WI: Amendment to US Constitution in the 1850's to Ban Slavery

What if before the outbreak over the Civil War and also the 13th Amendment, one was proposed and ratified years before 1860 when a majority of free states had control over the White House and Congress?
 
What if before the outbreak over the Civil War and also the 13th Amendment, one was proposed and ratified years before 1860 when a majority of free states had control over the White House and Congress?

An amendment requires ratification by three fourths of the states, not merely a majority (not to mention passage by two-thirds majorities in the HoR and Senate). How would that be attainable in the 1850s?
 
Last edited:
Like Mikestone8 said, it not be possible. There was too many slave states.

And even if that somehow happens, there will be earlier secession, civil war. But I don't know then has Southern states now better changes.
 
Like Mikestone8 said, it not be possible. There was too many slave states.

And even if that somehow happens, there will be earlier secession, civil war. But I don't know then has Southern states now better changes.

IIRC the consensus is the early the South leaves the better chance it has of winning as the disparity between North and South is lessened.
 
What if Virginia and otl 'border states' had abolished slavery. I wonder if there is a way of getting three quarters of states against the evil institutution.

I assume places like South Carolina and Mississippi would secede.
 
What if Virginia and otl 'border states' had abolished slavery. I wonder if there is a way of getting three quarters of states against the evil institutution.

I assume places like South Carolina and Mississippi would secede.


Trouble is, slavery was quite lucrative for VA et al, as their planters did very nicely out of selling surplus slaves to the lower South.


and even places like DE, where 90% of blacks were free, seem to have been very reluctant to abandon it - perhaps because the threat of re-enslavement was a useful way of reminding negroes to "keep their place". As of 1850 there seems little likelihood of any existing Slave State being ready to give up the institution.
 
Trouble is, slavery was quite lucrative for VA et al, as their planters did very nicely out of selling surplus slaves to the lower South.


and even places like DE, where 90% of blacks were free, seem to have been very reluctant to abandon it - perhaps because the threat of re-enslavement was a useful way of reminding negroes to "keep their place". As of 1850 there seems little likelihood of any existing Slave State being ready to give up the institution.

Had things gone a bit differently Delaware might have ended slavery in the late 1840s, but anything else is a no go. The only semi-realistic way to do this is to have more free states but that causes other problems.

Benjamin
 

B-29_Bomber

Banned
Trouble is, slavery was quite lucrative for VA et al, as their planters did very nicely out of selling surplus slaves to the lower South.


and even places like DE, where 90% of blacks were free, seem to have been very reluctant to abandon it - perhaps because the threat of re-enslavement was a useful way of reminding negroes to "keep their place". As of 1850 there seems little likelihood of any existing Slave State being ready to give up the institution.

Actually, as late as 1831 there was a vote to end slavery or re-enslave the free blacks in the state. Eventually nothing came of it, but it was a really close vote.
 
Nat Turner's Rebellion happened during a debate in Virginia over whether to abolish slavery - that was 1831, and the last real chance of any future-Confederate state going with emancipation. With the right PoD, Virginia abolishing slavery could have ended it in the border states, and possibly a few states in the Upper South.

At the very least, you have an alt-Confederacy that is significantly weakened: the loss of Virginian production and territory, the lack of immediate danger to Washington DC, Maryland's pro-secession movement never having a chance, and the Virginian generals who followed their state, among others.
 
Actually, as late as 1831 there was a vote to end slavery or re-enslave the free blacks in the state. Eventually nothing came of it, but it was a really close vote.

I've heard this before, but could do with more information.

Had Virginia's Legislature the power to abolish slavery simply by enactment? If (as I suspect) it would require amendment of the State Constitution, what was the procedure for this in 1831, and was there any realistic chance of an abolition amendment getting through the hurdles?
 
Actually, as late as 1831 there was a vote to end slavery or re-enslave the free blacks in the state. Eventually nothing came of it, but it was a really close vote.

Wow, sounds like an RPG moral descision point. Either be good and abolish slavery or be evil and re-enslave everyone.
 
Wow, sounds like an RPG moral descision point. Either be good and abolish slavery or be evil and re-enslave everyone.

It probably wouldn't be quite that bad. Most likely the free Blacks would get a deadline to leave the State. Still, I'd say that was at least as likely as emancipation.
 
Top