Essay/Rant on slavery and the CSA

Many Americans think that if the CSA won the Civil War, slavery would survive into the present day, and we'd have blacks doing all our chores. Nothing could be more wrong.
First of all, the cotton trade-the main reason slavery existed-would not always be favorable to the CSA. While the British tactitly supported the Confederacy, within five minutes of the CSA gaining independence, they'd realize (1)they still have plenty of cotton from India and Egypt and (2)nobody wants to trade with a country that utilizes slavery. With the collapse of the cotton market, owning slaves would no longer be economically viable.

The majority of people who believe this do so out of ignorance of American history. 90% of the CSA-victory TLs on this board all have the CSA getting rid of slavery prior to 1900.

I think that by 1900, the vast majority of blacks would be emancipated. As for the Confederate Constitution, it didn't guarantee slavery-it simply said that the central government had no right to interfere. It didn't say anything about state governments. I believe that as slavery dwindled, the state governments would see the futility of continuing the practice and pass anti-slavery laws.

Manumission akin to the British manumission of slaves in 1833 is most likely (so yes, anti-slavery laws. But there are different types of anti-slavery laws) IMO: all slaves under 6 immediately freed and no new slaves, state compensation from the ground up after that. Remember that changing the state for political reasons is easy, changing people's opinions (especially opinions on race) is another matter entirely.

Otherwise, read the Confederate Constitution. In a CSA-victory TL, any new states HAVE to be slave states and cannot outlaw slavery. State governments, ironically, do not have the power to outlaw slavery. Only with a Constitutional Amendment can the CSA get rid of slavery. Instead of states outlawing slavery one-by-one like in the USA, the CSA would have manumission all at once across the country. It doesn't change much of your rough TL, just the legality.

Equal rights may be harder to obtain. I don't see blacks gaining equal rights any earlier than five decades after the CSA's independence.

Please clarify: you mean equal rights legally? Not socially right?

However, white racism may be lessened slightly by the abscence of Reconstruction. Blacks may gain equal rights in the 1920s or the immediate post-WWII era as a reward for military service.

You're assuming of course, that blacks would be allowed to join the military in the first place. It's plausible, but the CSA was only beginning to arm slaves when they were in the most DIRE of situations. Once achieving independence, nothing short of governmental collapse would make Southerners start to arm ex-slaves. Especially if manumission creates a new underclass that eventually revolts for their equal rights.

Of course, it may take a reworking of the Confederate Constitution, but it's doable.
In conclusion, get your head out of Kevin Willmott's* ass and see history clearly. Slavery's days were numbered, and a Confederate victory would have only delayed its end.
*Kevin Willmott is the direction of C.S.A., a "mockumentary" smearing the CSA by claiming that a victorious Confederacy would simply hold on to slavery forever. The film is less a work of art and more propaganda for the official, politically correct version of history.

Willmott's mockumentary was a social commentary on how our society is just as racist as the CSA's was. It's not art, propaganda, or alternate history, nor is it meant to be taken as such.
 
Also, back to the OP, although slavery does in fact act as a hinderance to economic and industrial development, that does not guarantee the abolition of slavery in the CSA any time shortly after the ACW. Any kind of emancipation within 20 years of the end of the ACW is just ASB, and it is entirely possible it will exist well into the 20th century.

The primary obstacle to abolition(at the time) was the plantation system. As long as there was a landed aristocracy holding most of the power in the Confederacy there is no way to abolish it, as far as they were concerned slavery was the ideal system, abolishing it would be counter to their own interests(in their minds anyway.) However no matter how hard the CSA clings to slavery or the plantation system it is in for some very hard times following a victory in the civil war. The plantation system was far less efficient than sharecropping or other systems practiced elsewhere, and increased supply of cotton from other nations could also contributed to dropping the price of cotton across the globe which would only serve to hurt the confederate economy which depended so heavily upon cotton as its primary source of revenue; a very bad decision. Combine this with the policy of the confederate government to print money to pay for the war and you have a recipe for economic disaster down the road. I figure that the confederacy's economy will collapse within 20-30 years, especially if the boll weevil makes its way to the US on schedule. With that the plantation system will almost certainly fail and then it is possible for slavery to be abolished, but not before. Now that does not mean that slavery will be abolished as soon as the plantation system fails, but eliminating it will be the primary hurdle needed for the abolition movement to achieve success in the CSA. Take note that any anti aristocrat movement that arises amongst the poor white class in the south will most likely not be any less racist than the slave owning aristocrats they oppose either, for it is very likely that blacks will be blamed for the plight of the lower classes as much as the "slave-ocrats" are.

