Have the Federalists get their way more by limiting the success of the American Revolution and losing, say, Georgia and South Carolina, to the British. Then that could lead to a stronger Northern lean in the country and stronger North. Such a country, when drafting their own Constitution* as a replacement for its Articles of Confederation, would maybe find itself in a position to filter out slavery by transforming it into a system of tiers, with full slavery filtering out after so many generations and with a sort of sharecropping system emerging as a replacement. Historically, the Federalists wanted a ban on slavery (or some of them did, notably Hamilton.)
How to best limit American slavery?
- Thread starter SirPaperweight
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You know, come to think of it.....one of my more recent timeline ideas involved just that very idea(British Georgia + S.C.). Gotta see if I can finally find the time to start posting it on here.
Wouldn't they make the cessions conditional on slavery not being banned there? Iirc Georgia did so OTL.
How do you get a measure like that through Congress? And even if you somehow did, wouldn't the southern States just impose 1865-style "Black Codes" which amounted to enslavement by another name. That would tide them over until such time as a pro-Southern Supreme Court declared the ban unconstitutional?
The NWO [1] is about the maximum that the South would be likely to swallow. Even there, the Governor took it on himself to decide that it only forbade importation of new slaves, and didn't free existing ones, and nobody thought this important enough to challenge. Slavery just wasn't much of a priority to anyone except the Southerners.
[1] perhaps with a provision applying it to "territory hereafter acquired" above a certain latitude.
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I was thinking that slavery came close to being banned there historically. Eventually, the "black codes"of your scenario would break down, as they would disadvantage poor wites who are still likely to have full suffrage by the 1830's anyway, if not sooner.
Not a pre-revolutionary PoD, but have no Three-Fifths Compromise. Slave populations were valuable to Southern states as free seats in the House of Representatives that didn't even have the vote. By removing the legislative value of slaves, the evonomic pressures against slavery would lead to much earlier abolishment.
Why not introduce some sort of quota-based freedom. Find out how much an 'exceptional' slave may pick, harvest, cut etc in X (about 20 or 30) years and set that as the amount needed to be picked by a slave for their freedom. So slaves pick quicker to get free quicker outstripping one's competitors. This would work best with some form of enforcement so there would need to be some.
It depends on how divergent you want to get. If the areas are recognized as Cherokee and Creek lands, then it may not matter what the Deep South wants with respect to slavery.
No, can you give a dust jacket summary? I judge books by covers so include a catchy picture if you can.
Why would they ever break down? Since no Southern White (or indeed Northern one in that era) would ever accept Blacks as equals, the only question is exactly how their inferior position is to be enforced. The only obvious alternatives are a "Black Code" or outright enslavement.
Given that ante-bellum Supreme Courts typically had Southern or pro-Southern majorities, the latter is more likely. Sooner or later the ban would be declared unconstitutional - or at least declared to become inoperative once the Territory attained Statehood, unless the State re-enacted it.
The only way to avoid this would be by incorporating the ban into the Constitution itself. But, since the South would never ratify a Constitution containing such a provision, the US would in this event continue to be governed under the old Articles of Confederation. And the weak AoC government would be quite incapable of enforcing the ban on slavery, and any law to that effect would simply be ignored. .
A timeline by @Glen where a less conciliatory Governor of Quebec in the 1760s causes Quebec to throw in its lot with the Revolution, creating a more northern-focused conflict where we get Canada, and the Brits keep everything south of the Virginia line.No, can you give a dust jacket summary? I judge books by covers so include a catchy picture if you can.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...thern-america-now-with-tyrannodrakons.149643/
BlondieBC
Banned
Georgia was my first thought too. I would go with a POD where the USA gets upper Canada in the peace treaty for the revolutionary war. France opposed this IOTL. I think here with the 14th state that is free along with Georgia being free, you have good chance of limited the number of slave states. Maybe Kentucky and Tennessee are free.
Why did France oppose that? It would have weakenedf the British presence in North America and potentially allowed them to retake Quebec.
Glen
Moderator
No, can you give a dust jacket summary? I judge books by covers so include a catchy picture if you can.
Thanks for the shout out, frustrated progressive! PuffyClouds, the Dominion of Southern America ends slavery north of 36-30 (the border between the US and British Southern America) by the end of the 18th century and then the British end it in their future Dominion by the 1840s when they put down the Slaver Rebellion. And then things get really interesting...
Don't exactly have a dust jacket, but here's a teaser for you...
I really wish that Georgia had maintained itself against South Carolina's imposition, it came down so close too. Kentucky could be a free state, or abolish its slavery pretty quickly. Tennessee is harder, especially when it gets to Memphis.
France also didn't want to see America get back into a war (that it could be dragged into) soon, and it didn't want America to get too powerful. It would be good if we could spin off Quebec (real Canada), and grab some extra territory in modern Canada (fake Canada), maybe Nova Scotia+Saint Jean Island, that would be a good state, let it expand into New Brunswick. Britain can keep New Foundland... if they have to, I guess.
I haven't written anything down beyond what I said in 2015-6 in threads you were in, sorry. The big issue for me is deciding which style to use; my Anglo-French TL is written in a Wikipedian style, and I'm not sure whether it works better than narratives (or even Wikipedian biographies) of a few POV historical figures plus some charts and maps.
Given Kentucky's geographic postition, I could easily see it developing more like a northern midwestern state or like West Virginia. Tennessee is a bit more tricky, although I can potentially see it being settled by free men wanting to build their own farms especially if they use a similar policy to the Northwest Ordinance.