Forty Acres And A Fifedom: Feudalism Instead Of Slavery?

WI, as a compromise at the Constitutional Convention, slavery is banned in the Constitution-but a form of feudalism replaces it instead? (There are some similarities between serfdom and sharecropping, and sharecropping existed before the Civil War).

Would the imported African workers and their descendents have fared better as nineteenth century serfs? Would the Civil War have been fought over serfdom (as well as secession)?
 
That may well be harder to pass rather than easier. For all Enlightenment problems with the concept, slavery is a property relationship. Serfdom represents the ancien regime. How wioll that go down in Philadelphia?
 
I doubt it would even be purposed. Feudalism was (at least in western Europe) a solution to a dissolving Roman Empire. Extremly simplyfied farmers got protection from their lords in exchange of work/food. And feudalism was de facto gone from western Europe when colonization of America begun. By 1776 it was pure history. Landowners prefered tenants that paid their rent in cash, not butter or work.

Feudalism doesn't combine with plantation farming (or more exactly: cotton or tobacco farming). There you want one big field and a lot of workers - not a lot of small fields with one worker. And if that one worker was taken from Africa - how are you going to
a) make him understand the setup
b) keep him from escaping?
 
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