How would a British-ruled U.S. have dealt with slavery?

John Fredrick Parker, you lay out your case convincingly with good cites. It's kinda discouraging to think that the work of men like Wilberforce as Clarkson would be stymied for perhaps as much as a generation if the ARW failed or was stillborn.
I'm not sure I'd agree with this as we are talking about a counterfactual. If the ARW failed the important question would be why it failed. If it failed because of the loyalty of the ex slaves to the crown then I think the idea of the "noble savage" as deserving the same respect as any other man would take hold. The abolitionists would be using the demonstrable qualities of the slave population rather than the demonstrable wrongs done to them.
 
I think both sides in this argument are correct: the attitudes against antislavery were in place but the organisation of abolitionism was accelerated by the American Revolution & French Revolution and the debate about British identity and liberty that produced. i.e. it politically awakened feelings that were already there.

That political activism met with very dichotomous success It clearly tapped great sympathies among the politically aware middle classes, who very rapidly came to support the movement - probably within about 20 years. It however met a brick wall among the moneyed elite who were usually financially benefitting from slavery, even 50 years later. This is why I think it all comes down to extending the franchise: if its an unreformed parliament, you'll take decades longer. If its a reformed parliament, then as long as reform happens post-1810ish, abolition will pass.

So in this ATL, I think its correct that the awakening happens later, and thus public opinion takes longer to back the cause. However I can't see that being delayed by more than about 10-15 years, so the middle classes will likely oppose it by 1815 or so. Meanwhile, the presence of a much wider franchise in the empire means parliamentary reform probably happens sooner, perhaps mid-1820s. And then abolition passes a year later. I know its true that the West Indies lobby needed to be accommodated, but they were willing to strike a limited compensation deal as the game was up.

The fly in the ointment here is whether the issue of slavery gets devolved to colonial assemblies as the Brits try to win the peace. Then you could get a Westminster vs colony rights stand-off.
 
@Derek Pullem and @Socrates both make good points -- the question of how the ARW is defeated is very relevant to whether the rise of abolitionism is butterflied, and there was existing antislavery sentiment in Britain that preceded actual opposition to slavery.* In the case of the former, I think the most commonly accepted turning point in the war, the entry of France in 1778, is just early enough that the likely effects on slave politics likely fall into the category I'm talking about; a latter PoD that focuses on the southern theater has more likelihood of escalating the conflict and bringing about the kind of changes Derek is talking about.

*a sort of "yes it's ugly, but it's a crucial part of our imperial economy" that, at best, would like to keep the unseenlmly practice away from the mother country, while simultaneously having no issue with profiting off it so long as it happens on the other side of the world
 
Had Britain won the American Revolutionary War, how exactly would it have dealt with slavery in the U.S.--especially in the Southern U.S.--afterwards?

Would the process of slavery abolition in the U.S. have been easier and less bloody in this TL?

Any thoughts on this?

See my responses below:

Would Britain still have abolished slavery on OTL schedule if the rich, powerful, aristocratic Southern planters were still in the Empire supporting the rich, powerful, aristocratic Caribbean planters?

Sadly, it's not necessarily the case, no. As @John Fredrick Parker has pointed out, the success of the Patriots in the Revolution really did give the abolitionists a significant boost, both directly and indirectly.

John Fredrick Parker, you lay out your case convincingly with good cites. It's kinda discouraging to think that the work of men like Wilberforce as Clarkson would be stymied for perhaps as much as a generation if the ARW failed or was stillborn.

It would be discouraging, yes, I agree.

But I must say that JFP's case isn't just convincing, it may well arguably be nigh-on indisputable, even. When even Thomas Clarkson himself says that abolitionism was greatly boosted by the Revolutionary War's success, that alone ought to get folks thinking, considering that he was a key figure in the abolitionist movement-he would have known the facts on the ground as they were actually occurring.

I think both sides in this argument are correct: the attitudes against antislavery were in place but the organisation of abolitionism was accelerated by the American Revolution & French Revolution and the debate about British identity and liberty that produced. i.e. it politically awakened feelings that were already there.

This is definitely true to some extent-even James Oglethorpe, the founder of the Georgia Colony, was anti-slavery to an extent in the 1730s-though it was still a bit of a fringe position back then.

That political activism met with very dichotomous success It clearly tapped great sympathies among the politically aware middle classes, who very rapidly came to support the movement - probably within about 20 years. It however met a brick wall among the moneyed elite who were usually financially benefitting from slavery, even 50 years later. This is why I think it all comes down to extending the franchise: if its an unreformed parliament, you'll take decades longer. If its a reformed parliament, then as long as reform happens post-1810ish, abolition will pass.

