Poll: When Would the CSA Eliminate Slavery

By What Point Would The Confederacy Have Eradicated Slavery?


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I think it is important to point out much of the post-ww2 world was influenced by American ideas and influences so I feel like there is a good chance any of or more regions break off the US you see the Western Hemisphere especially North America function more like that politically and economically but with regional conflict and domestic issues causing nations to develop more rapidly but up and downs are much more extreme(going from booming 20s to Great Depression 30s more often). Almost all American nations received some level of immigration and invest over time. Also the large issue with America breaking up there are much less unifying elements and less nationality ties in many regions. Remember America didn’t start assimilating large parts of its population until after ww1 and 2. Germans, Italians, Jews, Slavs, Catholic, Irish, and other groups can be much less integrated due to butterflies. Imagine US still looking at Irish people in the 1960s in a similar way to the 1860s. The growth of America itself is amazing. Many nations this size don’t survive for this long usually.
 
Many people don’t like the thought of being peasants or ruled by aristocrats for their whole life.

The desire to not be peasants ruled by aristocrats is one reason that fueled European immigration to the US, but you portray Confederate citizens as uncomplaining when the Confederate government grants extra votes to the wealthy or even disenfranchises poor Confederate whites. Even attempting this would reduce immigration into the Confederacy and increase emmigration out of the Confederacy.

America is founded on equality of opportunity not equality for all.

I'm afraid the Founders disagree with you - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". The US has often failed at the ideal, but the ideal is equal rights for all.

Only the rich and educated elites who worked to get there are supposed to be the people voting and running for office

If the Founders intended that only "rich and educated elites" would hold office, they wouldn't have provided salaries for Congress and the President.

People go where their is opportunity and space.

Which is why most European immigrants went to free states, where there was more opportunity and more space. The US Census shows that in 1850 there were more immigrants in New York, than all 11 states of the Confederacy would have a decade later.
 
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The CSA could have three to four types of leaders over the years. Someone like Lee who sees the flaws of stuff but doesn’t have enough power to completely change. Lee could become kind of a strongman during his reign and set groundwork for industrialization hoping it would eventually lead to slavery being phased away near turn of the century. Lee being military man focuses heavily on reforming, organized, and building up the national defense forces. He then encourages industrial growth through military production(need to arm police force and local militias in case on slave revolt).

Ah, the ever popular AH cliches of RE Lee always being the 2nd President of the CSA and being a closet abolitionist. For the Confederacy to gain its independence, it will need at least one more military commander who equals or exceeds RE Lee in military skill and in ability to get along with Jefferson Davis. Confederate independence either means someone besides Lee is seen as the CSA equivalent of George Washington or there are too many candidates for any CSA general to stand out as the modern Washington. Lee showed no special interest in a political career, though that could change - Grant and Eisenhower weren't especially interested in politics before people asked them to run for President. If Lee becomes CSA President, he would be what William Davis's history of the Confederacy, Look Away, called new Nationalists, who favored centralization and would quickly become as popular with the States Rights types as Jefferson Davis was. Even as a centralizer, Lee had zero interest in funding industry, plus it was probably unconstitutional and had no chance of getting past the Confederate Congress. Lee wasn't a closet abolitionist, either, the slaves he gets credit for freeing were freed because it was required by his father-in-law's will.

Any second President of the Confederacy, including RE Lee, would have the major task of demobilizing the majority of the Confederate military. This was absolutely essential to get workers back to their farms and factories and to reduce Confederate government spending so that the country could try to recover economically. The Confederates will see no need to reorganize or reform their army, after all, they won. Just how small the Confederate army should become will be a matter of bitter debate, but 20 to 30 thousand is probably the most they can afford, with the Union Army being at least 30% larger. I'd also expect the Confederacy to sell off surplus firearms to help reduce their massive national debt.

There are other issues that pretty will guarantee the 2nd Confederate President would be heavily criticized. The Confederacy considered all of the slaveholding states to be theirs by right, plus a "fair" share of the territories, meaning the major mineral producing regions, plus a route to the Pacific. They have no credible chance of attaining that, so revanchism will be an issue. Another issue would be the loss of labor force due to the numbers of pro-Union southerners who fought in the Union army, plus the slaves who ran away. There's also what to do with the Unionists still in Confederate territory, many of whom are in armed rebellion against the CSA. There will also be debates on expansion, inflation, the public debt, and the overtaxed infrastructure. In OTL, Lee died in 1870. Considering the stress of being President, RE Lee would die less than halfway through his first term and be remembered as a far better general than President,
 
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Second type would be someone like Andrew Johnson. A populist to the white underclass but constantly at odds with aristocrats and is extremely racist(paranoid about slave up rising more so then the average confederate). He could also encourage industrialization to help provide jobs to white poor and he careless so about upsetting aristocrats.

