Effects no US civil war

Greetings and salutations.

Assuming that with some PODs no earlier than the US annexation of N. Mexico the US somehow manages to scrape through the 19th century without north-south tensions ever turning into full-blown war. The boll weevil, British and French tariffs favoring Indian and Egyptian cotton vs. Confederate, the shrinking number of slaves in border states, increased hostility by Southern free labor to slaves taking over factory jobs, universal condemnation by everyone including the Sultan of Turkey and the Czar of Russia, etc. all leads to a slow decline in slavery by the late 1800's, leading to abolition by the 1920s (South Carolina and Georgia secede, and rejoin the nation after some saber-rattling and fourteen very embarassing months of economic collapse).

Now, what are the larger effects of this on the US and world? As the number of freed slaves grows, will they be able to find share-cropper type jobs as OTL, or will the continued existence of those still in bondage lead to their being hounded out of the Deep South - and if so, where will they go? An earlier move North? (Unlikely to please). The British Empire? More settlement in Liberia? Settled as frontier marchers in the coldest and most Indian-infested areas of the north central territories?

Will the lack of a civil war - which was watched with interest by a lot of foreign observers - mean differences in European military strategy, with possible butterflies for *68 and *70? Is the use of the ironclad delayed? And what of the effects on the US government? Much of the centralization of the war was reversed during subsequent decades, but just how loose will the Union be in the subsequent decades, in which the unity of the country has not been reaffirmed with loads of state violence?

Will a US which still has slave states fail to intervene in Cuba (and therefore the Phillipines) given the lurking possibility that the still slave-holding Deep South might try to annex it? What are US relations with the UK like, given that the UK will continue to sneer at the whole slavery thing? Will the end of slavery in Brazil be delayed by the US example? Will there be a push for US influence in Africa when the colonial rush heats up? After all, Southerners "know how to deal with black people"...

Just how much worse will racism and social darwinsim be in this TL, as southern intellectuals work hard to reinforce the notion of black people as inherently inferior and basically incapable of self-rule? How much worse a system of "Jim Crow" is set up in the wake of slavery? Or do we get systems of control quite unlike OTL?

If butterflies do not prevent the formation of the Prussian-led German empire, what odds the US would be involved on the non-German side of a *WWI?

Bruce
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Just how much worse will racism and social darwinsim be in this TL, as southern intellectuals work hard to reinforce the notion of black people as inherently inferior and basically incapable of self-rule? How much worse a system of "Jim Crow" is set up in the wake of slavery? Or do we get systems of control quite unlike OTL?

If slavery endures why have any system of control? The social system of the US (and CS) established that "Free Men of Color" were equal to their white equivalent. The notions of the inferiority of the coloured people of the US/CS is a post-ACW invention, and the "Jim Crow Laws" started in the northern states and spread to the South later.
 
but presumably not the one (OTL) where even Abraham Lincoln was convinced of the inferiority of blacks. (At least until late in life.)

Perhaps not the one where restrictive "black codes" substantially predate the Civil War and where the Virginia legislature passed laws meant to restrict African-American suffrage from from 1870 onward, either. (But oops, those aren't specifically Jim Crow laws, so I guess I'm moving the goalposts, or something. :rolleyes: )

And I'm curious to the reference about "Federal Pressure", 67th. Do you perhaps mean it was opposed by minorities and confirmed by the Supreme Court? Can we have a cite please?

Bah. Don't bother. You have the smell of troll about you, and I am wasting my time.

Bruce
 

Susano

Banned
As far as Im know, free coloured people where still treated massively inferior. And the justifications for slavery certainly chiefly included things like "that the negro cannot care for himself" and somesuch. It was a slavery based on race, not on status like in the ancient world.

Anyways, on topic, to one question I have an immidate answer: Africa. IOTL (though admittedly well after the CIvil War) the USA didnt even receive a Liberarian ambassador (even though Liberia was a sorta daughter country) because a black ambassador in Washington would offend the southern states. Of course, in any colonialism, blacks wouldnt rise up to such position, but still I think the attitude would rather be "to keep well clean of them negroes" and things like that.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Perhaps not the one where restrictive "black codes" substantially predate the Civil War and where the Virginia legislature passed laws meant to restrict African-American suffrage from from 1870 onward, either. (But oops, those aren't specifically Jim Crow laws, so I guess I'm moving the goalposts, or something. :rolleyes: )

And I'm curious to the reference about "Federal Pressure", 67th. Do you perhaps mean it was opposed by minorities and confirmed by the Supreme Court? Can we have a cite please?

