If the CSA gets independence, when will it abolish slavery?

So would it be safe to say that the CSA probably would not abolish slavery in the 19th century and early 20th century, if they were to do so at all?

Yeah, the earliest I could see it is around 1920 or so. The ACW generation needs to die off first and probably their children as well. Their grandchildren might start thinking about it and they have to grow up enough to vote.
 
I doubt the powers that be in the CSA are going to be eager for what these days are called "activist" justices.

The Dred Scott Decision was one of the most extreme examples of judicial activism in the history of the US Supreme Court. So long as it maintains or expands slavery, Confederate leadership would be just fine with judicial activism.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The Dred Scott Decision was one of the most extreme examples of judicial activism in the history of the US Supreme Court. So long as it maintains or expands slavery, Confederate leadership would be just fine with judicial activism.

Agreed. An "activist" judge is just a judge who does something you don't like.
 
Well, that's sort of obvious. But here's a thought for the long-term. In the days of Jefferson and Madison, slavery was seen as a necessary evil at best. In the days of John Calhoun, though, it had morphed in Southern minds into a positive good. I think that one of the main reasons the South became so culturally and intellectually pro-slavery from 1820-1860 was because they felt their backs were to the wall and they had to justify to the people of the North and the wider world (and, more importantly, to themselves) that their slave-based society was just and ethical.

In a post-war independent Confederacy, much of this pressure would be removed. There wouldn't be representatives and senators in the national capital loudly denouncing slavery every other day, nor would every election raise fears of some Yankee abolitionist taking control of the country.

This is a key fact here. They would only need to defend slavery through diplomatic channels and to be honest, I don't see many 19th century nations really caring that an independent CSA has slaves within its borders. The only outside pressure to abolish slavery in the 19th century would come from losing a war.

In such a case, over the course of a few decades, you could begin to see a cultural shift. And if this was accompanied by changes in technology and agricultural techniques that result in slavery being increasingly unprofitable from a financial point of view, such a cultural shift could gain momentum.

The only problem, as I and others have pointed out elsewhere, is that the Confederate Constitution made it all but impossible to abolish slavery even if general public opinion wanted to do so.

I wouldn't say all but impossible. The Confederate Constitution had a procedure for amending it, but it wasn't exactly easy to do so.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The Confederate Constitution had a procedure for amending it, but it wasn't exactly easy to do so.

Actually, it was much easier to amend the Confederate Constitution than it was (and is) to amend the United States Constitution. A mere three states can call a constitutional convention and amendments do not have to pass through Congress.
 

Deleted member 14881

Actually, it was much easier to amend the Confederate Constitution than it was (and is) to amend the United States Constitution. A mere three states can call a constitutional convention and amendments do not have to pass through Congress.

Intersting but I am not sure they'll do it without outside force?
 
The Dred Scott Decision was one of the most extreme examples of judicial activism in the history of the US Supreme Court. So long as it maintains or expands slavery, Confederate leadership would be just fine with judicial activism.

Well, there is that. But there's also the quarrels between ornery state governors and Richmond during the war.

This is where the CSA's near total lack of capable political leadership is going to be crippling - setting up an effective Supreme Court would require at least the pretense towards unity.
 
The CSA will probably end slavery by the 1870ties or 1880ties. Remarkable short after their war of indepentence.
Their motifs should be , as with all other slave countries like Brazil, Kingdom of the Netherlands, pure based on the economical realities of the day.
In the 1870ties an economical crises whiped out most of the slave holding plantations, [lantations with contract workers and paid laborrers were far more efficient.
Please remember it is the 2nd halve of the 19th century, ''free'' laborrers in the America's and Europe lived and worked under horrendous conditions, paid just enough to survive but too much to die.
As plantation or factory owner you only had to pay you workers, as for slaves you need to house hem and feed them and guard them, at the time of the last halve of the 19th century this was not efficient any more.
 
The CSA will probably end slavery by the 1870ties or 1880ties. Remarkable short after their war of indepentence.
Their motifs should be , as with all other slave countries like Brazil, Kingdom of the Netherlands, pure based on the economical realities of the day.
In the 1870ties an economical crises whiped out most of the slave holding plantations, [lantations with contract workers and paid laborrers were far more efficient.
Please remember it is the 2nd halve of the 19th century, ''free'' laborrers in the America's and Europe lived and worked under horrendous conditions, paid just enough to survive but too much to die.
As plantation or factory owner you only had to pay you workers, as for slaves you need to house hem and feed them and guard them, at the time of the last halve of the 19th century this was not efficient any more.


Not a chance. No country is going fight and die to preserve something and give it up within only 5-25 years.
 
The CSA will probably end slavery by the 1870ties or 1880ties. Remarkable short after their war of indepentence.
Their motifs should be , as with all other slave countries like Brazil, Kingdom of the Netherlands, pure based on the economical realities of the day.
In the 1870ties an economical crises whiped out most of the slave holding plantations, [lantations with contract workers and paid laborrers were far more efficient.
Please remember it is the 2nd halve of the 19th century, ''free'' laborrers in the America's and Europe lived and worked under horrendous conditions, paid just enough to survive but too much to die.
As plantation or factory owner you only had to pay you workers, as for slaves you need to house hem and feed them and guard them, at the time of the last halve of the 19th century this was not efficient any more.

