Thesis: slavery in the American south was not phasing out on its own.

Prison labor, and the "indentured"/contract labor in the Gulf and elsewhere is NOT the same as chattel slavery. Most prisoners go free at some point, and while the innocent do get convicted most are criminals. As crappy as things are for foreign laborers in the Gulf they go there and send money home because it is better than what they can do at home. Nobody is having sex with their wives or selling their children far away. In the Gulf, for example, the foreign workers living in crap conditions are doing the grunt work, the conditions of employment for heavy equipment operators, electricians etc are much better certainly not slave like.

That's not persuasive. Among other things, what does this assertion that 'most are criminals' has to do with anything.

Given that their wives and children are not in Gulf states, is that relevant? The report cited instances of sexual abuse.

Why does the possibility that some skilled workers get better conditions alleviate the crap conditions of other workers?
 
I still want the trifecta, which is an earlier, better end to slavery, with no civil war!

And even going further than this, we do right by the American plains Indians, we more matter-of-factly and readily accept labor unions. And we don't necessarily run away with things economically. Britain and France see what we're doing and give us a run for our money. And into the 20th century, the Asian Tigers, Russia, and India, compete much like they do OTL.

But give me a couple of wildcards, of new countries who become first world economies. Maybe even a couple of countries who keep significant non-cash aspects, like family agriculture alongside cash agricultural, or traditional healers ramping up their skills alongside western medical, etc. That is, we can still have very interesting history, even if things go a whole lot better! :)
 
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I still want the trifecta, which is an earlier, better end to slavery, with no civil war!
Maybe a bloodier War of Independance make the 13 colonies to get more people so offer full liberty to slaves who fight and make more slaveholder being pro british would help, regardless, slavery will be a massive issue in the early US.

And even going further than this, we do right by the American plains Indians, we more matter-of-factly and readily accept labor unions.
it so sound too utopian...and unpausable since second paragraph onward
 
If you ask me, doing right by eastern and Midwest Indians is more doable, if only because the 19th century was generally not great for pastoralists and nomadic groups.
 
Seceding was mistake, but one that could still be salvaged. If they waited a year or so, Corwin Amendment would be passed, and they could rejoin with their influence in DC greatly increased.
Attacking Fort Sumter did nothing for military position of Confederacy, but give North excuse to invade.
What is the Corwin Amendment?

Maybe the south could also offer a concession so that the north can save face, but the concession the south gets is more valuable (as part of face-saving, that is not obvious to the casual observer)

But . . .
 
The Risky Shift Phenomenon

http://www.geology.cwu.edu/dept/courses/g410/handouts/risky_shift.pdf

' . . . The general idea is that people in our society value risk, and in the group situation most individuals want to appear to be willing to take greater risks than the average person in order to be able to enhance their status in the group. . . '

'Risky Shift' is a real thing.

Less commonly, when group members are already more risk-averse than an average, group think can end up moving in that direction. Both phenomena can be grouped in the broader category called 'polar shift.'
 
What is the Corwin Amendment?

Its text was

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corwin_Amendment

Abraham Lincoln, in his first inaugural address on March 4, said of the Corwin Amendment:[2][18]

I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service ... holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.
 
Wish I could view this as . . maybe Lincoln buying time?

Lincoln believed, probably correctly, that the Constitution did not empower the Federal government to interfere in any way with slavery in a state. Therefore he had no objection to that principle being stated explicitly. Furthermore, an amendment to abolish slavery, or empower Congress to abolish it, could be passed only with the approval of 3/4 of the states. Since there were fifteen slave states, that would be impossible until there were sixty states (which we know now would never happen). So Lincoln had no objection to that de facto impossibility being made explicit.

And he was of course very worried that the attempted secession of Southern states would have to be put down by force, meaning a war that could be horrendously bloody and expensive. Since that attempt was intended to protect slavery, it seemed to him (and to many other Republicans) that giving Southerners a clear signal that no interference with slavery was intended or could happen might persuade them to rescind secession, avoiding that war. And there was no assurance that the Union could put down secession. Defeat in such a war would be catastrophic.

As much as he loathed slavery, he was not willing to sacrifice thousands of lives to bring about immediate emancipation (much less the hundreds of thousands that were actually lost). Nor to risk disunion if it could be avoided.

He would not consent to any expansion of slavery, and he believed that if slavery was confined, it would eventually die peacefully. But he didn't want to fight over it. His duty was to preserve the Union, and that came first.

(One might add that if the Union was broken, it would damage the cause of freedom and democracy everywhere, and also move the slaveholding states into a separate nation where they would be insulated from anti-slavery influence. The southern states would be far more likely to abolish slavery peacefully as states of the US.)
 
I think Brazil offer much of the answer for how long slavery could survive. From my knowledge slavery was already in collapse prior to the abolishment, because a fall in the price of sugar, and the slaves was often left alone as their masters no longer had work for them, the slave prices had collapsed and the master no longer had the money to keep control over the slaves, which meant they began migrating away, which pretty much meant they became free.

So when do we see a similar crisis in USA, the answer would be the ball weevil in the 1920ties.
 
And on the part of Congress, it seems poor negotiation. Like we're giving away the store without giving enough in return.

