I can't remember for the life of me but I remember reading somewhere slavery was starting to become uneconomical in the United States before the Cotton Gin was invented. With the US Constitution being written some five years prior to the Cotton Gin was invented could there be enough of a push with the proper POD to have slavery outlawed by the Constitution or put on a path of gradual emancipation over say 30 years across the US? Or is this pushing for too much with the Constitution?
Outlaw Slavery with the Passage of the US Constitution?
- Thread starter Jim Smitty
- Start date
Nah, the Southerners still wanted Slavery. You'd have to bribe all the state legislator's to accept such a Constitution. The Cotton Gin coming out made them go from wanting slavery to be kept to loving slavery, and to the point they were dependent on slavery. So much so that if in 1830 every slave-owner emancipated his good slaves for no good reason and executed all his bad slaves (now no slaves left) then... almost all of them would be bankrupt the next harvesting season. Unless human meat sells as well as beef.
No, no, no, no, no.
To quote an old soc.history.what-if post of mine:
***
...southern congressmen in the early 1790's--well before the expansion of
the Cotton Kingdeom--seemed as belligerent on the subject of slavery as
their counterparts of decades later. Consider the following remarks by
Congressman Jackson of Georgia in 1790 (before the cotton gin was even
invented) in response to some antislavery petitions:
"[T]he people of the Southern states will resist one tyranny as soon as
another. The other parts of the Continent may bear them down by force of
arms, but they will never suffer themselves to be divested of their
property without a struggle. The gentleman says, if he was a Federal
Judge, he does not know to what length he would go in emancipating these
people; but I would believe his judgment would be of short duration in
Georgia, perhaps even the existence of such a judge might be in danger."
http://books.google.com/books?id=DmkFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA209
Likewise, Federalist Congressman William Smith of South Carolina on March
17, 1790 made a speech attacking federal interference which "developed
every argument for slavery as a positive good which Calhoun would bring
forward half a century later."
https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/amerstud/article/viewFile/2168/2127
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/r17xzhZ4zmg/Pu_apwkipEoJ
To quote an old soc.history.what-if post of mine:
***
...southern congressmen in the early 1790's--well before the expansion of
the Cotton Kingdeom--seemed as belligerent on the subject of slavery as
their counterparts of decades later. Consider the following remarks by
Congressman Jackson of Georgia in 1790 (before the cotton gin was even
invented) in response to some antislavery petitions:
"[T]he people of the Southern states will resist one tyranny as soon as
another. The other parts of the Continent may bear them down by force of
arms, but they will never suffer themselves to be divested of their
property without a struggle. The gentleman says, if he was a Federal
Judge, he does not know to what length he would go in emancipating these
people; but I would believe his judgment would be of short duration in
Georgia, perhaps even the existence of such a judge might be in danger."
http://books.google.com/books?id=DmkFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA209
Likewise, Federalist Congressman William Smith of South Carolina on March
17, 1790 made a speech attacking federal interference which "developed
every argument for slavery as a positive good which Calhoun would bring
forward half a century later."
https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/amerstud/article/viewFile/2168/2127
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/r17xzhZ4zmg/Pu_apwkipEoJ
Like me add no, and hell no. Also remember that slavery was still legal in many northern states although it was dying out and pretty small. The South had enough strength to put the 3/5 clause in the Constitution, the best the anti-slavery folks could do was no importation of slaves after 1809 (20 years after ratification).
"In Georgia and South Carolina, of course, the antislavery movement ended by never beginning, and the same was largely true of North Carolina except among the Quakers." Winthrop D. Jordan, *White Over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812,* p. 346. https://books.google.com/books?id=fi7qCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA346 Now it is true that in the Upper South (Viriginia, Maryland, and Delaware) there were some people who criticized slavery and even proposed plans for gradual emancipation. But first, the gradual-emancipationists appear to have been a minority--at least they never succeeded, even in Delaware. And second, even people who were open to schemes for gradual emancipation would have deeply resented the *federal government* imposing it on their states. The ratification battle was close in Virginia as it was. Ratification in that state--let alone in the three states to its south--would have been out of the question if the Constitution had made any attempt to impose emancipation on them, gradual or otherwise.