Perhaps so, yes.

So in this ATL, I think its correct that the awakening happens later, and thus public opinion takes longer to back the cause. However I can't see that being delayed by more than about 10-15 years, so the middle classes will likely oppose it by 1815 or so. Meanwhile, the presence of a much wider franchise in the empire means parliamentary reform probably happens sooner, perhaps mid-1820s. And then abolition passes a year later. I know its true that the West Indies lobby needed to be accommodated, but they were willing to strike a limited compensation deal as the game was up.

Possibly, yes. Think it's rather more likely it would have taken until about, oh say, 1850 or so in this type of scenario, though.

The fly in the ointment here is whether the issue of slavery gets devolved to colonial assemblies as the Brits try to win the peace. Then you could get a Westminster vs colony rights stand-off.

That would be interesting to see, yes.....
 
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Saphroneth

Banned
When even Thomas Clarkson himself says that abolitionism was greatly boosted by the Revolutionary War's success, that alone ought to get folks thinking, considering that he was a key figure in the abolitionist movement-he would have known the facts on the ground as they were actually occurring.
And when even Edward Long and Samuel Estwick, two leading figures in the anti abolition movement, have conceded that slavery is "repugnant to English law" before the success of the Revolutionary War? After all, they too have the facts on the ground and they're people who would be inclined to see the upside for slavery wherever it was.

I really don't think you can honestly conclude that abolitionist sentiment was not already well advanced before the ARW itself took place - statements from the time clearly show it. And while it may not have become the grand public cause that it was OTL, it was certainly in the public eye - and seen as fundamentally immoral. This is why it's equally possible to argue that the grand public cause was delayed more than two decades by the wars with France.

Possibly, yes. Think it's rather more likely it would have taken until about, oh say, 1850 or so in this type of scenario, though.
I'm not really sure I see the logic behind a delay of a generation, unless the British populace switches to seeing slavery as a public good rather than a public ill. It's possible that the movement towards seeing it as a bad thing was inspired by the way the Americans were pro-slavery, but then again the American pro-slavery attitude was defined in large part by difference with Britain anyway - and the British still have the ability to define themselves (as had been done for generations) as a country of freedom as opposed to the oppression on the Continent. It's this logic of "Britain as country of freedom" which was behind the Mansfield decision, and it's very hard indeed to butterfly away by no-ARW given it clearly predates it.
 
And when even Edward Long and Samuel Estwick, two leading figures in the anti abolition movement, have conceded that slavery is "repugnant to English law" before the success of the Revolutionary War? After all, they too have the facts on the ground and they're people who would be inclined to see the upside for slavery wherever it was.

Again, do note that I never said-or implied-that abolitionism was not a thing at all prior to the 1780s. But your counter-argument here isn't exactly all that great because it does not contradict, in the least bit, the argument that John F.P., myself, and others have made that the Revolution and its success did provide a major boost to abolitionism on both sides of the Atlantic.

I really don't think you can honestly conclude that abolitionist sentiment was not already well advanced before the ARW itself took place - statements from the time clearly show it.

The sentiment certainly was there to an extent, yes. But again, you fail to realize that prior to the ARW, as @John Fredrick Parker correctly points out, the abolitionist movement was barely organized, if at all, prior to the post-ARW era.

And while it may not have become the grand public cause that it was OTL, it was certainly in the public eye - and seen as fundamentally immoral.

Things were headed in that direction, yes, but sadly, it was not yet at that point; in reality, many Britons circa 1775 still did not give much of a thought one way or the other about slavery-or even knew that abolitionism was a thing in some case. Of course, that would begin change in fairly short order, but it took the Revolutionary War and Britain losing the 13 Colonies to do so.

This is why it's equally possible to argue that the grand public cause was delayed more than two decades by the wars with France.

No, I'm afraid that is simply objectively incorrect. It is, in fact, not possible to do so plausibly, and I am honestly baffled as to how you came up with this particular bit of rebuttal in the first place.

I'm not really sure I see the logic behind a delay of a generation, unless the British populace switches to seeing slavery as a public good .....

That, thankfully, would have been highly unlikely-and dare I say-substantially implausible, even-for a variety of reasons-I'm sure most of us will agree on that.