Andrew Johnston did hate both southern 'aristocrats' and the black people, but fear of a slave uprising was true of all social classes in the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis, a very wealthy planter, responded to the Union arming black troops by declaring they were to be treated as part of a "servile insurrection" - black troops were to be executed or enslaved, while their white officers were to be executed, Some Confederate populists might favor industrialization, but most of them would oppose state-financed industrialization.

The third could be Huey Long type man. A other populist but flips flop a lot depending on the crowd and situation. He a “new money” President and a “self made man”. Him and his family came from poor background but worked their way up to own a bunch of mines, mills, textile, small farms(food crops), few slaves, and some private armies.

Nobody in the Confederacy would be allowed to have a private army. And unless the Confederate government was collapsing into anarchy, no rich Confederate would want or need a private army.

His policies encourage the development of businesses like his(he changing policies to benefit himself and his support base which leads to more small local industries but still industries).

I'm noting a theme here. You describe every type of possible Confederate politician as wanting to encourage increased Confederate industrialization. You have imagined a world where almost all Confederate politicians favored the Confederate government actively promoting industrialization. In the real South, using the government to encourage industrialization was an unpopular fringe view, not the view of every Confederate politician who ever breathed. The real politicians who organized the Confederate government almost all favored low tariffs, which would make it harder for fledgling Confederate industry to compete against imports. The real Confederate Constitution, which forbade federal money being spent on "internal improvements". Both Confederate law and economic policies prevented the Confederate government from doing anything to encourage industrialization.
 
The south could have a bunch of Huey Long, Boss Hog, and “new money” white politicians and businessmen in the south. They won’t be bound to the same taboos as slave owning aristocrats and are often populist(propaganda and politic skills. There are layers to class system in the south besides just master and slave).

The South had plenty of "new money" businessmen, but both new and old money rich Southerners owned lots of slaves. Perhaps the best known "new money" businessman in the slavesholding states was Nathan Bedford Forrest, who became a self-made millionaire by working as a slave trader.

The four is traditionalist or Davis type. This would basically be stagnation or recession period but end early if he caves to whatever possible shifts happen in the houses during his presidency.

The Confederates could have picked a worse President than Jefferson Davis, but that would have taken significant effort. Davis never caved in to anyone, regardless of the cost. Inflexibility and inability to admit error were defining characteristics of Davis. However, his views on the economy, expressed in his inaugural address, were those of most Confederate politicians.

"[We are] An agricultural people, whose chief interest is the export of a commodity required in every manufacturing country, our true policy is peace, and the freest trade which our necessities will permit. It is alike our interest, and that of all those to whom we would sell and from whom we would buy, that there should be the fewest practicable restrictions upon the interchange of commodities. There can be but little rivalry between ours and any manufacturing or navigating community, such as the Northeastern States of the American Union."

The Confederates largely had no interest in becoming a manufacturing or seafaring nation. They wanted to focus on their strength, agricultural exports. They were strongly committed to low tariffs.

To get a Confederate government which would actively encourage industry is going to require decades of economic hardship and/or the old Confederate government be swept away by a coup or revolution.
 

DougM

Donor
You will NEVER see the CSA in the 1800s supporting centralized anything nor will you see it creating an industrial segment.
The REASON the war was fought was to protect the self interests of the wealthy land/slave holders. The will NEVER give this up.

Think about this for one minute. The a country goes to war for Reason A. And then turns around and willing starts chopping away at reason A. Does that seam logical or likely?

The wealthy southern slave holder was so self centered that the kept other people as slaves and started the bloodiest war in US history out of self interest. But you think once the war is over and they have control of this new government that was designed by them for them to keep them in position of wealth and power that they are going to suddenly just give it up? This is by far more ASB then the CSA winning the war in the first year.

Think about all the stuff these slave holders did when they were in the union in order to protect themselves. The various agreements on free/slave states be admitted to the union and the rediculus laws that were passed about run away slaves and being able to take slaves into free states and all the rest. They were so obsessed with protecting slavery that they all but drove the north into a unified position opposing the south/slavery. So if they were so obsessed that they basically caused there own downfall, You will not see the same exact people giving up ANY influence power or wealth anytime soon.

