Parity between USA and CSA?

By 1860 the combination of relative population, rail expansion, and industrialization had vastly favored the north. Was there a point where the North had little to no relative advantage? If so, what was the latest point where such a hypothetical could be fought on even terms? I am guessing perhaps 1820. But this is pure guesswork.
 
I’d say a little later than 1820. Industrialization was gaining steam (pun unintended) by 1820, but I wouldn’t say it was in full force. 1830 would be my estimate, when industrialization permanently gave the North the advantage.
 

kernals12

Banned
By 1860 the combination of relative population, rail expansion, and industrialization had vastly favored the north. Was there a point where the North had little to no relative advantage? If so, what was the latest point where such a hypothetical could be fought on even terms? I am guessing perhaps 1820. But this is pure guesswork.
But if the South industrializes, doesn't that reduce the support for slavery?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
But if the South industrializes, doesn't that reduce the support for slavery?

Depends on exactly how the South industrializes. There was talk of using slave labor in Southern factories. Industrialization and slavery are not necessarily incompatible.
 
By 1860 the combination of relative population, rail expansion, and industrialization had vastly favored the north. Was there a point where the North had little to no relative advantage? If so, what was the latest point where such a hypothetical could be fought on even terms? I am guessing perhaps 1820. But this is pure guesswork.

Trick question: create a situation where the relative population of the two halves of the country is the same (and on a similar trend), and a war of secession becomes irrelevant. The South will be perfectly capable of defending its domestic position by peaceful means in Congress (Hell, given their penchant for dominating the Presidency and the Court their influence is likely to be larger), making a violent counter-revolution unessicery.
 

kernals12

Banned
Trick question: create a situation where the relative population of the two halves of the country is the same (and on a similar trend), and a war of secession becomes irrelevant. The South will be perfectly capable of defending its domestic position by peaceful means in Congress (Hell, given their penchant for dominating the Presidency and the Court their influence is likely to be larger), making a violent counter-revolution unessicery.
Here's a good one, have the Boll Weevil arrive a century earlier. The cotton industry gets wiped out and the slave population shrinks to a point where it becomes a non-issue.
 
Here's a good one, have the Boll Weevil arrive a century earlier. The cotton industry gets wiped out and the slave population shrinks to a point where it becomes a non-issue.

But why do the number of slaves shrink? I mean, yes, you can't employ them to pick cotton, but its not like they're still massive monetary investments and labor-capital that their owner can still put to use. And considering that there really isen't much of a market outside of the U.S to sell them...

Oh dear.
 

kernals12

Banned
But why do the number of slaves shrink? I mean, yes, you can't employ them to pick cotton, but its not like they're still massive monetary investments and labor-capital that their owner can still put to use. And considering that there really isen't much of a market outside of the U.S to sell them...

Oh dear.
I meant that it shrinks relative to the non-slave population.
 
Depends on exactly how the South industrializes. There was talk of using slave labor in Southern factories. Industrialization and slavery are not necessarily incompatible.

While that's true in the sense that slavery could be used in factories, it probably won't be. The economic system based on slavery (specifically, on cotton exports) developed at the expense of potential southern industry. Change that, and we're talking about a completely different south.
 
Somewhere roughly between 1840 and 1850.

Since slavery and industrialization came up tangentially, I'd highly recommend The Economics of Industrial Slavery in the Old South by Robert S. Starobin. One of the very first facts he reveals is that,in the 1850s, around 5% of the entirety of the slave population was involved in industrial work.
 

kernals12

Banned
Somewhere roughly between 1840 and 1850.

Since slavery and industrialization came up tangentially, I'd highly recommend The Economics of Industrial Slavery in the Old South by Robert S. Starobin. One of the very first facts he reveals is that,in the 1850s, around 5% of the entirety of the slave population was involved in industrial work.
Factory work requires more skill than farm work, won't slaves need to be educated?
 
Somewhere roughly between 1840 and 1850.

Since slavery and industrialization came up tangentially, I'd highly recommend The Economics of Industrial Slavery in the Old South by Robert S. Starobin. One of the very first facts he reveals is that,in the 1850s, around 5% of the entirety of the slave population was involved in industrial work.

Slavery and industry were complimentary in the global economy as a whole, but not within a slave economy - not in this period. Read your own source. I also suggest A Deplorable Scarcity: The Failure of Industrialization in the Slave Economy.
 
Read your own source.