Of course as the confederacy industrializes it gets more confusing as to whether slavery could have sustained itself. Since no major industrialized nation has demonstrated that slavery can work as a viable source of labor for any extended period of time.
 
Personally, I expect we'll end up with some sort of Abolition-in-name-only setup in the 1890's or early 1900's. Ex-slaves would probably be required to pay their masters back for some portion of their value, and there would be so many social restrictions that the actual gain in freedom would be relatively minor.From that point, there's probably a very slow and gradual increase in Black rights.

I would say that Blacks might well be allowed into the military, but they would probably be limited to manual labor/logistical support and cannon fodder.
 
I dispute your second point. Profit was not the overriding goal of the southern planters. Instead it was the preservation of their dominance and their privileges.

How were that dominance and those privileges established? On the backs on slaves. Would you dispute that slavery was a profitable business?

First, I said quasi-feudal, not feudal. Second, a feudal society, as opposed to a feudal political regime, is defined by the dominance of the landholding class, with a large underclass of landless peons and a small, comparatively marginal middle class stuck in between.

This is why we shouldn't really use the term "feudalism." Nobody can agree what it means, and it adds no value to discussions.
 
Chattel slavery does not equal feudalism, nor does feudalism equal chattel slavery. Look at the relative scarcity of slaves in medieval Europe, or human trafficking today. The southern USA was closer to the latter. It was a capitalist economy, based around the highly profitable institution of slavery.

Incidently, the mortality rate of slaves was more than compensated for by a high rate of natural increase.

Relative scarcity of Human Trafficking today?

  • People trafficking is the fastest growing means by which people are enslaved, the fastest growing international crime, and one of the largest sources of income for organised crime
    The UN Office on Drugs and Crime
  • 1.2 million children are trafficked every year
    Estimate by UNICEF
  • At least 12.3 million people are victims of forced labour worldwide. Of these 2.4 million are as a result of human trafficking.
    A global alliance against forced labor, International Labour Organisation, 2005
  • 600,000-800,000 men, women and children trafficked across international borders each year. Approximately 80 per cent are women and girls. Up to 50% are minors.
    US Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2005
  • The majority of trafficked victims arguably come from the poorest countries and poorest strata of the national population.
    A global alliance against forced labor, International Labour Organisation, 2005
  • Human trafficking in the second largest source of illegal income worldwide exceeded only by drugs trafficking.
    (belser 2005)
  • There are even reports that some trafficking groups are switching their cargo from drugs to human beings, in a search of high profits at lower risk.
    Un office on drugs and crime
  • People are trafficked into prostitution, begging, forced labour, military service, domestic service, forced illegal adoption, forced marriage etc.
  • Types of recruitment; include abduction, false agreement with parents, sold by parents, runaways, travel with family, orphans sold from street or institutions.
 
Relative scarcity of Human Trafficking today?

Um. I was contrasting the relative scarcity of slavery in the Middle Ages with the commonality of human trafficking today, as part of my argument that slavery does not equal feudalism. You've rather proved my point.
 
Um. I was contrasting the relative scarcity of slavery in the Middle Ages with the commonality of human trafficking today, as part of my argument that slavery does not equal feudalism. You've rather proved my point.

I am in agreement that slavery doesn't equal feudalism particuilarly modern forms of slavery such as debt bondage but feudalism is a form of slavery. The Southern states were economically backward apart from the plantation owners no one was going to get rich. Adam Smith was opposed to slavery for utilitarian economic reasons
 
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