What If? What if the US Civil War never happened?

What If? What if the US civil war never happened? Slavery still existed in the united states, and 1861 was just another year in America?
Perhaps the Cuban puppet state of 1899 would be Pro-slavery?
Along with the Philippines?
And what of the great depression? much shorter with slave labor?
 
Slavery eventually dies out even if America rules everything from the 49th parallel to Terro del Fuego.
 
you'd need a lot of work to make sure there is no Civil War, I think the South had decided slavery was the hill they were going to die on, a lot of people have said in CSA victory threads that slavery would die in the 1870s, I'm not so sure, but in a no Civil War TL I think thats likely maybe a "born free" program starting in 1875 or so and full freeing of the rest of the slaves in 1890 or 1900.
 
you'd need a lot of work to make sure there is no Civil War, I think the South had decided slavery was the hill they were going to die on, a lot of people have said in CSA victory threads that slavery would die in the 1870s, I'm not so sure, but in a no Civil War TL I think thats likely maybe a "born free" program starting in 1875 or so and full freeing of the rest of the slaves in 1890 or 1900.

And even then if there were no slavery full equal rights for blacks won't be guaranteed; hell OTL took its time in granting them.
 
You'd have to butterfly away at least one of these three: the Mexican-American War, the Louisiana purchase, or the invention of the cotton gin. Any one of those and you could avoid the Civil War, easy.
 
A big thing to prevent is the idea of the Missouri Compromise that the USA must be 1/2 slave, 1/2 Free. If some other basis of differentiation between slave and free is agreed upon, the nature of conflict could lead to an entirely different war or to no war at all. Dividing the US Congressional system into 50% slave and 50% free only worked so long as one economy developed equally as fast as the other. When the North started outpacing the South by a leap and a bound there was nothing under that framework that would have prevented *some* kind of military violence between the States.
 
When you drill down thru all the layers [slavery, state rites, tariff, etc] you end up with Jeffersonians v Hamiltonians.
Without the ACW to knock the Jeffersonians out of political power [temporary] I think our politics would be a lot more like Brazil's or Argentina's.
Our road to Industrial Power would have been longer and less sure.
 
And even then if there were no slavery full equal rights for blacks won't be guaranteed; hell OTL took its time in granting them.

oh I know, I can't guess what a latter slavery does to civil rights, in OTL even Lincoln was iffy on black voting rights, the last speech he gave you stated maybe give the vote to "very intelligent blacks" (men) who had served the union in the war, it took Lincoln's Martyrdom to pass Reconstruction Amendments, no radical Republicans.... no black voting ever?
 
You also have to consider that if slavery had continued in the USA beyond a certain point, it would have had international ramifications; the moment that made Europeans back the USA in the American civil war was the Emancipation Proclamation and the decision to aim for full eradication of slavery by Lincoln. Consequently, the longer the USA kept slavery for, the more of an international pariah the country might have become.

If that was the case, the European empires would have probably offered much more serious objections to the expansion of the USA, and possible intervention. We might end up in a TL with a British West Coast.
 
If that was the case, the European empires would have probably offered much more serious objections to the expansion of the USA, and possible intervention. We might end up in a TL with a British West Coast.

Good point, but I don't think that would work. The West Coast was already solidly US and anti-slavery; if they'd invade anywhere, I don't think it'd be there. Perhaps you could establish a breakaway antislavery Republic of California there, though, if the US is enough proslavery?
 
You also have to consider that if slavery had continued in the USA beyond a certain point, it would have had international ramifications; the moment that made Europeans back the USA in the American civil war was the Emancipation Proclamation and the decision to aim for full eradication of slavery by Lincoln. Consequently, the longer the USA kept slavery for, the more of an international pariah the country might have become.

If that was the case, the European empires would have probably offered much more serious objections to the expansion of the USA, and possible intervention. We might end up in a TL with a British West Coast.

Not at all. The US had already expanded to California by the 1860s and there was no way that any great military force could be brought to bear in the Pacific at least until the 1870s or 1880s.

Many nations did not back the US with the declaration of the Emancipation Proclamation and they remained neutral until the end of the war.
 
I think we need to establish why before we can answer WI, as those ramifications will determine the outcome.

I think you could possibly avoid it by earlier, more extensive manumission efforts south of the Mason-Dixon. Perhaps Jefferson's Anti-Slavery Proviso passes and ends (or vastly curtails, at least) the expansion of slavery west. Maybe if Virginia goes "free" MD and NC and Del follow, leaving an isolated Deep South that eventually either loses a "rebellion of 18xx" or surcomes to pressure and free themselves.

In this case Slavery's not (as much of) an issue (civil rights still are), but tariffs and industry and state/federal power remain bones of contention. Eventually the South will have to change or become politically irrelevent as northern economic/industrial might grows.

However, in the end States' Rights is a (perhaps the) huge issue, and not one tarbrushed by Jim Crow. Seccession is still not resolved and I expect a handful of "secession threats" by states over the years, a few serious, most just a political gambit, sort of the "we're serious!" card to any debate. I think it'd be much harder for the Fed to push things onto the states and we could see drastically different laws in the individual states. I'm unsure how strong and centralized the Union would be ITTL, probably somewhere between OTL today and the Union pre-war OTL.
 
I would guess that we would have to go back to the annexation of Texas to keep the ACW from happening.
 
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