Freedmen States Post-Civil War

Do you think Freedmen states are a good idea

  • Yes, it would greatly improve recontruction efforts

    Votes: 13 24.1%
  • Yes, but it wont change recontruction much

    Votes: 9 16.7%
  • No, it wont change recontruction and its bad in the long run

    Votes: 5 9.3%
  • No, it will only make recostruction more complicated/difficult

    Votes: 27 50.0%

  • Total voters
    54
tl;dr: Freed slaves should be given their own states post civil-war so they aren't surrounded by their racist ex-confederate owners, waddya think?

Is it plausible for the Radical Republicans to adopt the idea of carving states out of the former confederacy for freed slaves? Basically new states would be created by breaking off majority ex-slave regions of confederate states and said state would be reserved for free blacks. Of course the demographics wont be perfect. It would be impossible to get the population of these proposed states to be 100% freedmen, but I imagine there will be a sort of natural migration of freedmen to these new states given incentives from congress (Education, land, political say, and the rest of the things the Radicals tried to pull off OTL with mixed success). Also, Ex-white confederates would likely move out of these new states not relishing the idea of being governed by free blacks.

The success of these new states would likely hinge on military force but that's not implausible given the willingness of congress to use a fair amount of it OTL. In the creation of these states the Radicals achieve alot of what they set out to do OTL, educate, employ, and empower the freedmen (politically). It also fulfills the much desired "punishment the confederacy" concept that was popular amongst the radicals at the time. Once the migration of blacks to free states and migration of ex-confederates out of free states dies down military occupation can start to be cut back. By this I mean the old confederate states can be readmitted with their mostly white populations with military occupation ended in those states while military occupation continues in the free states until the freedmen can take over from the federal troops.

Is the plan perfect, no, will segregation still be popular in ex-confederate states, yes, will KKK like atrocities still occur, unfortunately so. But the plan allows military occupation to concentrated around the people who need it and wont fight against it (unlike OTL ex-confederates) and gives congress clear locations to go about their OTL agenda of black enfranchisement.

So what do you all think? Any holes in the plan that you can see? Also what kind of POD do you think is needed, freedmen states seems like something the radicals could get on board with given the right circumstances. Perhaps killing off Johnson will help or have Lincoln pick a VP that becomes POTUS after his assassination who promotes the idea of free states and actively seeks congresses backing. The decision to promote freedmen states doesn't have to be an entirely well intentioned one mind you, there were many people back then who believed whites and blacks couldn't exist together as equals. Freedmen states could appeal to the idea of empowering free blacks while also appealing to the somewhat racist mindset of a benevolent segregation of whites and blacks via state boundaries.
 
tl;dr: Freed slaves should be given their own states post civil-war so they aren't surrounded by their racist ex-confederate owners, waddya think?

Is it plausible for the Radical Republicans to adopt the idea of carving states out of the former confederacy for freed slaves? Basically new states would be created by breaking off majority ex-slave regions of confederate states and said state would be reserved for free blacks. Of course the demographics wont be perfect. It would be impossible to get the population of these proposed states to be 100% freedmen, but I imagine there will be a sort of natural migration of freedmen to these new states given incentives from congress (Education, land, political say, and the rest of the things the Radicals tried to pull off OTL with mixed success). Also, Ex-white confederates would likely move out of these new states not relishing the idea of being governed by free blacks.

The success of these new states would likely hinge on military force but that's not implausible given the willingness of congress to use a fair amount of it OTL. In the creation of these states the Radicals achieve alot of what they set out to do OTL, educate, employ, and empower the freedmen (politically). It also fulfills the much desired "punishment the confederacy" concept that was popular amongst the radicals at the time. Once the migration of blacks to free states and migration of ex-confederates out of free states dies down military occupation can start to be cut back. By this I mean the old confederate states can be readmitted with their mostly white populations with military occupation ended in those states while military occupation continues in the free states until the freedmen can take over from the federal troops.

Is the plan perfect, no, will segregation still be popular in ex-confederate states, yes, will KKK like atrocities still occur, unfortunately so. But the plan allows military occupation to concentrated around the people who need it and wont fight against it (unlike OTL ex-confederates) and gives congress clear locations to go about their OTL agenda of black enfranchisement.

So what do you all think? Any holes in the plan that you can see? Also what kind of POD do you think is needed, freedmen states seems like something the radicals could get on board with given the right circumstances. Perhaps killing off Johnson will help or have Lincoln pick a VP thats all about the idea of freedmen states and could get congresses backing. The decision to promote freedmen states doesn't have to be an entirely well intentioned one mind you, there were many people back then who believed whites and blacks couldn't exist together as equals. Freedmen states could appeal to the idea of empowering free blacks while also appealing to the somewhat racist mindset of a benevolent segregation via freedmen states.

Hmmm. It does on the other hand give a whole lot more states to the southern region and it doesn't matter whether you're black or white down there, they prefer a more agriculture based economy. That basically gives you a broad range of states arguing against industrialisation.
 