Even in New York, where the percentage of blacks in the population declined from 14% in 1756, and 12% in 1771, to 6% in 1790, the passage of a gradual-emancipation law was not all that easy. A New York emancipationist later said that the strongest opponents "were chiefly Dutch. They raved and swore by *dunder* and *blixen* that we were robbing them of their property." http://books.google.com/books?id=OCSL1OEwV6AC&pg=PA132 (And they felt that way even about plans that only freed slaves who would be born after a specified future date. After all, the slaveholders argued, they had already paid for the perpetual labor of slaves yet unborn in the high price of slave "wenches"...)
Even in New York, where the percentage of blacks in the population declined from 14% in 1756, and 12% in 1771, to 6% in 1790, the passage of a gradual-emancipation law was not all that easy. A New York emancipationist later said that the strongest opponents "were chiefly Dutch. They raved and swore by *dunder* and *blixen* that we were robbing them of their property." http://books.google.com/books?id=OCSL1OEwV6AC&pg=PA132 (And they felt that way even about plans that only freed slaves who would be born after a specified future date. After all, the slaveholders argued, they had already paid for the perpetual labor of slaves yet unborn in the high price of slave "wenches"...)
Does the question assume there will still be a United States comprising both North and South?
If so, the idea is ASB. But it's conceivable if we assume a US consisting of the North only, with the Southern States forming a separate union .
If so, the idea is ASB. But it's conceivable if we assume a US consisting of the North only, with the Southern States forming a separate union .
The OP seems to be based on the idea that even the South wouldn't mind, because it was before the invention of the cotton gin. As I have often stated, "It is a myth that slavery was dying out before the cotton gin. Too many people assume that slavery equals the Southern plantation system equals cotton. That was actually not true until *many* years after the invention of the cotton gin. As late as 1800 only about 11 percent of all slaves lived on cotton plantations. (By 1850, with greatly increased world demand for cotton, that had risen to 64 percent.) http://books.google.com/books?id=F-KIAOQxKigC&pg=PA30 Tobacco made a considerable recovery after the Revolution, and spread to new regions in South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Slaves were also used in the production of rice, sugar (after Louisiana was annexed) and grains.
"Of course, there *were* some areas of the South that were much better suited for cotton than for any other crop--above all the black belt of Alabama and the alluvial areas of Mississippi. But these areas were not opened up to the plantation system until many years after the cotton gin. I guess my problem with "no cotton gin" hypotheticals is this--I find it very implausible that nobody would *ever* think of the cotton gin. And I don't believe that a mere delay in its discovery would leave slavery so weakened in the interim that Southerners would be willing to abandon it. "There were in fact, almost as many Africans brought into the United States during the 30 years from 1780 to 1810 as during the previous 160 years." (Robert Fogel, *Without Consent or Contract*, p. 32.) And these 30 years were a period in which cotton was by no means dominant." https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/r17xzhZ4zmg/Pu_apwkipEoJ
Extremely difficult, but I don't think impossible. People's egos were so easily bruised back then, which accounts for a good chunk of the difficulty.
Yes, but rice and, especially, tobacco, depleted the soil horribly, meaning that heavy slave use in those areas was on the way out. (This was a major reason why Virginia and North Carolina supported banning the slave trade, as it kept slave prices high for them to be sold down south.) Grain wasn't particularly more profitable using slaves than free labour, so such farmers wouldn't be aggressively pro-slavery. And Louisiana was the only area of the US that could really grow sugar, so that won't be a big bastion of political power on a nationwide basis.
So for slavery to last more than 30-40 years, it probably does need cotton.