That's definitely true(there's also the problem of revolts as well. How are you going to be able to prevent those?), but that sure didn't stop planters from owning slaves anyhow, and many of them gave their slaves just barely enough food to survive on.
 
That's definitely true(there's also the problem of revolts as well. How are you going to be able to prevent those?), but that sure didn't stop planters from owning slaves anyhow, and many of them gave their slaves just barely enough food to survive on.

And one can easily overestimate how horrendous conditions were for 19th century free laborers - yes, they sucked, but they had options and mobility and that - even before strikes and unions started serious improvements - made being free preferable. I'm a firey Socialist, but comparing free labor to slavery is consistently in the former's favor in all but the most ideal conditions for the slave or the nastiest for the free.

Plus, slavery wasn't all about economics. There's also the social factor - both the prestige of being a slave owner, the convenient means of control of part of the population, and then there's the poor whites.
 
And one can easily overestimate how horrendous conditions were for 19th century free laborers - yes, they sucked, but they had options and mobility and that - even before strikes and unions started serious improvements - made being free preferable. I'm a firey Socialist, but comparing free labor to slavery is consistently in the former's favor in all but the most ideal conditions for the slave or the nastiest for the free.

Yeah, good point there, IMHO.

Plus, slavery wasn't all about economics. There's also the social factor - both the prestige of being a slave owner, the convenient means of control of part of the population,

Very true, as I think that might be one of the reasons that slavery could struggle on well into the 20th Century in the Confederacy, even if it no longer thrives.

and then there's the poor whites.

....and here's one of potential ingredients for it's ultimate downfall;
As I've mentioned earlier, even though most non-wealthy whites didn't exactly like the blacks, slave or free, many of them would still keep their best interests in mind, including those of their finances:
In OTL's antebellum South, there was very, very little in the way of a middle class outside of perhaps a few of the more notable cities(Richmond, Charleston, New Orleans, and maybe Memphis and Birmingham later on); poverty was endemic in many areas, and in fact, it was so bad in parts that it was a primary reason for emigration fin the 19th Century, and primarily north and westward(I have a fair number of Southern ancestors who did just that, btw; many of them ended up in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois in particular).
 
....and here's one of potential ingredients for it's ultimate downfall;
As I've mentioned earlier, even though most non-wealthy whites didn't exactly like the blacks . . .


However, with slavery, there's the sense that they're at least superior to blacks (there without it, but definitely reinforced with it) - and the threat of slave revolt or newly freed slaves running amok threatens all whites.

The social structure is rather clever in a limited sense for that.
 
However, with slavery, there's the sense that they're at least superior to blacks (there without it, but definitely reinforced with it) - and the threat of slave revolt or newly freed slaves running amok threatens all whites.

The social structure is rather clever in a limited sense for that.

That certainly is true to a point, no doubt about that.....I do think it has it's limits, though: as I had intended to point out, slavery also often had the effect of depressing the wages of ordinary white workers; though admittedly also significantly more profitable for the wealthy CEOs and such if done a certain way(similar to how outsourcing has worked in modern times IOTL, at least in it's effects on domestic workers' earnings). As much as many whites may not really like even being around blacks, and not giving a flying poop as to how black workers are taken care of(to a point), most would absolutely HATE working for crappy wages, when they know they can potentially get much better.....and if enough of these workers get discontented, there's going to be a problem for the management.
 
And one can easily overestimate how horrendous conditions were for 19th century free laborers - yes, they sucked, but they had options and mobility and that - even before strikes and unions started serious improvements - made being free preferable. I'm a firey Socialist, but comparing free labor to slavery is consistently in the former's favor in all but the most ideal conditions for the slave or the nastiest for the free.

Plus, slavery wasn't all about economics. There's also the social factor - both the prestige of being a slave owner, the convenient means of control of part of the population, and then there's the poor whites.

Very exaggerated, it sucked yes but not to the extent people here seem to think, particularly in the US with its labor shortages. Remember to a certain extent almost everyone was poor by modern standards as they didn't have the tech yet.

Even the average factory worker lived considerably better than a serf which is what most people, outside out and out slaves, were during most of history. Out and out starvation was very rare in the US and increasingly rare in Europe. They may have been in rat trap apartments but that was still better than the thatch huts most people lived in earlier which had not only rats but more insects that were living in the thatch. Most had a wood stove or coal stove which was better than the earlier fireplaces. By the mid to late 19th century the standard of living was clearly going up for almost everyone. Most people in Europe and the US were living better in that time period than people living in quite a few 3rd World countries today.
 
That certainly is true to a point, no doubt about that.....I do think it has it's limits, though: as I had intended to point out, slavery also often had the effect of depressing the wages of ordinary white workers; though admittedly also significantly more profitable for the wealthy CEOs and such if done a certain way(similar to how outsourcing has worked in modern times IOTL, at least in it's effects on domestic workers' earnings). As much as many whites may not really like even being around blacks, and not giving a flying poop as to how black workers are taken care of(to a point), most would absolutely HATE working for crappy wages, when they know they can potentially get much better.....and if enough of these workers get discontented, there's going to be a problem for the management.

Oh sure. But the extent to which it's true means that the slave owners can put off dealing with it - and use the fact abolitionists supposedly want to have blacks rape every white woman they can find to further shore it up.

It's not perfect, but you don't need perfect to maintain tyranny for an ungodly long period of time. Ask Russia.
 
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