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

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.
From what I recall reading once, because of the admixture, and the one drop rule, you would have people that would be considered black and thus slaves because they were one/sixty fourth black. What this would mean is thst you would have white looking slaves , who if they weren't taken out of slavery by their fathers , would then when being sold, they would be extremely valuable, since those slaves would have all the white American beauty standards , but they were slaves. So, basically, they were white sex slaves thst would be totally legal to have since,legally speaking, they were black slaves, but physically they could be as attractive as any white woman off the street , but without the semi-protection of being a free white person.
 
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.


Exactly. So much ink has been spilled over Brazilian emancipation and what it meant for the south, namely that slavery was doomed within a couple decades. What people don't realize is that using Brazil (and Cuba) as a sign of the times is putting the cart before the horse. Confederate success will embolden Latin American slaveholders to defend the institution as integral to order and property, and weaken the position of reformists. The Emperor will hesitate making any move against slavery for fear of leading his country into a crisis. As it did anyway, historically.

Brazilian emancipation is pushed 10-15 years into the future, easily.
 
Nice post, was thinking of talking about the different myself and you did all I wanted and better at that, there is some points for me to comment though.
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.
I think that is the reason actually, revolts being common meant there was no mystique about them they were just something to be dealt with, them being rare allows fantastical ideas to be spread and take hold.
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.
That is a very common misconception I have spoken of earlier this thread so elaborating further, while the Emperor Pedro II and Princess Isabel did play an important part it was the civil service of the government(the best Brazil ever had if only for complete lack of competition) built over his reign that actually did it and they, by and large, managed to get the agreement or at least acceptance of the slave holding elite prior to slavery being abolished, with the holdovers after rapidly being appeased.

The issue then was that the idea of republic already wasn't very popular with any group so with the only point of any significance gone, along with other things like the reestablishment of the National Guard meaning soon the government would have a loyal force, the few remaining supporters panicked and decided it was now or never. Indeed the forces involved were so minor people passing by them in the streets and where they gathered didn't even realize anything was happening.

As people prepared to crush the attempt Pedro II dismissed them culminating with him saying "If so it will be my retirement, I am tired and wish to rest." at which point people believing the idea was to establish a presidential or parliamentary republic resigned themselves to go along, then the confusion of the entire working government being dismissed and none of the actors with any idea or plan of what to replace it with ended up with the horrible mess that was the Old Republic(the damage caused to the country by it is frankly baffling especially on how unremarked it goes by).

All Pedro II had to do was nothing and let people sort it out, as he did over the course of his reign being largely the reason things worked, and the monarchy would have continued.
 
So who speaks for the human being in slavery?

This too much feels like we're taking as a major premise that Lincoln is a 'great' president and giving all kinds of deference to his choices and actions.

He did care about the human being in slavery, but as POTUS he was bound by the Constitution, which recognised that institution as legitimate.

At least, that is, until the slaveholders forced the issue by seceding and waging war against the US. Then it took little more than a year to move him all the way from promising to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law to signing the Emancipation Proclamation. He did what his circumstances allowed him to do.
 
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.

In the 1850s there was growing concern that the increasing number of slaves hardly distinguishable in their skin colour from their masters could lead to "real" white people being enslaved. There's an interesting little article about this at

https://medium.com/@mischling2nd/ra...-censored-cause-of-the-civil-war-70f05ef77899
 
(Or weaken secession sentiment in the Upper South and Border.)
There's a Lincoln quote to the effect that, the more he thought about it, the more he thought Kentucky was the whole game. At the time, Kentucky was somewhat more important with both its population and its economy compared to the rest of the nation than it is today.

Kentucky was neutral at the beginning. But the pro-Secession, pro-South fractions made such a horse's ass of themselves that public opinion shifted. Kentucky joined the Union war effort as a slave-holding border state.

PS Even with this added as a Lincoln, I'd still be open to a reasoned argument in which we shift Lincoln downward to maybe 5th or 6th as far as the greatest presidents of all time.
 
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The North tried compromise. The South chose war.