So you will have to wait for them to die off and hope the next generation is different but I doubt that will happen
So I don’t see the CSA EVER giving up slavery without being forced to and I don’t see them creating the conditions needed to get large amounts of industry as that would creat rival power blocks inside the CSA.

Remember these folks are as effected by the civil war as anyone else and they will not want to chance repeating the past so they won’t allow any anti slavery movement in the CSA as that could end up with a CSA-Civil war asthe two factions go at it. And those in power in the CSA are not going to risk that again.
 
OTL the lower class whites were really screwed by the elites. Social and economic mobility was dramatically less than in the former CSA states than elsewhere in the USA. Public education for whites, especially outside of urban areas, was terrible and any sort of infrastructure that was state financed and controlled (the bulk by far until the New Deal) was pretty pathetic, decent roads served the needs of the elites and once you got off those terrible was a good day. Cronyism, nepotism, and corruption was endemic. Why did the lower class/poor whites not demand better - they had the reality that the lowest white was forever above the highest black, that whatever improvements such as roads, sewers, running water, schools, etc that did come about would go to them and pretty much only them. While acceptance of crap governance was not universal, the Jim Crow system satisfied the bulk of those not in the power structure, and the reality was while rising was difficult it was not impossible for the white man, but forever denied to the black man.

In an independent CSA you have the reinforcement of the victory flush, plus the 2/3-3/4 of the population that did not own slaves not only had the white over black situation of Jim Crow but could aspire to become slave owners. IMHO you would actually see slave ownership become MORE distributed than in 1860 for several reasons. You were beginning to see a "slave surplus" as the number of slaves in the upper south decreased due to economic reasons, changes in agricultural products etc. As you get some levels of mechanization, and with the better industrial jobs reserved for whites (and there will be some increase in industrialization, just not a lot), plus natural increase, the price of slaves as a commodity will decrease meaning owning a small number of slaves becomes economic for more folks. Much like affording even a small number of domestics became a symbol of the middle class (not the huge staffs of the very wealthy) you will see shop owners and better off yeoman farmers owning a domestic slave or three, or slave low level shop assistants, or a farm worker or two. Every additional citizen who graduates to the slave owning class becomes another strong adherent of keeping the system. For the married on this board just imagine the impact of wives complaining to husbands "if we have to pay our cook and maid, give them days off, we simply won't be able to afford them - and how will I ever manage this household without them...". I doubt THAT husband will vote for emancipation.
 
The desire to not be peasants ruled by aristocrats is one reason that fueled European immigration to the US, but you portray Confederate citizens as uncomplaining when the Confederate government grants extra votes to the wealthy or even disenfranchises poor Confederate whites. Even attempting would reduce immigration into the Confederacy and increase emmigration out of the Confederacy.



I'm afraid the Founders disagree with you - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". The US has often failed at the ideal, but the ideal is equal rights for all.



If the Founders intended that only "rich and educated elites" would hold office, they wouldn't have provided salaries for Congress and the President.



Which is why most European immigrants went to free states, where there was more opportunity and more space. The US Census shows that in 1850 there were more immigrants in New York, than all 11 states of the Confederacy would have a decade later.
It depends on which founding father your talking about. Remember a few of them are from Virginia. Southern colonies were the more conservative element even during the revolution and after. Virginia was the most important and powerful state until industrialization started taking off. The founding had a bit of differences between themselves but not all of them thought of equality as we did. Your looking at there words from your modern mindset. They did not intend for democracy but a republic which is a big difference. They thought democracy was a failure and lead to mob rule but a completely undemocratic system was also undesirable and lead to tyranny. They wanted social mobility for all men(not blacks or women). But they believe only the people who worked there way should rule and vote. Basically the middle class and above. They didn’t even want some white men voting or running for office. The reason they put land and wealth requirements in early elections is because they only wanted educated older and somewhat wealthy men voting because they did not think illiterate poor should vote. This is why classical and enlightenment liberals like them support public education. They believe everyone should have the opportunity to move up in the world but you could not take part in politics until you “proved” yourself. It was intended as a meritocracy mixed with a good bit of democratic elements which is equality but in a different fashion. Your looking at equality from the more modern view which people often intentionally or accidentally mix with more Marxist ideas about it. In American systems everyone is supposed to start as equal but the rest is up to you and your choices. That’s why classical liberals thought being poor was self inflicted
 
