The Slavery Debate of 1867 and the 19th Amendment
(From Wikipedia)
The Compromise of 1856 had mandated the freedom of the womb to take effect in 1870 with the freemen being granted both passage to a “Colony” and land or territory in the Northwest…) By 1867 slavery was becoming more and more ostracized by the mainstream of American society. Many saw a need to go beyond the Compromise of 1856 and begin immediately freeing slaves. In 1867 this reached a head after Virginia, North Carolina, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri all passed slavery bans between 1865-1867. Furthermore it was beginning to look as if Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi would soon join the anti-slavery bandwagon. It looked as if Slavery would be dead long before the 1870 Freedom of the Womb would take place…
Hardliners in Havana, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, and West Florida tried to push through a bill delaying FoW to 1880.. It backfired Abolitionist forces within Congress where quick to take advantage of the public outcry against the remaining slave states and began pushing for passage 19th Amendment (a complete abolition and enfranchisement act) they would eventually succeed but not before amending it to extend the “Passage” and Education requirements to be extended from the 1856 compromise to all current slave holders. (That is they where required to fund a portion of the freeman’s education or passage in reparation for past service accrued in the last 5 years.) The Date of Emancipation was set to take place on July 4th, 1870… The 19th Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified on August 7th, 1869 by Florida. Hardliners in the Deep South tried to “secede” but where seen by the majority in those states as lunatics and while some armed incidents did take place those involved where summarily arrested and the majority of them would have there properties liquidated later by Civil Courts and distributed to there former slaves….
Many new “freemen” would end up settling in the south taking advantage of the Federal Government’s very strict policy of education and fair “labor” policies…. Others would take advantage of the Northwestern “Settlement Acts” or the “Passage Bill” and would end up settling in Patagonia or in the vast territories of the Northern Plains and Cascadia. The 1874 and 1876 elections became very interesting with many of the freed blackmen dominating many of the legislatures of the former slave states. While some “white supremacists groups emerged primarily in Georgia and Alabama those involved in crimes against the black community soon found themselves on trial by Juries of their victims…..
While race relations in the United States would take nearly a century to truly reach a equality, with the Gulf and Caribbean states being the worst, the Northern and Western states would by the early 20th century see almost a parity between the races.
One of the side effects of the 19th Amendment was an actual reduction of the populations of the Deep South between 1869 and 1873 as many whites actually ended up migrating to South Africa, Texas, and other European colonies that “held similar views” This was actually beneficial to the South in its efforts to catch up with the North in it’s industrialization campaign.