How key is Virginia to America

WI Virginia had abolishes slavery in the 1830s, as seems possible

Do Delaware and maybe Kentucky and Maryland follow?

Does a United states much less sympathetic to slavery look less attractive to Texas.

If Texas stays independent does this not butterfly away or at least greatly postpone war with Mexico.

If this happens would there not be the votes for an equivalant of the 13th amendment by the 1890s without a Civil War.
 
From memory George Washington looked at the possibility of freeing his slaves on a number of occassions, but was forced to keep them for financial reasons (it would cost too much to free them dispite their cost).

If the Virginians stopped slavery then the economics must be slightly different and I suspect that other states would follow suit very quickly.

I am sure the US would still persue Texas no matter the slavery issue (manifest destinany etc.)

Depending on the economics the 13th amendment could be wrapped into the Bill of Rights (it was the elephant in the room according to Washington).
 

WeisSaul

Banned
Virginia could still end up partitioned due to the fact that part of the state is on the other side of the Appalachians. It took a month to get from one side to the other.

If it didn't get partitioned, today the two states together have 10 million people, and have a GDP that is around the size of New Jersey (around Switzerland or Belgium), and this is with slavery holding it back for 30 more years than your POD and having been. Populations wouldn't flee the state, Richmond and Alexandria would likely become a bigger city, and it would become a big state in population and GDP, similar to Texas, New York, California, or Florida today. All of the gas, coal, and mineral wealth in the Appalachians would create an energy boom even bigger than Texas' gusher age.

Virginia would have the largest black population of any free state. If they are treated equally under the law (no segregation or sharecropping), Virginia could become a model showing that freed blacks could accomplish something. That would likely some time and education though.

The State would be socially conservative, but with a mixture of liberal and conservative economic policies (Lowish taxes, social welfare, big infrastructure spender etc.). It would become a buffer state, or a Chesapeake state, as opposed to a southern state.

Being surrounded on all sides, Free NJ and Penn to the north, and Free Virginia to the south and west, Slaves would constantly be escaping to freedom. Eventually the costs of losing the slaves and hunting them down will overtake the size of the benefits, and with strong social pressure from the surrounding states, slavery would be eliminated from the Delmarva peninsula.
 
YES, if Virginia freeds it slaves, and IF the process works, reasoniblity well it will be major shift in the debate. If only because, it would elimate the "moderate/practical" northern anti-abolish agruement that there was no workble way to do large-scale abolish....

Delware would definitely follow, and Maryland would be under a lot of pressure to do so. As for Kentucky, it will be an hot issue. As for the rest of the South.... the debate has defintelyt urned futher against them, it's possible they start looking for ways to "soften" slavery.... Because a south without Virginia is only standing on one leg.... in any fight.

From memory George Washington looked at the possibility of freeing his slaves on a number of occassions, <snipped> .

President Washington did free his remaining slaves in his will. Additionally, he did little to pursue his runaways during his years as Presidentm freeing at least one girl, so slave chasers couldn't go after her.

Washington is the founding father whose views evolved the most during the Revolution and pre-Constitution years (Jefferson's the least....). By the late 1780s he viewed slavery as wrong, and knew something was going to have be done.... Perhaps, if it had been the only issue of the 1790s.....

He was an advocate of teaching and training slaves, Mount Vernon's slaves were millers, carpenters, brewers and distillers, as well as expected to write, read, and numbers. He even taught slaves surveying.

By the time he became President he was for abolision and voluntary resettlment (like many he believes most slaves would want to return to Africa).

As for why he waited, in additional to the economic issues with freeing his slaves, Washington believed his position as President, limited his options as it would obviously be a major issue (and quite possibity ignite a sectional crisis) if the PRESIDENT freed his slaves while in office.
 
It sounds like Washington practised a Roman view on slavery

Yes! A for the Day! Actually, pre-cotton gin Southerners (being classically educated) would have said exactly that. George Mason used Rome's dependence and decline as part of his anti-slavery arguements (and Mason was Washington's mentor!).

Unforunately (and tragically for all) Southerners, post cotton-gin, and post revolution-founding years southerners moved to self-illusion (delusion) that their society was modeled on the English country manor (slaves=tenants)..... And the South had no Gladstone, or Whigs....

Yes, I was a history teacher before putting Khaki back on!
 
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WI Virginia had abolishes slavery in the 1830s, as seems possible

Do Delaware and maybe Kentucky and Maryland follow?

Probably. It would also provide symmetry as everything north of 36 degrees or so latitude (Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, et. all) would be free. It would keep slavery viable only south of that line.

Does a United states much less sympathetic to slavery look less attractive to Texas.

If Texas stays independent does this not butterfly away or at least greatly postpone war with Mexico.

It might be the exact opposite. With Virginia and possibly other slave states now in the free column, it decisively puts the non-slave states in control of Congress. Annexing Texas won't change the slavery debate, it'll just bring in another state into the union. Most of the opposition to Texas annexation was the view by northerners that it was a desire for the slave states to dominate the country. If they accept new states that keep slavery south of 36 degress north latitude (Florida became state despite slavery in 1845 just a few months before Texas), I don't see why annexing Texas should be an issue.

Of course, this may mean that South politicians push for even more concessions from Mexico in the aftermath of a Mexican-American War (say Baja California as well or some of the other northern desert territories), and a desire that territorial borders don't cross the 36 degree line.

If this happens would there not be the votes for an equivalant of the 13th amendment by the 1890s without a Civil War.

There is still going to be a crisis the first time an abolitionist party takes the Presidency. The only change is that without Virginia possibly joining, it is obvious the Deep South won't be enough for a viable country. Since Virginia won't secede, then it's even possible North Carolina or Tennessee won't secede even in a Fort Sumter/Lincoln summons the states to send troops scenario. South Carolina might secede in protest, but no else might follow it. In which case, negotiations might resolve the crisis peacefully.