It depends on which founding father your talking about. Remember a few of them are from Virginia. Southern colonies were the more conservative element even during the revolution and after. Virginia was the most important and powerful state until industrialization started taking off. The founding had a bit of differences between themselves but not all of them thought of equality as we did. Your looking at there words from your modern mindset. They did not intend for democracy but a republic which is a big difference. They thought democracy was a failure and lead to mob rule but a completely undemocratic system was also undesirable and lead to tyranny. They wanted social mobility for all men(not blacks or women). But they believe only the people who worked there way should rule and vote. Basically the middle class and above. They didn’t even want some white men voting or running for office. The reason they put land and wealth requirements in early elections is because they only wanted educated older and somewhat wealthy men voting because they did not think illiterate poor should vote. This is why classical and enlightenment liberals like them support public education. They believe everyone should have the opportunity to move up in the world but you could not take part in politics until you “proved” yourself. It was intended as a meritocracy mixed with a good bit of democratic elements which is equality but in a different fashion. Your looking at equality from the more modern view which people often intentionally or accidentally mix with more Marxist ideas about it. In American systems everyone is supposed to start as equal but the rest is up to you and your choices. That’s why classical liberals thought being poor was self inflicted

Dude, have you thought of just writing your own timeline?
 
When it becomes unmanageable. A combination of industry, automation in farming, a need to be competitive with other nations, and slaves escaping north becoming a drain on resources (it won’t just be the loss of manpower but all the added expense of keeping them on the plantation that kills slavery.)

By that point, there may be a generation that decides slavery is bullshit and abolishes it on some level. International pressure may play a role in that if the CSA wants to be anything but isolated.
 
British/union bullying will get rid of slavery by 1880-1900. Actual social/legal emancipation of blacks? Well, OTL it took a combo of mechanization of agriculture, northern intervention+bribing the north with lots of federal money to get second reconstruction going 1964ish OTL. An independent CSA? My guess is sometime in the 1970s or later for ending their version of jim crow, with the most likely timeframe imo being sometime between 1976-1990.
 
For economic recovery focusing on diversifying the trade economy is key.

There was never this level of centralized economic planning in the Confederacy.

Unlike a small Latin American nation that trades one or two resources the south trade dozen or more.

About 5/6th of exports from the Confederate states were cotton, with most of the rest being tobacco. Long before the start of the Civil War, the Deep South had chosen monocrop agriculture to maximize profits and had no use for diversifying. The Border South had much more diversified agriculture and most of the CSA's industry, but they had also taken the most economic damage from a combination of Union and Confederate army foraging, overtaxed and destroyed infrastructure, and loss of the labor force from black and white southerners who fled or even served in the Union armies.

They just need to make enough to get out of debt first not compete with US but once they get out it won’t be bad especially if the north really doesn’t invade the south. If the south ends war before the major offensives war repairs won’t be nearly as much. The south can pay off debt by trading its resources when left undamaged by the war for the most part. The south can also sell land, property, or other valuable assets within the nation to pay off debts and help develop at the same time.

The Confederate government cannot sell anything it does not own. It does not own land, property, slaves, livestock, crops, mines, factories. or infrastructure. The Confederacy will have to pay its debts by taxation, inflation, or taking on even more long term debt.

Foreign businesses in CSA might become more sympathetic or even loyal to them over time. They are winning many(not all) through brides and corruption. The businesses came to CSA looking to exploit the country for all its worth but many while their actual decide to stay when they figure out “hey I have less tariffs, little taxes, no worker rights, no minimum wage, cheap materials nearby, government support, and plenty of cheap labor”. Many probably decide to stay. A Yankee moving to CSA won’t be the same as him going to Mexico(foreigners also can’t own land or certain things in Mexico. Big hinderance to possible early American business). Southern industrialization might just happen. Even if France stayed a reactionary and backwards regime industrialization from Belgium, Britain, and Germany are likely to drift over by default due to how close it is and how often they react with each other.

This is not the path to a prosperous, industrial CSA, it is the path to the CSA becoming a corrupt, backwards banana republic where most of the wealth flows into the pockets of foreign investors and corrupt bureaucrats while the general population becomes increasingly impoverished and desperate.
 
Earlier victory avoids a lot of that.