There are also ideological reasons to keep them, which is why the south did up until the cotton gin made it profitable again
Well, in the first place, even if that's true, it's hard to see the cotton gin not being invented for 30-40 years. Second, it's hard to see white South Carolinians saying, "rice is becoming less profitable; therefore, let us emancipate the blacks who are about half the population in the state." The very idea filled them with dread. Third, we are talking about whether a national ban on slavery was practical *circa 1788*, and not only was slavery not on the brink of extinction at that time, but even *New York* did not pass a gradual emancipation law until 1799--and New Jersey didn't provide for gradual emancipation until 1804! (There is of course also the fact that even many people in the Upper South who supported gradual emancipation by state action would not approve of the federal government dictating to them how to do it. In particular many of the emancipationists were insistent that the freed blacks be colonized out of the country...)
BTW, the percentage of the population that were slaves increased in Virginia from 39.14 percent in 1790 to 40.17 percent in 1810. Even in Maryland the percentage only decreased modestly from 1790 to 1810 from 32.23 to 29.30. http://faculty.weber.edu/kmackay/statistics_on_slavery.htm So even in the Upper South slavery was far from being on its last legs.
There are just so many reasons why the idea in the OP was politically impossible that I am really surprised by the substantial vote for "Gradual Emancipation is the likely out come?" in the poll.
And then what?
There are far too many to deport back to Africa, and there would be no question of accepting them as equal citizens - even most of the North would recoil from that, never mind the South. So if they aren't slaves and they aren't citizens, what exactly are they?
Tobacco (not so much rice) does deplete the soil unless measures are taken to restore it. Soil restoration techniques were known and used before the ACW; Edmund Ruffin, among others, was a pioneer in this area, using animal manures for that purpose. It wasn't done as much in OTL because it was even cheaper just to move to new lands and grow tobacco there, but it could be done quite profitably if necessary. Tobacco production in the US of A still grew throughout the antebellum period.
Not so. Grain was more efficient using slavery, mostly because it permitted the expansion of single farms in a scale which was not possible with free labour. This was a big part of why the Northern states of the Midwest were so opposed to slavery: they feared that if slaves were permitted, free farmers would not be able to compete with them. And in those areas, grain was the principal crop.
Other areas could grow sugar, it was just that many of them could also grow cotton. Stop cotton from expanding somehow, and sugar becomes more profitable. The Gulf coastal areas of Texas, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida are all suitable for growing sugar, and indeed saw some sugar plantation to an extent even in OTL.
Slavery was perfectly compatible with wheat, sometimes as part of mixed-use farming, sometimes as the principal cash crop. Virginia is best-known for cash-crop wheat using slaves, but it was also grown as a cash crop elsewhere in the Upper South and Border States.
Here is an interesting article by Gavin Wright which explored among other things the use of slavery in wheat. It also has some insight into the use of slavery in southern Indiana and Illinois and how if things had played out differently those could have been slave states, and what effects mechanisation might have had on slave-using wheat farms. (His general thesis is that slavery should be analysed in terms of property rights.)
Aphrodite
Banned
slavery was always profitable even without the cotton gin- at least for the slave owner. If it weren't the South would have been exporting slaves rather than still importing them. This is just one of those myths of history like Haber-bosch being the only thing that saved the German World war I effort. Its just wrong
Even if the US was in some revolutionary fever and believed that slavery was immoral, they would still have viewed them as lawful property. Freeing them would mean paying the slave owners and no one is taxing themselves for that
Even if the US was in some revolutionary fever and believed that slavery was immoral, they would still have viewed them as lawful property. Freeing them would mean paying the slave owners and no one is taxing themselves for that
I defer to you on this topic, as I know how much you've researched it, but just to test a couple of things:
On tobacco, doesn't soil restoration take time? There's also the issue that tobacco (and rice) requires more skilled slaves than cotton does, which ups their price and makes the trade less profitable.
I accepted that grain was more efficient than using slavery, but my understanding was that it wasn't a huge differential (which is what I think you need for people to do logical backflips to deny the obvious moral repugnance of slavery over a vigorous abolition campaign).
On sugar, the coastal areas of the Gulf is a pretty slim slither of land, isn't it?
Eugene Genovese writes (admittedly of a later era) , "Large slave plantations have not proved well adapted to wheat growing, but small plantations were doing well in the Virginia tidewater." https://books.google.com/books?id=TP54AGU5BgUC&pg=PA262