Hmmm. It does on the other hand give a whole lot more states to the southern region and it doesn't matter whether you're black or white down there, they prefer a more agriculture based economy. That basically gives you a broad range of states arguing against industrialisation.

Wasn't that the case OTL anyway? Also at this point congress can more or less force industrialization if its a huge priority. Not to mention it can keep the old confederacy out of the union long enough to pass pro industrialization legislation that is difficult to overturn.
 
Not sure actually. Given the time period and the 'nadir of race relations' that follows, it might be great. However, in the long term, wouldn't this state or states turn into another form of say an Indian reservation?
 

Jasen777

Donor
It's not creating new states, but if voting rights could be enforced, then South Carolina and Mississippi would likely have black majorities (in 1860 the majority of the population in those states where slaves), and possibly Louisiana (not quite a slave majority in 1860, but noticeable numbers of free blacks and mixed race people).
 
Not sure actually. Given the time period and the 'nadir of race relations' that follows, it might be great. However, in the long term, wouldn't this state or states turn into another form of say an Indian reservation?

This could be an issue but consider the fact that these are voting states in the union that have some power over certain legislation especially at a state level. Whereas Indian reservation are in this weird limbo status that has only recently been granted. Plus Indian reservations tend to be far from more developed regions, have unusable land, are the minority in the state/county, or all three. Freedmen states would be given all the privileges of being a state, the power to enact legislation, send members to congress, etc. They would also get some decent land from thier ex slave-owners and be the absolute majority in the state if all goes as planned.

It's not creating new states, but if voting rights could be enforced, then South Carolina and Mississippi would likely have black majorities (in 1860 the majority of the population in those states where slaves), and possibly Louisiana (not quite a slave majority in 1860, but noticeable numbers of free blacks and mixed race people).

A majority isnt going to cut it (we saw this OTL) unless a mostly freedman state can be established its going to be undermined by the still influential ex-plantation owners / ex-confederates in general. The idea is to separate the slaves from the old aristocracy not keep them integrated in a slightly altered one. Plus military occupation is alot easier when the population wants you there as opposed to OTL where half the population is wary ex-slave and half to population is actively fighting occupation.
 
I wish there was an option for "This will improve reconstruction but make things worse in the long run." Though the position of blacks during reconstruction will be better, carving out ethnic Bantustans will ultimately hurt the country. I would expect things like forced relocations and a vastly slower desegregation. After all, there's no reason to give black people equal access to education when they can just go to their own states.

You might see the economic and political situation for blacks as better than OTL during the 1880s, 90s, and early 1900s but I would anticipate it being worse for much of the 20th century.
 
First off, I don't think that there would be much popular support anywhere in the Union to give freedmen lands, whether those lands were carved out of say Nebraska or out of the Mississippi delta. Too many poor whites (North and South) would never go for providing the freedmen something that they would believe they were more entitled to. However, for the sake of argument lets look at this:

There were parts of the Deep South, particularly the Mississippi Delta, that was 75% even 85% slave/freedmen. But as during the antebellum period, the land owners (especially the large land owners) were the most powerful and wealthiest citizens and of course were white. After the war, most kept their land, and because it was the best land for growing cotton, it remained profitable cotton growing lands with sharecropping labor instead of slave labor. In addition, once the Union army left, the old tactics of keeping slaves in line and in their place, was employed in a modified fashion against the freedmen/sharecroppers.

So ITTL, the Union government confiscates all the rich cotton growing lands in the Mississippi Delta region, since most of it had been owned by slavocrats who rebelled against the Union. The federal government then sets up a system and criteria to give these lands to certain freedmen who can qualify. This is somehow done without poor whites all over the country becoming completely enraged over this. If this area is say 40 miles wide on either side of the Mississippi and extends from say the Mississippi/Tenn border to just outside New Orleans, you have taken parts of Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana to form a new state in which almost all of the landowners are freedmen. Not sure this is not wholly ASB, but at what point could the army leave this new state unprotected? Couldn't rich white people, come down from all parts of the country and start buying the land from the freedmen? Who controls the Mississippi?

Could be an interesting time line if it was fleshed out.
 
While I do worry about the implications of creating a state based on ethnic lines, I think as long as it mellowed out and mixed in the long term, things could work out. Maybe just confiscate land from the slaveowners, rebelling forces, parcel the land to freed slaves in the two former CSA states with clear black majorities (Mississpi and South Carolina) while diviying up the same land in the toher states among poor whiles. Encourage free blacks to move to the two previously mentioned states in the interim at least, and consider it punishment of the Confederacy, not national racial policy.
 
The best way to prevent Jim Crow, lynching, the KKK and all the other horrible things that happened in the South would have been to imprison all slave owners in the South and take their land.
 
The best way to prevent Jim Crow, lynching, the KKK and all the other horrible things that happened in the South would have been to imprison all slave owners in the South and take their land.