It's possible that the movement towards seeing it as a bad thing was inspired by the way the Americans were pro-slavery,

I've seen little, if any, conclusive evidence for this, however.

but then again the American pro-slavery attitude was defined in large part by difference with Britain anyway -

Not really in those days, though-granted, it's very true there were pro-slavery elements in the Patriots just as there were anti-slavery elements, there's no doubt about that. But the American pro-slavery attitudes that developed, particularly from 1830 onwards IOTL had much more to do with both economics as well as slavery becoming a way of life + part of a system of social control, than based on anything to do with antagonism with Britain.

and the British still have the ability to define themselves (as had been done for generations) as a country of freedom as opposed to the oppression on the Continent. It's this logic of "Britain as country of freedom" which was behind the Mansfield decision, and it's very hard indeed to butterfly away by no-ARW given it clearly predates it.

That may be true, but even IOTL it took until the 1830s to ban slavery entirely.

Of course, we can certainly discuss how things might have gone differently, and I'm all for discussing the possibilities. But we can't deny the facts before us, and they just so happen to tell us that, IOTL, while abolitionism did exist prior to the 1770s and did have some potential, it also did not start to become a truly major sociopolitical phenomenon on either side of the Atlantic until the 1780s, which coincides to at least some degree with the success of the American Revolution. To what exact extent, and how directly, admittedly remains debatable to a point, but the effect was no doubt significant nonetheless.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Again, do note that I never said-or implied-that abolitionism was not a thing at all prior to the 1780s. But your counter-argument here isn't exactly all that great because it does not contradict, in the least bit, the argument that John F.P., myself, and others have made that the Revolution and its success did provide a major boost to abolitionism on both sides of the Atlantic.
It's exactly your argument that I quoted, just inverted.


The sentiment certainly was there to an extent, yes. But again, you fail to realize that prior to the ARW, as @John Fredrick Parker correctly points out, the abolitionist movement was barely organized, if at all, prior to the post-ARW era.
And? A groundswell of sentiment that slavery is an active evil just needs structure, rather than for the opinion to be created from the ground up.

Things were headed in that direction, yes, but sadly, it was not yet at that point; in reality, many Britons circa 1775 still did not give much of a thought one way or the other about slavery-or even knew that abolitionism was a thing in some case.
And those who did think it was important included judges with the authority to set law across the entire country. That is, abolitionism was already a movement among the elite.

No, I'm afraid that is simply objectively incorrect. It is, in fact, not possible to do so plausibly, and I am honestly baffled as to how you came up with this particular bit of rebuttal in the first place.
Well, because the British public over the decades of the war with France was largely occupied with said war; in a peacetime environment there'd be more energy to spare for other topics.


That, thankfully, would have been highly unlikely-and dare I say-substantially implausible, even-for a variety of reasons-I'm sure most of us will agree on that.
Then I don't see any reason for there to be such a substantial delay over OTL. Are you suggesting that a whole generation of people (who were OTL busy with fighting an apocalyptic war with France) were made aware of the problems of slavery only because of the Revolutionary War?

In fact, there were plenty of signs of British antipathy towards slavery before the Revolutionary war. To quote Robcraufurd from last time he mentioned them to you (along with a few things which are close in topic):




But we're dealing here with a society in which the abolitionists of Britain and America have been working together for generations without a border to separate them, in which Britain hasn't enlisted slaves to fight against the liberty of their masters, in which nobody has said that racial equality is "a philosophical idea, an English idea, but it is eminently un-American" (Representative Charles J. Biddle [Democrat, Pennsylvania], 1862). Historically, the North got uncomfortably close to slavery in large part because the British fought against it- remember the New York regiments volunteering for war to protect American slave ships from Royal Navy boarding parties in 1858- and then abandoned it with remarkable haste when the situation changed. By the 1830s, the North would likely be in the forefront of popular agitation for compensated emancipation.

The probability is only high if you assume abolitionism is the result of the War of Independence. That seems an extremely unlikely conclusion, unless you play down the effect of the Somerset case by overlooking the underlying anti-slavery attitudes demonstrated by the judge's comments that slavery is "incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law…[and] so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law" in favour of looking purely at the legalistic scope of the case, or ignore the fact that Johnson's famous comment "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" dates from 1775. On the other side of the Atlantic, you see Benjamin Rush writing in 1773 that "Anthony Benezet stood alone a few years ago, in opposing negro slavery in Philadelphia; and now three-fourths of the province, as well as of the city, cry out against it. A spirit of humanity and religion begins to awaken, in several of the colonies in favour of the poor negroes." As such, I'm unconvinced that the development of abolitionism would be stunted by continued union: it seems like the classic post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

the first plan to use freed slaves against their masters was proposed by Commodore John Moore against the French in Guadeloupe in 1759.