Bah. Don't bother. You have the smell of troll about you, and I am wasting my time.

Bruce

Wynes, C.E., Pylon, Vol. 28, No. 4 (4th Qtr., 1967), pp. 416-425

You seem beholden to a pre-Fogel/ Engerman notion of the nature of racism and slavery in the US in the 19th century.
 
The notions of the inferiority of the coloured people of the US/CS is a post-ACW invention, and the "Jim Crow Laws" started in the northern states and spread to the South later.

Perhaps in your timeline, 67th Tigers. But mine had things like:

Alexander Stephen's Cornerstone Speech said:
The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

Alexander Stephen's Reply to Abraham Lincoln said:
We at the South do think African slavery, as it exists with us, both morally and politically right. This opinion is founded upon the inferiority of the black race.

Robert Toombs's Speech to the Georgia Legislature said:
Since the promotion of Mr. Lincoln's party, all of them speak with one voice…They declare their purpose to war against slavery until there shall not be a slave in America, and until the African is elevated to a social and political equality with the white man.

Jefferson Davis' reply in the Senate to William Seward said:
The condition of slavery with us is…nothing but the form of civil government instituted for a class of people not fit to govern themselves. It is exactly what in every State exists in some form or other. It is just that kind of control which is extended in every northern State over its convicts, its lunatics, its minors, its apprentices. It is but a form of civil government for those who by their nature are not fit to govern themselves. We recognize the fact of the inferiority stamped upon that race of men by the Creator, and from the cradle to the grave, our Government, as a civil institution, marks that inferiority. In their subject and dependent state, they are not the objects of cruelty as they would be if left to the commission of crime, for which they should be incarcerated in penitentiaries and work-houses, and put under hired overseers, having no interest in them and no relation to them, no affiliation, growing out of the associations of childhood and the tender care of age.

Jefferson Davis's Farewell to the U.S. Senate said:
When our Constitution was formed, the same idea was rendered more palpable; for there we find provision made for that very class of persons as property; they were not put upon the equality of footing with white men -- not even upon that of paupers and convicts; but, so far as representation was concerned, were discriminated against as a lower caste, only to be represented in the numerical proportion of three-fifths. So stands the compact which binds us together.

Jefferson Davis’ address to the Confederate Provisional Congress said:
…the African slaves had augmented in number from about 600,000, at the date of the adoption of the constitutional compact, to upward of 4,000,000. In moral and social condition they had been elevated from brutal savages into docile, intelligent, and civilized agricultural laborers, and supplied not only with bodily comforts but with careful religious instruction. Under the supervision of a superior race their labor had been so directed as not only to allow a gradual and marked amelioration of their own condition, but to convert hundreds of thousands of square miles of wilderness into cultivated lands covered with a prosperous people….

Georgia Declaration of Causes for Secession said:
The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen.

Georgia Declaration of Causes for Secession said:
The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers.

With these principles on their banners and these utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as our rulers.

Mississippi Declaration of Causes for Secession said:
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course…It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

Texas Declaration of Causes for Secession said:
In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

Dred Scott vs. John Sandford said:
A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a "citizen" within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.

5. When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and were not numbered among its "people or citizens." Consequently, the special rights and immunities guarantied to citizens do not apply to them.
 
About 620,000 soldiers died in the ACW - almost 2% of the population.

No ACW means much faster western expansion. More states sooner. More natives forced into reservations or annihilation.

620,000 more consumers may lead to richer industry. There will be more small farms, but the big farms will be more profitable.

More hands means cheaper labor, greater disparity between rich and poor, fewer worker's rights and so on.

More equal male/female ratio will slow the women's suffrage movement.

The Pragmatic philosophy was a response the the ACW, so it will be butterflied away. This may lead to a more religious nation, or to a nation less willing to embrace new ideas. This may also lead to slower technological and scientific development.

Slower removal of slavery will mean many moralists will still become abolitionist and things like prohibition will have lower priority.
 
About 620,000 soldiers died in the ACW - almost 2% of the population. .


