How long can slavery last in the US with no ACW?

When is the latest slavery can continue to exist in the USA without the Civil War?


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I can see the case for the CSA keeping slavery into the 20th Century, but not the South within the US. It's such a horrifying institution that the US simply won't accept being a pariah state. They'll manage to get it banned somehow, be it via an activist Supreme Court decision, splitting the West up into numerous more states to get a larger free state majority, a popular campaign to flood marginal states with abolitionist settlers, or (probably the most likely) huge earmarks to a few slave states as a bribe to get them to side with them.
 
Instead of OTL's 1/3 of southern families owning slaves, it could easily rise to 1/2 or more.

Not necessarily, though. In fact, it's quite a bit more likely, by a long shot, that it would actually be those plantation owners, and perhaps some corporations(if they had enough of a toehold in the "Peculiar Institution") who managed to diversify beforehand, who would be buying off the most slaves, leaving very few leftovers for Southrons further down on the ladder. There's also the matter that many smaller farmers might be wiped out by the boll weevil infestation as well; really, if anything at all, I'd imagine that it would lead to more and more of a concentration of slavery, and that might lead to some problems down the line.

One note - by the time of the ACW, only a quarter of free Southern households owned slaves.

But the general thrust of the thread - that chattel slavery was economically viable, and that downturns in cash crop farming would actually lower the price and increase the prevalance of slaves, all other things being equal - I agree with. It would probably take significant industrialization, or mechanization of agriculture, in the South to kill it.

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/holley.cottonpicker
May be of interesting.
Generally, the mechanization of cotton picking didn't really take off until the mid 20th century.

True, but TBH, I always thought that mechanization of agriculture could have taken off a lot earlier than it did IOTL.

Someone will only buy a slave if they think it is profitable. After all a slave is a very risky investment in a time of depression such as you describe.
If slaves are less valuable that also means that more will escape (both due to them being less well kept and it being less worthwhile to pursue them), be freed or die and there will be less being born thus leading to a drop in the slave population (and increase in free blacks). Add to this the fall of the plantation elite (the one sector of society that has really staked its identity on slavery the rest might be less inclined to defend it.

Yep.
 
I can see the case for the CSA keeping slavery into the 20th Century, but not the South within the US. It's such a horrifying institution that the US simply won't accept being a pariah state. They'll manage to get it banned somehow, be it via an activist Supreme Court decision, splitting the West up into numerous more states to get a larger free state majority, a popular campaign to flood marginal states with abolitionist settlers, or (probably the most likely) huge earmarks to a few slave states as a bribe to get them to side with them.

Deleware would probably flip within a decade or two with Missouri just behind, particularly if St. Louis kept growing at the same rate as OTL. That would have changed it from 18 Free States and 15 slave states to 20 Free States and 13 Slave States assuming no more Free States came in. I would expect the US would eventually let in one Free State after another until an admendment banning slavery would be passed. That is what caused the South to secede in the first place.
 
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