Look into the evidence of Frederick Douglass, Reverend Jeremiah Asher, Reverend Samuel Ringold Ward, William Wells Brown, John Brown, Amanda Smith, or William and Ellen Craft. Did you know Queen Victoria had a black goddaughter?

Except that Mansfield deliberately went out of his way to describe slavery as odious and unsupportable by anything other than positive law, giving institutional recognition to antislavery morality. What it shows is how far antislavery attitudes had spread through British society, particularly considering that Mansfield consulted with Blackstone before making the judgement. Taney chose to use the Dred Scott case as an opportunity to deny black people their rights: Mansfield used Somerset as an opportunity to affirm them. Of course, this is highly inconvenient if you're trying to make the case that British antislavery is a product of the Revolution, leaving the only solution as talking in very limited terms about the scope of the judgement rather than the scope of Mansfield's comments in the hope of playing down the attitudes which they display.

You know saying it doesn't make it true, right? I'm sure you fell that Edward Long and Samuel Estwick, two leading British slavery apologists, conceding in the aftermath of the Somerset case that slavery is 'repugnant to the spirit of English laws' doesn't disprove your case, or the first plan for the abolition of slavery in the West Indies being published in 1772 by Maurice Morgann, or Adam Smith calling colonial slave-owners "the refuse of the jails of Europe" in 1759, or Robert Robertson complaining in 1741 that "many Gentlemen of Figure... [insist] that to have any Hand in bringing any of the Human Species into *Bondage* is justly execrable, and that all who partake in the Sweets of *Liberty*, shou'd spare for no Cost to procure the same, as far as possible, for the rest of Mankind every where." Which really begs the question of how much evidence for pre-Revolutionary anti-slavery sentiment you'd require before you change your view that there wasn't a critical mass of sentiment prior to 1775.

I think I've conclusively proved already that British antislavery attitudes are far stronger than you claim, so the main thing to do is contradict the idea that abolitionism results from the War of Independence. Firstly, the link between the language of the rebels and antislavery is far weaker than you claim: for generation after generation, the Americans see no inherent contradiction between "all men are created equal" and applying property qualifications to black voters, banning free blacks from settling in states, et cetera ad nauseam. However, the British belief that slavery is fundamentally immoral requires a far smaller push to turn it into abolitionism: just the belief that it's right to impose British moral customs on the dependent plantation societies in the Americas. This attitude is far more likely to emerge if Britain establishes its suzerainty in the Americas than if it loses the war.

If we grant your assumption that the language does count, then we have two scenarios. In the first, if slavery is America's "original sin" (Madison), and the American rebels lose the war in large part because the British free slaves, why wouldn't former rebels throw themselves into the antislavery cause with far more vigour than they did historically after God has given a clear judgement against it? In the second, if the constitutional question is settled peacefully, what other significant causes do potential rebels have to campaign for than the abolition of slavery? How much more effective would those antislavery advocates be if they could communicate and collaborate freely with British abolitionists? How many more people might Garrison have won over if he didn't have to call for the end of the Union in order to free the slaves?

Bottom line seems to be that (leaving aside the inaccuracies I've highlighted previously) you're too wedded to your interpretation of how abolitionism grew to consider that similar results might have been obtained in a different way.

But Mansfield didn't have the ability to go further: he can't hand out laws for the colonies from the judge's bench, and claiming he could have is to completely misinterpret the role of the case. Claiming the Somerset judgement isn't anti-slavery because Mansfield doesn't free slaves overseas is like claming Dred Scott isn't pro-slavery because Taney didn't announce that all black people in the US were re-enslaved. Mansfield actually makes the most positive anti-slavery statement he could: rather than just saying that in this individual case Somerset is free, he denies the applicability of slavery without positive law.

Your assertion that it's only "enlightened" people who are affected is falsified by my later statement that the foundational assumption of the Somerset judgement was also accepted by those who supported slavery:
What this demonstrates, which is the reason I quoted it in the first place, is that antislavery attitudes have permeated British society even among the people who are there to support it.

No it doesn't: all it indicates is that the weight of sentiment hadn't yet been converted into support of abolition. However, the fact that it hadn't isn't proof that it couldn't: if Britain had not had to contend with the fragility of its control over its remaining colonial possessions and the expense of war with all the major European powers, the existing widespread antipathy towards slavery in Britain might have been transferred into support for compensated gradual emancipation more quickly than historically. This is what we call alternate history.

