Poll: When Would the CSA Eliminate Slavery

By What Point Would The Confederacy Have Eradicated Slavery?


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Slavery would start collapsing anytime from 1880 onward at earliest, after the abolishment of slavery in Brazil the CSA will be left with no one but themselves defending slavery as a institution on the international stage, both Britain and France by the 1880's will have successfully started growing cotton in their colonies and see less reason to deal with them as confederate cotton will be seen as "unethical competition" to "ethical British and French enterprise"

Except that the perpetuation of slavery by the Confederacy may bolster the rightest elements in Brazil, and perpetuate it there too.

[quote[This coupled with the Boil Weevil arriving in the 1990's as well as the CSA's political troubles and the constant economic shocks of the gilded age from industrialization will either cause the CSA to collapse into infighting or have a national crisis which will force the government to allow the states to use their "right's" to decide their own future.[/quote]

I think you mean 1890's, but regardless, the Boll Weevil took thirty or forty years to spread all the way through the south. It's not like 1896, the Boll Weevil shows up, and 1897, the entire cotton crop is gone. It's far more gradual.

In any case if any of the Confederate States try to leave they might ironically try to region the union if it means a end to the chaos....

Confederate Constitution explicitly forbade further secession.

However slaver will cease to exist by 1910 at latest I have seen quite a few TL's on here that think it could survive up until the 1930's but there is in my opinion, no realistic way it could survive that long, anything after 1910 is, in my opinion ASB

I'd say, at least to the 1920's, and quite possibly much later. Assuming they just take the name off and call it something else, then well into the 50's and 60's.
 
Doesn't that just apply to the federal government? So the individual states could eventually abolish it in their own territories.
Given that no restrictions on people from other states bringing their 'property' over and keeping them indefinitely were permitted? Not in any practical matter.
 
So really, depending on the time and place, slavery could be better than serfdom

Would want to chance that your owner would be Caligula?

I'd pick serfdom every time. Serfs had a better chance of escape
from the wiki
professor W.J. Wagner for example writes describing 18th century situation: "The situation of the peasants in Poland was better than in most other countries. In France and Germany, for example, the owners of landed estates had unlimited jurisdiction over them, including the power to punish by death. In Russia, their economic oppression was notorious, and one of the reasons Catherine II gave for the partition of Poland was the fact that thousands of peasants escaped from Russia to Poland to seek a better fate."
 
Would want to chance that your owner would be Caligula?

I'd pick serfdom every time. Serfs had a better chance of escape
from the wiki
professor W.J. Wagner for example writes describing 18th century situation: "The situation of the peasants in Poland was better than in most other countries. In France and Germany, for example, the owners of landed estates had unlimited jurisdiction over them, including the power to punish by death. In Russia, their economic oppression was notorious, and one of the reasons Catherine II gave for the partition of Poland was the fact that thousands of peasants escaped from Russia to Poland to seek a better fate."
Chaos is a ladder my friend. You might die under Caligula,but you also have a chance to do very well under him as a slave.
 
And look where it got us. Scrip, company towns, and a near-feudal existance for two or three generations. Look at the environmental nightmares in some of the nearby factory towns. With all due respect, please reflect on your own statements before claiming opposing statements are 'neoConfederate propaganda'.

And I know of no Confederate invasion intent on annexing Pennsylvania, Indiana, Vermont, or other Northern states. Quite the reverse for McClellan et al.
I never mention annexing just invading. You would want to grab major industrial centers in US to stop mobilizations as much as possible and damage their war ability. The coal industry did have booms the locals just didn’t really benefit from it. The coal companies and owners are making great money. That why I think they would become a political force within the CSA and lead to industries(coal has often lead to industrialization). They aren’t as tied to slavery and will have different interest. The Southern economy could expand on who it is exploiting.
 
I never mention annexing just invading. You would want to grab major industrial centers in US to stop mobilizations as much as possible and damage their war ability. The coal industry did have booms the locals just didn’t really benefit from it. The coal companies and owners are making great money. That why I think they would become a political force within the CSA and lead to industries(coal has often lead to industrialization). They aren’t as tied to slavery and will have different interest. The Southern economy could expand on who it is exploiting.

In other words you want to piss it off enough that it wants to destroy you but not do enough damage to stop them from doing so? Brilliant plan!
 