Washington Post, Carole Emberton, Perspective [Editorial], Nov. 1, 2017

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ose-war/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.89de17051d21

' . . . In fact, the secession crisis of 1860-61 was the culmination of a decade-long movement led by ultra-radical pro-slavery “Fire-Eaters” [Emphasis added] . . . '

' . . . The Compromise of 1850 even included a revamped Fugitive Slave Law . . . . . Lands acquired from Mexico, except for the new state of California, would be open to slavery via popular vote. . . '

' . . . Kentucky senator and former vice president John J. Crittenden introduced a proposal to head off the secession crisis . . . . . the Crittenden Compromise, this series of proposed constitutional amendments would have guaranteed slavery’s existence in perpetuity. It reaffirmed previous compromises, like the opening of slavery in all territories south of the 36/30 line (as designed by the Missouri Compromise in 1820), . . . '

' . . . Most importantly, no future amendments could alter these or in any way interfere with slavery, . . . ' *

' . . . For congressional Republicans, this compromise, which would have allowed for slavery’s expansion, was a nonstarter. . . '

Carole Emberton is associate professor of history at the University at Buffalo who specializes in the Civil War era.

* That is, a meta-Constitutional Amendment!
Okay, so the Republican members of the House and Senate did not want slavery to expand.

And yes, there were 'radical' abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, but they didn't hold political power. It sounds like the real radicals who held political power were the southern "Fire-Eaters."
 
Okay, so the Republican members of the House and Senate did not want slavery to expand.
Nor did Lincoln. He would not give an inch on slavery in the territories. He agreed that it was constitutionally permitted for a new state to adopt slavery after it was admitted, but argued that no state which had not had slavery as a Territory would adopt it as a state.

And yes, there were 'radical' abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, but they didn't hold political power. It sounds like the real radicals who held political power were the southern "Fire-Eaters."
There were radical abolitionists in Congress, such as Charles Sumner and Owen Lovejoy. However, there were not enough of them to pass laws or control policy.

Neither were there enough "Fire-Eaters". However, the Fire-Eaters controlled South Carolina and did win control in the other Deep South states in the panic over Lincoln's election.
 
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.
Umm. Well yeah, if you're more paranoid about something, you take more action to prevent this.
 
Umm. Well yeah, if you're more paranoid about something, you take more action to prevent this.
Not sure I follow this. The point was that the South was more worried about the consequences of abolition than Brazil, and hence using Brazil as a comparison for abolition is a flawed one.

Greater fear of slave revolts was part of the Southern paranoia of abolition, but not the only one. So was fear of what slaves would do if freed- and not just violence.
 
[QUOE="GeographyDude, post: 17368976, member: 80611"]There's a Lincoln quote to the effect that, the more he thought about it, the more he thought Kentucky was the whole game.[/QUOTE]

"I hope to God on my side, but I have to have Kentucky."
At the time, Kentucky was somewhat more important with both its population and its economy compared to the rest of the nation than it is today.
It wasn't Kentucky's population or economy, it was Kentucky's strategic position that was critical.
 
Not sure I follow this. The point was that the South was more worried about the consequences of abolition than Brazil, and hence using Brazil as a comparison for abolition is a flawed one.

Greater fear of slave revolts was part of the Southern paranoia of abolition, but not the only one. So was fear of what slaves would do if freed- and not just violence.

You said that South was more paranoid about slave revolts than Brazil, despite having smaller frequency of slave revolts than Brazil.
I replied that South had less slave revolts because it was more paranoid about them than Brazil.

All I am saying is that if you're paranoid about any large gathering of slaves, and if you check whether all your guns are locked and accounted for before you went to sleep, you're gonna have less slave revolts than if you didn't.
 
You said that South was more paranoid about slave revolts than Brazil, despite having smaller frequency of slave revolts than Brazil.
I replied that South had less slave revolts because it was more paranoid about them than Brazil.
The South had fewer slave revolts because the conditions for slaves, while horrible, were less bad than the conditions in sugar plantations which were present in Brazil and the sugar Caribbean. (And large-scale mining also, for Brazil).

Working conditions across sugar plantations were notoriously, horrifically bad, with very high death rates for the slaves, which encouraged an attitude amongst the slaves that they had nothing to lose by revolting, since they were likely to die anyway. Not to mention that they already came armed with machetes.

Slave revolts were common across the sugar islands of the Caribbean, regardless of the European power running the colonies, and regardless of their differences in style in managing plantations. This was just a consequence of the environment and the steady supply of new slaves.