Doubtful; plus there'd be a violent backlash and a great deal of bitter resentment as well.
 
Doubtful; plus there'd be a violent backlash and a great deal of bitter resentment as well.


And nonslaveholding whites were typically just as racist as slaveholding ones.

As noted elsehere, when the Planter class lost power round the end of the century, the new State governments were more racist rather than less.
 
Last edited:
"Given" their own states or "forced into" their own states?

By establishing "black states", the US would in effect be sanctioning the notion that blacks and whites cannot live together - with the unstated implication (even among many well-meaning abolitionists) that blacks would never equal whites if they were fully integrated. I suspect the end result would be something akin to South African apartheid, because this would certainly not end racism, and the black states would be poorer and less developed as capital and money (mostly white after all) went elsewhere.

The only possible option would be Indian Territory. Most of the tribes in Indian Territory sided with the confederacy and they lost a lot of their independence and 1/2 of what eventually became Oklahoma as punishment. As Indians, they were not citizens of the US and, as confederate allies, they could be forced to cede much of their territory to the US for black resettlement in a manner that would raise no constitutional issues, something that might not apply to forced relocation of white southerners in Mississippi (still technically US citizens during reconstruction) to make room for black settlers. IN fact, OTL, there was a substantial movement among black land speculators in the late 1800's to foster black colonization of Oklahoma. Whith a few shifts, this could have been US policy from the 1870's on.
 
Realistically the best plan would be to seize the planter's land and divide it between the Poor Whites and the Blacks giving the Poor Whites the better land. This would be the best you could do. You need the local Whites to have some benefit from it to get any support from Congress or the army.
 
Freedman states would only have made the South even more resentful towards "blacks". I'd expect more red states down south, but also an earlier KKK
 

Japhy

Banned
Freedman states would only have made the South even more resentful towards "blacks". I'd expect more red states down south, but also an earlier KKK

You can't have the KKK show up any earlier then it did otherwise its just the Confederate Home Guard.

On the main topic, yes I think you can have Freedmen states and that they would be a massively positive step, IF one goes with idea that the Southern states had committed a Felo de se and gerrymander the entirety of the south.
 
You can't have the KKK show up any earlier then it did otherwise its just the Confederate Home Guard.

On the main topic, yes I think you can have Freedmen states and that they would be a massively positive step, IF one goes with idea that the Southern states had committed a Felo de se and gerrymander the entirety of the south.

So the thing for the Union to do would have been to recognise the independence of the Confederacy - and then immediately declare war on it.

That way, come 1865 it is just a slab of foreign territory conquered in war - which Congress can organise any way it likes.

That cuts all the legal Gordian knots - but of course, given attitudes on the Northern side, is completely ASB.
 
Last edited:

Japhy

Banned
So the thing for the Union to do would have been to reco0gnise the independence of the Confederacy - and then immediately declare war on it.

That way, come 1865 it is just a slab of foreign territory conquered in war - which Congress can organise any way it likes.

That cuts all the legal Gordian knots - but of course, given attitudes on the Northern side, is completely ASB.

Its not like recognition of the Confederacy automatically follows from accepting the State Suicide Theory idea.

Though certainly it doesn't line up with the idea of the war that had been accepted since the start. It is something to consider though if one has a President other then Lincoln in office during the war though.
 
Its not like recognition of the Confederacy automatically follows from accepting the State Suicide Theory idea.

Though certainly it doesn't line up with the idea of the war that had been accepted since the start. It is something to consider though if one has a President other then Lincoln in office during the war though.


I think you'd need a very different party system. I could imagine Andy Jackson doing something like this, but the Republican Party was basically the northern half of the old Whigs, just with a few free-soil Dems tacked on - and many of them only temporarily. And Whigs tended not to go for "root and branch" measures of that kind. For them the Constitution was sacrosanct, where for a lot of old Jacksonians "rule by the people" came first, legal niceties second, if at all.

Is there any way we can make the Democrats emerge as the antislavery party, while the Whigs are the party of the slaveowners as well as the millowners?
 

Dirk_Pitt

Banned
Two things totally wrong with this.

1) That this is in all probability completely unconstitutional. Even worse than OTL. I believe there is something there about not being able to cut off land from existing states to form new satates.

2) OTL the vast majority of people didn't even support 40 acres and a mule, how do you suggest making people want to give them entire states!

Oh, and about making an Antislavery Democrat Party? Impossible seeing as they were founded on two things: With enough money ideology doesn't matter and trying to maintain the Union by using the mentality, "Slavery? What slavery?" when it comes to debates. Even though Van Buren was antislavery himself, his unionist mentality overrode that. His thought process was that the issue of slavery threatened the existance in the union, and since it was the south that was most likely to break the union and the South was predominently proslavery, but he also didn't want to alienate the North. So what he did was declare that slavery was to be avoided at all cost. And I believe it was Lincoln who said, that to not call an evil evil is to call it a good.
 
Last edited:
Top