably develop quite early. However, its still better than being property. Expect more ambitious blacks to head west to the territories, though they'll face competition from whites and half-breeds there as well.

Blacks may join Nativist parties to help block immigration which they will see as a threat to black livelihood.

Yes, I figured that blacks would still have their own subculture. However this is going make the western states an even more interesting place.

Some other interesting aspects would be westwerd expansion and centralization, which would probably be slower in TTL

I would expect that the US would be bigger then OTL without the slave-free state balance. Or did you mean settlement?

Another thought. Without importing slaves from Africa would this mean that there would be less African-Americans then today?
 
I think any plan that has a good chance of ending slavery will make the southerners refuse to sign as they did historically. Are we postulating two states instead of one, or just kind of handwaving resistance?
 

NothingNow

Banned
Another thought. Without importing slaves from Africa would this mean that there would be less African-Americans then today?

Most likely not since the Importation of Slaves was made illegal OTL on 1/1/1808, and every single African American around today was descended from that group, (and generations of Horny Slave Masters), to the point where IIRC African-Americans are genetically distinct from West African populations.
 
I think any plan that has a good chance of ending slavery will make the southerners refuse to sign as they did historically. Are we postulating two states instead of one, or just kind of handwaving resistance?

Northern states like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the New England states also had slaves at this time as well. It's possible that slavery could be phased out with a POD before 1830.
 
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