In contrast, on the mainland USA (and in the colonial period), the likelihood of premature death was significantly lower; witness that the slave population there grew by natural increase from very early on. The risk of slave revolt was consequently lower because the slaves knew the the risk of death in a revolt was high, and preferred living to dying. As interviews with former slaves demonstrated; they were perfectly willing to fight for their freedom if they thought that they had a chance of success, but were not willing to commit suicide by revolting with no prospect of success.

This applied even when some Southern states were founded by slaveholders coming from the Caribbean and applied similar styles in both places - but the sugar plantations saw revolts much more than mainland North America.

Yet despite slave revolts being less likely, Southerners remained more paranoid about the possibility of same. I think that @chrnno has it right - the rarity of slave revolts made them seem even more horrific and meant that they attracted a mystique much in excess of their prospects of success.
 
The South had fewer slave revolts because the conditions for slaves, while horrible, were less bad than the conditions in sugar plantations which were present in Brazil and the sugar Caribbean. (And large-scale mining also, for Brazil).

Working conditions across sugar plantations were notoriously, horrifically bad, with very high death rates for the slaves, which encouraged an attitude amongst the slaves that they had nothing to lose by revolting, since they were likely to die anyway. Not to mention that they already came armed with machetes.

Slave revolts were common across the sugar islands of the Caribbean, regardless of the European power running the colonies, and regardless of their differences in style in managing plantations. This was just a consequence of the environment and the steady supply of new slaves.

In contrast, on the mainland USA (and in the colonial period), the likelihood of premature death was significantly lower; witness that the slave population there grew by natural increase from very early on. The risk of slave revolt was consequently lower because the slaves knew the the risk of death in a revolt was high, and preferred living to dying. As interviews with former slaves demonstrated; they were perfectly willing to fight for their freedom if they thought that they had a chance of success, but were not willing to commit suicide by revolting with no prospect of success.


Does this mean that if Southern expansionists had got their way and acquired Cuba and Porto Rico, they might have saddled themselves with a lot of far more rebellious slaves than they were accustomed to?

"Be careful what you wish for - - "
 
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.

In the 1850s there was growing concern that the increasing number of slaves hardly distinguishable in their skin colour from their masters could lead to "real" white people being enslaved. There's an interesting little article about this at

https://medium.com/@mischling2nd/ra...-censored-cause-of-the-civil-war-70f05ef77899

This approaches a related social phenom, that is the status of the 'Redneck', the poor white trash, the unskilled or semi skilled white laborer. While there was a better opportunity than the slave to escape this status & the economic exploitation that accompanied it, it was difficult and usually involved leaving the South. A wide acceptance of the One Drop rule places the lowest status 'whites' at risk of being moved to slave status by the wealthy seeking to increase the pool of the cheapest labor. Historically slavery is not static and depending on conditions either expands or declines in the society. In the case of Rome we can see the expansion of slavery by the shift of the lowest classes of previous freemen to slavery status. There are other examples.
 
Does this mean that if Southern expansionists had got their way and acquired Cuba and Porto Rico, they might have saddled themselves with a lot of far more rebellious slaves than they were accustomed to?

"Be careful what you wish for - - "

That and there was a free class with some uncomfortable liberal ideas. Those included running the nations affairs themselves and not by new colonial masters, who spoke a foreign language and weren't Catholics. This whole idea shoves the south into a nasty can of worms that not going to go where they hope.
 
Didn't some U.S. states grow sugar, why didn't they have the same rebellion rates as Brazil?
They did have revolts, even once the US took over. The German Coast uprising in Louisiana is one of the largest slave rebellions in US history, and the Pointe Coupée conspiracy in the late colonial Spanish era was another planned revolt.

However, sugar-growing was only a very small part of US slave use, mostly in Louisiana. This meant that the slaves were (justifiably) worried about being killed by the large majority-white areas that were nearby, and did not obtain as much support from neighbouring slaves who were not involved in growing sugar.

On reflection, I should have added that another large part of why slave revolts were more common in the sugar-growing areas was that many slave revolts (though not all) were led by people born in Africa who had known freedom, and thus more inclined to revolt. Sugar plantations had the really bad combination of high death rates and people who had known freedom, in comparison to the US where slaves were more likely to have been born into slavery and with a few exceptions, conditions did not involve quite the same high risk of death.
 
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