Extremely odd tact to take there, given what Starobin literally says from the first page onwards:

Southern industry's most distinctive aspect was its wide and in- tensive use of slave labor. In the 1850's, for example, 160,000 to 200,000 - about 5 per cent of the total slave population - worked in industry. About four-fifths of these industrial slaves were directly owned by industrial entrepreneurs; the rest were rented by employers from their masters by the month or year. Most were men, but many were women and children. They lived in rural, small- town or plantation settings, where most southern industry was located, not in large cities, where only about 20 per cent of the urban slaves were industrially employed.

Many southern textile mills employed either slave labor or com- bined both bondsmen and free workers in the same mill, contradicting the myth that southern textile manufacturing was the sole domain of native poor whites. The manufacture of iron was also heavily dependent on slave labor, and southern tobacco factories employed slave labor almost exclusively. Slave labor was crucial to hemp manufacturing, and most secondary manufacturing - shoe factories, tanneries, bakeries, paper-makers, printing establishments, and brickmakers - used bondsmen extensively. Sugar refining, rice milling, and grist-milling together employed about 30,000 slaves. At ports and river towns, slaves operated mammoth cotton presses to recompress cotton bales for overseas shipment.

The southern coal and iron mining industry was greatly dependent upon slave labor, gold was mined throughout the Piedmont and Appalachian regions largely with slaves, and lead mining employed many bondsmen. Salt was produced with slave labor; slaves were used to log the pine, cypress, and live-oak in the swamps and forests from Texas to Virginia; and the turpentine extraction and distillation industry was entirely dependent upon slave labor. Southern internal improvements enterprises were so dependent upon slave labor that virtually all southern railroads, except for a few border-state lines, were built either by slave-employing contractors or by company-owned or hired bondsmen.

The full article is available on JSTOR for anyone who wishes to read it, but I think this sample from the first and second pages shows quite clearly industrial slavery could be used, and was so extensively IOTL, in a slave economy.
 
he full article is available on JSTOR for anyone who wishes to read it, but I think this sample from the first and second pages shows quite clearly industrial slavery could be used, and was so extensively IOTL, in a slave economy.
You look at the sort of work that slaves were doing and it is comparable to that done in Victorian England under similar conditions. This of course is obvious, but does raise an interesting question. Do you want your labour force to be capital or expenditure?

The advantage of the former is you are guaranteed how many people you have available. The disadvantage is that you can not lay them off without cost. At very least you have to feed and house them. The advantage of the latter is that you can cut numbers at any time although re-recruitment can be an issue. There are other advantages. You can fine your workers for damage to your machines (and the culprits can still be given a good thrashing for having done so.) You can pay piece work so that they have an incentive to work harder.

Given the two options employees start to become more attractive to a robber baron capitalist than slaves.
 
Have the Indiana Territory legalise slavery at the turn of the 19th century. Annex more/all of Mexico. Cuba taken in a successful filibuster. Earlier bollweavil outbreak, combined with no trail of tears means that more slave owners settle the territories in search of valuable land. Have the powers that be embrace native slavery in the Mexican territories during the California gold rush making California a de facto slave state. Have the border states declare for the Confederacy and have the revels take Washington quickly resulting in a shorter war.
 
Extremely odd tact to take there, given what Starobin literally says from the first page onwards:



The full article is available on JSTOR for anyone who wishes to read it, but I think this sample from the first and second pages shows quite clearly industrial slavery could be used, and was so extensively IOTL, in a slave economy.

I think you're missing the point. There's a reason the north and south diverged so spectacularly in industry, and that reason is the rise of the slavery economy in the south while slavery withered in the ever more industrial north.

Starobin has a whole section on southern industrial backwardness:

Southern backwardness was not inevitable; rather, it was the result of human decisions which could have led in a different direction. After all, from the 1780’s to about 1815, southern planters had been investing much of their surplus capital in industries and transportation projects. During these years, when the South sustained one-third of the nation’s textile mills, southern industrial growth seemed to be paralleling that of the North. After 1815, however, southern industries waned as the rapidly developing textile industry of Britain and New England demanded cotton, the invention of the cotton gin stimulated short-staple cotton cultivation, and fertile southwestern plantations yielded quick profits to investors. Southerners now began to invest more in new lands and in slave labor than in industry and internal improvements. This decision stemmed not only from the agrarian tradition and the prestige of owning real property, but also because the production of staples seemed to promise the easiest financial success. In the competition for capital, agriculture thus outbid industry.


For the purposes of OP's question, what exactly are you trying to argue?
 
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