Yeah, it does. You played down the strength of British antislavery on the grounds that the Loyalists started freeing slaves only when they started losing, i.e. as a tactic of desperation, in reaction to losing. The fact that it was suggested as a legitimate strategy with which to open a war almost twenty years before falsifies your point and provides further evidence of the strength and breadth of British abolitionist sentiment before the war of independence.

If you'd actually "look[ed] into the evidence," rather than just posting "well I suppose this doesn't necessarily disprove my point even though I haven't read what they said", you would have found that most of them argued not just that they were better treated in Britain, but that racial prejudice was almost non-existent there:

Douglass: "having enjoyed nearly two years of equal social privileges in England... never, during the whole time having met with a single word, look or gesture, which gave me the slightest reason to think my colour was an offense to anybody".

William Wells Brown: "the prejudice which I have experienced on all and every occasion in the United States... vanished as soon as I set foot on the soil of Britain"

Rev. Samuel Ringgold Ward: "In this country [England] it is diffficult to understand how little difference is made in the treatment of black men, in respect to their position".

John Brown: "Was pleased to see among the two or three hundred students three coloured young men... there apeared no feeling on part of the whites... except that of companionship and respect... here again were seen young coloured men arm in arm with whites".

Amanda Smith: "no one acted as though I was a black woman"

Joseph Renter-Maxwell: "A resident for more than three years at one of the best colleges in Oxford, I was not once subected to the slightest ridicule or insult, on account of my colour"

Linda Brent: "During all that time [10 months], I never saw the slightest symptom of prejudice against colour".

In the aftermath of the American War of Independence, the newly-United States began to create a national identity which focused on mythologising the uniqueness of their institutions and presenting the United States the only true flagbearer of the standard of liberty. With this in mind Americans tended to assume an attitude of jealousy and fear towards them on the part of other nations, particularly Britain: they interpreted many actions, such as border or boarding disputes, as attacks on the "Great Experiment". This sense of encirclement, of constant struggle between reaction and liberty, led to an attitude that the primary goal of political life was to maintain the Union. As a result, many individuals in the North were inclined to tacitly or overtly support the institution of slavery as the price of keeping the South within the Union and avoiding its breakup, and to see abolitionism as a foreign doctrine and the abolitionist movement, with its transatlantic links, as being supported by the British in order to divide the Union. Only when the likelihood of enticing the South back into the Union by offering to maintain slavery was outweighed by the likelihood of forcing the South back into the Union by emancipating its slaves did this tactic end. Removing the need to maintain American unity, and the perception of British antislavery as a threat to its integrity, would dramatically speed the process of abolition.

Except that the movement before the war is focused on abolition, and the movement after focused on the slave trade- a dramatically more limited scope, in large part resulting from splits between the British and American antislavery movement following the War of Independence. A single, united society, drawing on the existing antipathy towards slavery in Britain and no longer hampered by the American need to preserve the Union at the price of tolerating slavery, stands a much better prospect of success.



That last one is a key point. The war itself changed the character of the abolition movement, making it much more limited in goals.
 
And? A groundswell of sentiment that slavery is an active evil just needs structure, rather than for the opinion to be created from the ground up.

I didn't say-or imply for that matter-that it was created entirely from the ground up-again, no doubt that the sentiment existed, but it had to be built up significantly over the course of decades and, again, evidence is certainly there that the aftermath of the Revolutionary War IOTL-to at least some degree, helped boost, both directly and indirectly, the abolitionist movement on both sides of the Atlantic.

And those who did think it was important included judges with the authority to set law across the entire country.

Only even Lord Mansfield, even if he may have held a genuine anti-slavery view, did not intend for his ruling to be extended beyond England itself. (And I have never found any statements condemning him for not doing so.)

That is, abolitionism was already a movement among the elite.

It existed as a sentiment in some quarters of the elite, yes. But, again, going back to @John Fredrick Parker, it was not yet a fully organized movement even amongst the middle classes, so there was no real threat to the slavery system in the 1770s.

Well, because the British public over the decades of the war with France was largely occupied with said war; in a peacetime environment there'd be more energy to spare for other topics.

That isn't what happened IOTL, however; the abolitionist movement was not, as far as we know, significantly hampered by the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars.

Then I don't see any reason for there to be such a substantial delay over OTL.

Only you're missing the underlying point. A substantial delay of perhaps a decade or so would not have needed a sudden massive switch to viewing slavery as a positive-it might only have required that abolitionism not get the boost that it did in the 1780s IOTL.