In other words you want to piss it off enough that it wants to destroy you but not do enough damage to stop them from doing so? Brilliant plan!
I’m not saying it is likely but if the CSA took a major city like Philadelphia and most of Maryland somehow would it force peace on their demands? Could the north still fight from that position? PA and Maryland are major areas with many important things. Isn’t DC a dangerous place for the president when the south gets ww1 canons? Could they hit White House from Virginia?
 

Thomas1195

Banned
What I’m explaining the CSA is doing is what Russia, China, Mexico, and developing nations are doing now. These systems show economic gains at the cost of living conditions(your people and economy don’t always match on how well they are doing). This could work differently in this period but still show economic development. History isn’t linear and different policies create did systems. The CSA and US are likely to run in different ways. The issues with nations like the CSA is they often collapse due to being over ambitious or losing a major war it should not have gotten into. You do realize a good bit of new deal was inspired by the central planning and development programs of the fascist regimes.
Given the way CSA sticking to free trade despite being underdeveloped, then NOPE. Also, their Constitution banned internal improvements.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
The CSA is not remotely comparable to the USSR. The USSR for one had a much larger population, it had a much larger resource base, and it had far more of an ability to isolate itself from the globe. The CSA which is built on exports cannot insulate itself from the global economy to even close to the same degree of the USSR
The South also lacked infrastructure, skilled workforce and capital to make use of those resources. Unlike the USSR, its education system also sucked big time.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
The only way the CSA manages to prevent conquest should it comes to blows is with powerful allies, in particular the UK and lesser France
If France still somehow becomes a republic, it would shift its stance away towards pro-US.

For Britain, the CSA could have only hoped for a perennial Tory domination, because the Liberals had been increasingly radicalized especially during the 1880s and 1890s. But even so, Britain would not dare to antogonize the US, especially from the 1890s onwards.
 
There were consequences, at least on paper, for killing a tenant, slaves were not afforded that sort of protection, beyond a possible civil penalty if you killed the slave of another owner, same as if you killed a horse.
I hate slavery as much as anyone, but there were criminal consequences for killing slaves. The Official Code of Georgia, 1861, said in section 4217:
"Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, whether a freeman OR A SLAVE, in the peace of the State, by a person of sound memory and discretion, with malice aforethought, either express or implied." [Emphasis mine]
Source: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010943503 (page 819)
 
Yes, but... This more or less meant you could not randomly kill slaves, but if whipping led to death, or one was executed by an owner for a serious offense, so what. In general, mistreatment of slaves was considered low class and would get you snubbed in the antebellum south. The definition of mistreatment, however, meant that whippings, mutilations, use of women for sexual purposes, confinement in irons, long work days, etc were not considered mistreatment. There were sadistic owners who sued their slaves for obscene and disgusting practices, they were whispered about and often shunned but I'm not sure if any were actually punished by the state. The key part of the law is "malice aforethought", punishing a slave was not necessarily malicious...
 
Yes, but... This more or less meant you could not randomly kill slaves, but if whipping led to death, or one was executed by an owner for a serious offense, so what. In general, mistreatment of slaves was considered low class and would get you snubbed in the antebellum south. The definition of mistreatment, however, meant that whippings, mutilations, use of women for sexual purposes, confinement in irons, long work days, etc were not considered mistreatment. There were sadistic owners who sued their slaves for obscene and disgusting practices, they were whispered about and often shunned but I'm not sure if any were actually punished by the state. The key part of the law is "malice aforethought", punishing a slave was not necessarily malicious...
Fair point. What was "murder" would be decided by a jury of local white men, who would more often than not be "prominent citizens": blue ribbon juries were not outlawed until the Jury Selection Act of 1968.
 
I’m not saying it is likely but if the CSA took a major city like Philadelphia and most of Maryland somehow would it force peace on their demands? Could the north still fight from that position? PA and Maryland are major areas with many important things. Isn’t DC a dangerous place for the president when the south gets ww1 canons? Could they hit White House from Virginia?

How? The problem is the 4:1-5:1 population difference and 10:1 industrial difference after the ACW which will only get worse. That means it will always be 5X easier for the US to raise an army than the CS. Troops have to be taken from the general public and they have to be paid. So by 1890 or so you are going to have the CS attack at least as many US troops as they have with the CS using repeating rifles, a gatling gun here and there and 3 inch rifled guns of some sort while the US will have better repeating rifles, man portable machine guns and modern artillery. The CS army wouldl be torn to pieces.
 