Note that the South, with it's much smaller white population (a bit more than 1/3 of the North) had roughly equal casualties to it's opponents, so it's rather more than 2% for the South, rather less for the North: I'd say the effects on the North are relatively minor, but the south will be rather more vigorous.

No ACW means much faster western expansion. More states sooner. More natives forced into reservations or annihilation..


I have to assume for the sake of the scenario that some sort of compromise would have to be worked out on how the Western territories were to be apportioned: a couple more Bloody Kansases and things get ugly. Does Arizona go slave? California? I'd expect rather more immigration of slave-holders westward than occured OTL. (New Mexico might be a problem: split New Mexico/Arizona territory North/South rather than East/West to create a "slave strip" to the Pacific?) Not sure if a five-year head makes that much of a difference: the Indians which didn't get forcibly moved were generally on territory that was hardly choice to begin with.

620,000 more consumers may lead to richer industry. There will be more small farms, but the big farms will be more profitable.

More hands means cheaper labor, greater disparity between rich and poor, fewer worker's rights and so on. .


Doubtful here: the US is still very thinly settled, an oversupply of labor in the free states is unlikely. Now, in the slave states, free labor gets pounded by slave labor competition: does factory labor in the south become slave-dominated, or do the poorer whites organize to keep certain professions "white only?"

More equal male/female ratio will slow the women's suffrage movement..


Not sure here: Women got the vote nationally in 1920, 55 years after the end of the civil war: how long would it take to equalize the ratio? Most early rights for women voting come from non-Southern states anyway - as I said, the North has suffered proportionally rather less of a male death rate. Thought: on non-racial issues, would the South by 1920 be a more or less liberal society than OTL? Less disruption of the Olde Order, but on the other hand no sense of aggravated injury and defensiveness from the loss of the war and the subsequent attempts at Reconstruction.

The Pragmatic philosophy was a response the the ACW, so it will be butterflied away. This may lead to a more religious nation, or to a nation less willing to embrace new ideas. This may also lead to slower technological and scientific development.
.

Interesting thought: care to develop on it? (Another inspiration of Pragmatism was Darwin, and he's still going to have a big intellectual impact. Might we still see a *pragmatism for the new Age Of Science? And if Darwin is used to justify slavery, will Social Darwinism - a big hit among the elites of OTL's Gilded Age - be smeared by association?)

Slower removal of slavery will mean many moralists will still become abolitionist and things like prohibition will have lower priority.

Prohibition butterflied away?

Bruce
 
One wonders how this could happen unless the south suddenly underwent a shattering change of heart and openly accepted and embraced the long-term death of their peculiar institution.

The tide WAS going against them, and at an increasingly rapid rate.

At some point in the 1860s no less than three slave states were liable to abolish slavery, enough to provide a two-thirds majority in the Senate, the last obstacle to an amendment ending slavery. Further, the record was that once a state began to near the tipping point it was liable to move fast, if only because the slave owners would sell their slaves south to avoid losing their value. Of course, at some point for many slave owners it them became a matter of theoretical principle and therefore of less import and...

Even worse, the south had embraced a dubious and disastrous principle that slavery must expand or die. Since slavery was dying out in the hemisphere and elsewhere and there were no remaining American territories amenable to slave-based agriculture this had locked the south in a mindset which meant the inevitable non-expansion of slavery meant disaster and they could find no way to expand.
 
Even worse, the south had embraced a dubious and disastrous principle that slavery must expand or die. Since slavery was dying out in the hemisphere and elsewhere and there were no remaining American territories amenable to slave-based agriculture this had locked the south in a mindset which meant the inevitable non-expansion of slavery meant disaster and they could find no way to expand.

What, then, did they propose to do after gaining independence? Conquer Mexico and Central America?

One wonders if a much tougher-fought Mexican-American war - the "*Santa Ana is a miltary genius" universe - might have convinced them that expansion south wouldn't be particularly practical. (OTOH, more of Northern Mexico might have been grabbed as compensation for US losses after such a war - not sure any of that area is particularly good for slave agriculture, though).

Bruce
 
The Evolution of Jim Crow Laws in Twentieth Century Virginia

Please, as shown above the South was even more racist than the North at the time. In fact, they were worried that eventually the Abolitionist movement up North would end up with not only the abolition of slavery but with equality of races, which scared them silly.
 
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