Are you suggesting that a whole generation of people (who were OTL busy with fighting an apocalyptic war with France) were made aware of the problems of slavery only because of the Revolutionary War?

What I was saying was, a large number of people only started becoming really aware of abolition from the 1780s onward, on both sides of the Atlantic. (The war you mentioned did not happen until a couple of decades after the time period)

In fact, there were plenty of signs of British antipathy towards slavery before the Revolutionary war. To quote Robcraufurd from last time he mentioned them to you (along with a few things which are close in topic):

There were some signs, yes. But again, this was by no means a majority position as of yet and would not be for some time. (And furthermore, at least a couple of the quotes you used to try to back yourself up with weren't even referencing the same time period-Frederick Douglass, as I recall, wasn't born until roughly a half century after the ARW had concluded)

And, once again, referencing my closing statement from before-

Of course, we can certainly discuss how things might have gone differently, and I'm all for discussing the possibilities. But we can't deny the facts before us, and they just so happen to tell us that, IOTL, while abolitionism did exist prior to the 1770s and did have some potential, it also did not start to become a truly major sociopolitical phenomenon on either side of the Atlantic until the 1780s, which coincides to at least some degree with the success of the American Revolution. To what exact extent, and how directly, admittedly remains debatable to a point, but the effect was no doubt significant nonetheless.

And that still holds quite well.

Edit: But in any case, though, I think it'd be best if we just left it here for this thread, Saphroneth. It's clear that you and I have substantially different views and I just don't think it'd be productive to continue this particular conversation.
 
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Arguably the boost that occurred in the 1780's was at least partly due to a number of free black persons articulating their case in London. This happened due to the relocation of a number of freed black slaves to England along with their previous masters after defeat in the American Revolution. If Britain had won then these emigres would be less likely to appear so the movement for ending slavery would be less likely to be led by British abolitionists but rather by American ones.

It's likely that the absolute ban on slaving across the Empire would be delayed - but I suspect that the slave trade still would be. This is on the basis that slavery would be "out of sight, out of mind" for most in London still - but slave ships could still be transiting London and the other major ports.

I wonder if slavery could be seen as a local issue in this alternate Empire - so you may end up with a few colonies in the South of BNA and one or two in the Caribbean as hold outs when most of the Empire is against slavery. It is not a sustainable situation and eventually the total abolitionists would gain sufficient traction to ban slavery but there may be a colonial revolt in the American South before then - the only question is whether it would be by free blacks / slaves against the planters or by the planters against the Governor.
 

Moglwi

Monthly Donor
they compestaion scheame cut through large swathes of the UK http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/ has a searchable list of everyone who was paid compensation and how many slave they held I belvice it was siggnifigamt strain on the Government to pay the compensation. If they had abolished slavery perhaps they would have expected the state govts to help pay the bill rather than all the money coming from UK sorces
 
At the very least, they could stop all those laws Southern states made to basically nullify attempts to free your own slaves. Check out what I found when accidently pressing Random Article on Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaker_trusteeship

Also, I see a lot of issues over representation in Parliment and if slaves count. Might be a touchy subject until the British poor can vote themselves. Still, think of how many elections the South swayed with slave votes. Though they got even more after the Civil War when Blacks were counted as 5/5ths a person rather than 3/5ths. Weren't allowed to vote either way.
 
iOTL the "mandatory 6 year apprentice" scheme for children born as slaves in the West Indies was protested both in Britain by whites and the islands by adult freed slaves. It was terminated 5 years early.
Rather than a mandatory apprenticeship, perhaps US southerner could use long term "familial labor contracts" and "labor in lieu of debt payment" to create their serf class. IOTL, some white share croppers in the South could be employed under pretty onerous conditions. These conditions could then be amplified for freed slaves.
 
Rather than a mandatory apprenticeship, perhaps US southerner could use long term "familial labor contracts" and "labor in lieu of debt payment" to create their serf class. IOTL, some white share croppers in the South could be employed under pretty onerous conditions. These conditions could then be amplified for freed slaves.

As I said in other posts I suspect the slave holders would try anything (see Jim Crow in OTL USA)
... as did some* factory owners (see company scrip and tied cottages iOTL UK and elsewhere)

However I don't think any such schemes would last as long as OTL with a larger and more diverse government.

* = of course other British capitalists had different attitudes starting from around 1800 through the century
see Trowse in Norfolk, Saltaire in Yorks, Bournville in the Midlands , Port Sunlight on the Mersey
 
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