At some point the Head of Household of the vast majority of serf families voluntarily took the oath to the local Lord, usually it was after accumulating so much debt that the option was starve or bend the knee. After that, yes, Serfdom was passed from generation to generation, often centuries after any possible debt had been repaid many times over). It was a thoroughly disgraceful and abhorrent system that took far too long to wind up on the ash heap of history. That being clearly stated, the victim remained in their home region, near family and with the local culture intact to provide a modicum of normality.

Slaves, by comparison were ALWAYS involuntary, in the specific case of the United States, taken by force or through warfare, forced onto transports in unspeakably wretched conditions, and sold to the highest bidder, on a different continent, in a different hemisphere, doomed to never see their loved ones or any trace of their culture again.

There is NO equivalency between serfdom, even in its ugliest format, and chattel slavery. NONE.

I was simply pointing out that the owner of a slave, having paid money for them, might be more inclined to look out for their well-being so that they wouldn't die and lose their investment. Serfs were often treated as being expendable. From a morale point of view, both conditions are pretty darn awful.
 

Marc

Donor
As long as slave owners could commit sexualized violence, and never be punished by state or society, the peculiar institution would continue to exist.
 
As long as slave owners could commit sexualized violence, and never be punished by state or society, the peculiar institution would continue to exist.
When has society ever been that stagnant in recent history? Systems can adept and develop. The CSA isn’t far or that discontented from industrial world like many nations. Right over the border will be industrial power. Business, trade, and people from north and south would only natural interact on a regular basis even when they hate each other. This isn’t Mexico they have same language and more similarities/history. CSA free trade policy and political system could lead to southern economics being hijacked by foreign investors and companies. Even some local ones start too. The CSA isn’t as reactionary on advancement like old world nations or still aren’t as restricted as social mobility as Europe. A middle class German or Jew in Russia can likely never move up much in old world. They try to go to US first but are told no or denied so they go to confederacy where they can still buy cheap land and open businesses. If they fear being outnumbered by blacks the CSA might be doing anything in its power to attract whites(even allowing Jews and Slavs to come here in big numbers. CSA still might looked better then Russia for people leaving after pogroms. Brazil had immigrants in otl). Trade has always been keep to development.
 

Marc

Donor
When has society ever been that stagnant in recent history? Systems can adept and develop. The CSA isn’t far or that discontented from industrial world like many nations. Right over the border will be industrial power. Business, trade, and people from north and south would only natural interact on a regular basis even when they hate each other. This isn’t Mexico they have same language and more similarities/history. CSA free trade policy and political system could lead to southern economics being hijacked by foreign investors and companies. Even some local ones start too. The CSA isn’t as reactionary on advancement like old world nations or still aren’t as restricted as social mobility as Europe. A middle class German or Jew in Russia can likely never move up much in old world. They try to go to US first but are told no or denied so they go to confederacy where they can still buy cheap land and open businesses. If they fear being outnumbered by blacks the CSA might be doing anything in its power to attract whites(even allowing Jews and Slavs to come here in big numbers. CSA still might looked better then Russia for people leaving after pogroms. Brazil had immigrants in otl). Trade has always been keep to development.

I don't think you get, viscerally, the role of sex and sadism inherent in slavery. It doesn't fade away in time. Think of it this way, culturally, the South was a rapist society, enabled by laws and custom.
 
When has society ever been that stagnant in recent history? Systems can adept and develop. The CSA isn’t far or that discontented from industrial world like many nations. Right over the border will be industrial power. Business, trade, and people from north and south would only natural interact on a regular basis even when they hate each other. This isn’t Mexico they have same language and more similarities/history. CSA free trade policy and political system could lead to southern economics being hijacked by foreign investors and companies. Even some local ones start too. The CSA isn’t as reactionary on advancement like old world nations or still aren’t as restricted as social mobility as Europe. A middle class German or Jew in Russia can likely never move up much in old world. They try to go to US first but are told no or denied so they go to confederacy where they can still buy cheap land and open businesses.

Why would they be told no? You do know the Jewish Neighborhoods in New York and other big cities were started mostly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,right? Why would that change?
 
Given the way CSA sticking to free trade despite being underdeveloped, then NOPE. Also, their Constitution banned internal improvements.
While I agree that the CSA would be underdeveloped compared to the North, this last statement does not reflect their attitude. Their constitution banned their federal government from funding internal improvements. Their attitude was that internal improvements should be funded by the states, alone or (where necessary) in cooperation. They cited examples of where this had happened (such as Georgia and its neighbours in building railways). This would naturally be less efficient than having their federal government fund internal improvements, but it's an exaggeration to say that they were constitutionally forbidden from making internal improvements.
 
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