Early victory reduces the Confederacy's loss of escaped slaves and white Unionists fleeing. It does not eliminate the problem. Early victory does not change the fact that immigrants went almost entirely to free states.

Early victory requires the Confederacy produce at least one general who equals or exceeds RE Lee in military skill and ability to get along with Jefferson Davis. No real person comes close to meeting that description, so there is no chance of an early Confederate victory.
 
The mobilize army who is left mostly undamaged could be use to purge the country of any loyalists out holds and slave unrest quickly after the war(CSA army can take care of partisans and slaves).

Regardless of the length of the war, crushing Unionists and unruly slaves would be the first post-war task of the Confederate armies. I expect most will be given the same chance that the USCT and the Tennessee Unionists were given at Ft Pillow and be massacred, though some may fight their way to Union territory. There's also a good chance the Confederate government will force a Trail of Tears on white Unionist civilians.
 
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The south could have played a more defensive and egging approach.

That probably would have been better, but it won't happen if Jefferson Davis is President of the CSA, nor if RE Lee is commanding a Confederate army, but it does not give a short war, it gives a peace by exhaustion.

They ask for “peace talks”(knowing the will be denied but using it as propaganda against Lincoln to help turn public opinions).

If CSA calls for peace talks, it will merely look like a desperation play unless the war has gone on long enough that a significant portion of Union civilians become convinced that the war cannot be won. This also does not give a short war, it gives a peace by exhaustion.

The south makes sure to not fire or attack first in early days of the war but at the same time they are making it very hard for Union troops not to fire at them first.

Jefferson Davis and every member of the Confederate Cabinet except Robert Toombs thought ordering the attack on Ft Sumter was great idea. Even if Toombs had been the first Confederate President, South Carolina Fire Eaters probably would have opened fire anyway.

A more hardline Lincoln or Lincoln who feels rushed might overreact or act to early(that why he waited to free the slaves.

This would require an Abraham Lincoln who was stupid, impulsive, and put ending slavery above trying to reunite the country. It could only happen of the ASBs reformat Lincoln's brain to make him into someone completely different.
 
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CSA try to prolong peace talks as long as possible to take time to prepare and build up. Maybe they keep actual war from starting for a year or more.

If the Confederacy somehow keeps any of their hotheads from firing on Union forces for that long, that will give the Union ample time to secure control of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas; which only seceded in OTL after the Confederates attacked Ft Sumter. It also means the Union will have all of that time to set up an effective blockade of Confederate ports.

In that time they trade, draft, stockpile war materials, train, organize armies, and try to build up political support. North will being do this too but the longer with no progress the more public gets upset and opposition grows. South looks more legitimate to many the longer they go on without immediate threat or harm to the nation by union forces. Also that army can be used to clear unionist and partisans within the CSA while north is still trying to figure stuff out politically.

If TTLsConfederacy starts by attacking Unionist civilians in northern Alabama or the German majority sections of Texas, that gives the Union a publicly acceptable reason to attack them. The 7 States of the of TTLs Confederacy will be outnumbered 5-to-1 in population, 25-to-1 in industry and the Union will already have troops poised on the southern borders of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. If they're lucky, TTLs Confederacy will last a year after they attack the Unionist civilians.
 
When it becomes unmanageable. A combination of industry, automation in farming, a need to be competitive with other nations, and slaves escaping north becoming a drain on resources (it won’t just be the loss of manpower but all the added expense of keeping them on the plantation that kills slavery.)

By that point, there may be a generation that decides slavery is bullshit and abolishes it on some level. International pressure may play a role in that if the CSA wants to be anything but isolated.

One thing I haven't seen brought up: antibiotics and slavery.

Once antibiotics become cheap and easily available, and assuming slavery is still around by then, would that keep it going longer? That would probably cut down on medical costs, if planters decide to do away with doctors and just give their slaves some pills.
 
The so-called social mobility in the TTL CSA would be much less than OTL South. You need a strong education system to ensure true social mobility, since uneducated people could not hope to join the upper social stratas, and Southern conservatives opposed public education. And ITTL CSA upper class would be much more aristocratic in nature, which would also deter the supposed social mobility.

Yep, a well-educated populace would threaten the status quo for the planters, so not to be thought of.
 
Collapsing?



That is like a man on foot trying to outrun an automobile. The Union had 10 times the industry of the Confederacy and this was still true 60 years after the Civil War.

Yep, I don't see how a reactionary regime is going to compete well against the US. His description of its government resembles strongly a Banana Republic.
 
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