What will happen next is hard to say. There is no way absent a civil war that the US will abolish slavery without compensating slaveholders someway. An industrial boom in the 1890s might generate enough revenue to do so. Then the other questions is what to do with all the free blacks? Most opinion at the time was that they should go "back" to Africa. In which case there may be forced repatriation. Or some scheme cooked up to send them to Haiti, Santo Domingo or somewhere else instead. The politics is not going to be pretty, and will probably be decided on a lot of specific details that can't be known from an 1830s POD. The sausage making of laws won't be pleasant to read about.
 
My assumption was that the Republic of Texas, based as it was partly on slavery might not want to join a Union which was becoming more hostile to property in human beings
 
...The State would be socially conservative, but with a mixture of liberal and conservative economic policies (Lowish taxes, social welfare, big infrastructure spender etc.). It would become a buffer state, or a Chesapeake state, as opposed to a southern state.

While I agree with the rest of your assessment, I (as a Virginian) take exception to the underlined part; why would it cease to be a Southern state, as it still lays below the Mason-Dixon line (the "official" border between the North and South), and exhibits Southern/Dixie cultural characteristics throughout 80% of the state (accent, cuisine, social outlook, politics, etc.)? Virginia is not at all like Pennsylvania or Delaware in this regard, except maybe Northern VA (but that's almost its own separate state as it is, nothing at all like Lynchburg, Richmond, Williamsburg, Virginia Beach, etc.)
 
YES, if Virginia freeds it slaves, and IF the process works, reasoniblity well it will be major shift in the debate.

And if the process goes badly, things are probably worse than OTL.

How likely would it be for emancipation to go well in the 1830s?
 
And if the process goes badly, things are probably worse than OTL. How likely would it be for emancipation to go well in the 1830s?

Well, if it's before Nat Turner (or an actual Emancipation Act is passed, butterflies the rebellion away...) it's going to depend on the how and if any thought is paid to the after...

Namely, most discussions in Virginia centered on gradual emanicpation (a date for new-borns, with a timeline for current slaves) combined with compension for the owners (varios forms, debt assumpion, land grants, not rarely straight cash....

As for the after, return to africa and/or some form of Peonage... was always in the discussions. I don't see emanicpation without an "after" plan, so there will be something... Prehaps the northern company model, with planations/companies running housing and stores on site with a very moderate wage going into the planations bank.... Voting Rights, using the existing, land ownership or a trade .... that would elimate 99% of ex-slaves who stay (and was already in place.... as a lot of poor white knew)

Still bad, but the appearance of better...untill the next generation comes along and want real freedom.... at later ----- Unions starting in the south? Led by 1st generation "free" blacks..... A very different conflict....
 
My comment got eaten so I'll repost.

Many here are working on the flawed assumption that Virginia Emancipation would emancipate many slaves in Virginia. Not so.

As everyone understood at the time, the proposal was crafted so that slaveholders had plenty of time to move their slaves further south.

The Virginia emancipators hope was to 'denegrify' Virginia.

Virginia emancipation may actually make Texas a more likely part of the US earlier, because it may get plantation agriculture faster as Virginia slaves are brought to new lands in the old Southwest.
 
Hmm...well, a "denigrified" Virginia is really not likely to secede to defend the rights of slaveholders in other states, is it? Not because of any great opposition to racism, but because they already don't have slaves, so a civil war would clearly be bad for Virginia.
 
Isn't it pretty likely that a free state Virginia still puts in place some form of Jim Crow? That might soften the stance of some of the Deep South states due to a reduced view that the white man will be crushed if you ever had a lot of free blacks about.
 
Isn't it pretty likely that a free state Virginia still puts in place some form of Jim Crow? That might soften the stance of some of the Deep South states due to a reduced view that the white man will be crushed if you ever had a lot of free blacks about.

OTL, many northern states had something like Jim Crow going. Not to the same extent as in the post-Reconstruction South, but mostly because there were fewer black people.
 
Virginia would probably be one of the major economic, cultural, and intellectual centers of the nation. When the US got started, Virginia was the dynamo. The effects of sticking with slaveholding - suppression of intellectual debate, overly strong rural economic interests, gradual shift far from the center of national politics, Civil War, reconstruction, and another hundred years of slavery's fallout - did it inestimable damage.
 
My comment got eaten so I'll repost.

Many here are working on the flawed assumption that Virginia Emancipation would emancipate many slaves in Virginia. Not so.

As everyone understood at the time, the proposal was crafted so that slaveholders had plenty of time to move their slaves further south.

The Virginia emancipators hope was to 'denegrify' Virginia.

Virginia emancipation may actually make Texas a more likely part of the US earlier, because it may get plantation agriculture faster as Virginia slaves are brought to new lands in the old Southwest.


Bad for Blacks at the time but once the slaves are sold south VA will be a Free State and act like one.
 

MAlexMatt

Banned
Yes! A for the Day! Actually, pre-cotton gin Southerners (being classically educated) would have said exactly that. George Mason used Rome's dependence and decline as part of his anti-slavery arguements (and Mason was Washington's mentor!).

To be entirely fair to reality, the Romans made extensive use of a very similar model of chattel slavery. In fact, Roman mining slaves would have identified more with the Caribbean sugar plantation slaves than anyone else.

Unforunately (and tragically for all) Southerners, post cotton-gin, and post revolution-founding years southerners moved to self-illusion (delusion) that their society was modeled on the English country manor (slaves=tenants)..... And the South had no Gladstone, or Whigs....

This wasn't a new thing. Virginia was consciously modeled as a New World version of Merry England from very early on in her colonial history.
 
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