A clear better alternatives might have been for some liberal Congressman to privately communicate to southern colleagues, hey, we're willing to go out on a limb and speak in favor of this Amendment if you're willing to go out on a limb, too.
 

This book got me thinking that in addition to the beatings, the rapes, the starvation,

the worse part of slavery may have been when they took away your children.

* a time travel novel, the author is a sci fi writer who's excellent and died far too young
 
That's what I'd be afraid of.

Yes which likely result in a collapse in slavery sometimes between 1925-1940. A interesting and overlooked aspect of the end of slavery was that European admixture into the African American population became very limited after the abolishment of slavery and until the end of Desegregation, African Americans in a world where slavery are only abolished by 1940 may have significant more European admixture. So we may see a CSA or American south those demography look far more like Brazil with a large White, a large biracial("mulatto") and a relative small Black population.
 

Vuu

Banned
If anyone wants to investigate the viability of slavery in a modern economy, look at the Burj Khalifa. Or just the US prison system.

Or literally the entirety of Africa and a very good chunk of the Near East (especially the countries that never got Ba'ath'd) and see that slavery can be very diverse in how it appears, though it ain't the chattel kind employed in the southern US

I'd say slavery would gradually be abolished after 1900 due to a variety of reasons
 
And on the part of Congress, it seems poor negotiation. Like we're giving away the store without giving enough in return.

As I pointed out, it was a reasonable proposition that the Corwin Amendment gave away nothing, at least de facto.


A clear better alternatives might have been for some liberal Congressman to privately communicate to southern colleagues, hey, we're willing to go out on a limb and speak in favor of this Amendment if you're willing to go out on a limb, too.

The Representatives and Senators from the seven Deep South states that had declared secession had all left Washington.

In any case, a few behind-the-scenes winks and nods weren't going to do any good. Lincoln and the Republicans wanted to shift public opinion in the South to put pressure on the leadership, which at this point was firmly committed to secession.
(Or weaken secession sentiment in the Upper South and Border.)
 
I think Brazil offer much of the answer for how long slavery could survive. From my knowledge slavery was already in collapse prior to the abolishment, because a fall in the price of sugar, and the slaves was often left alone as their masters no longer had work for them, the slave prices had collapsed and the master no longer had the money to keep control over the slaves, which meant they began migrating away, which pretty much meant they became free.

So when do we see a similar crisis in USA, the answer would be the ball weevil in the 1920ties.
Brazil is not a good comparison for the slaveholding USA. To paraphrase one of my posts a few years ago about why slavery was much more entrenched in the southern US states than in Brazil:

a) the South had a much harsher view of race than Brazil did (or any other Latin American country or former French colony, come to that). The 'one drop rule' is the most visible manifestation of that, although far from the only one.
b) slavery was more profitable in the South than it was in Brazil, due to a combination of geography and better transport networks (although it still made considerable profits even in Brazil).
c) the South was in a federal republic, with separation of powers which made it much easier for a minority of slaveholders to block abolition even if the majority of southerners do come to want it. And which would apply either in slavery as part of the USA, or in an independent CSA.
d) Catholicism in Brazil had always emphasised the slaves were still Christians and that the Catholic Church retained responsibility for the eternal salvation of the slaves. This was a moderating influence. In the South, Christianity was used to justify slavery.
e) For a variety of reasons, fear of what would happen if slavery were abolished was much stronger in the South than in Brazil. Slave revolts were vanishingly rare in the South, but quite common in Brazil, yet the South was more paranoid about them. Go figure.
f) In Brazil, the slave population decreased because deaths exceeded births. This meant that once the illegal slave trade was clamped down on by Britain, the slave population kept decreasing through natural attrition. In the South, the slave population grew by natural increase.
g) Brazil was much more vulnerable to British pressure than Southern states in the USA were likely to be. Britain had sent ships into Brazilian ports to attack slave trading ships. Britain never tried this with the Southern USA. Even an independent CSA would be more immune to such threats, if only because it did not rely on slave imports (Brazil did), and because slaves could be transported by land or inland waterways even if the British are patrolling the coast.

Even then, it's worth noting that slavery was abolished because Brazil had an Emperor who could abolish slavery by decree, and did so. And a fazendeiro-backed coup kicked him off his throne the following year as a result, although the coup backers didn't try to restore slavery, figuring that it would be too hard to turn back the clock.

Also, the timing of Brazilian abolition was in part an outcome of the ACW. The defeat of the CSA was a contributing factor to the proposals for gradual emancipation in Brazil in the 1870s, and it is unlikely that these would have started so soon without it.
 
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Yes which likely result in a collapse in slavery sometimes between 1925-1940. A interesting and overlooked aspect of the end of slavery was that European admixture into the African American population became very limited after the abolishment of slavery and until the end of Desegregation, African Americans in a world where slavery are only abolished by 1940 may have significant more European admixture. So we may see a CSA or American south those demography look far more like Brazil with a large White, a large biracial("mulatto") and a relative small Black population.

I've heard of this before, but do you have any source I could read on this?

Unfortunately, the one drop rule was designed specifically to render this a moot development.
 
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