WI/PC: Nationalized slaves

Suppose that maximal Union incompetence leads to a brief and bumbling Secession War, after which the USA signs a treaty recognizing an independent, unscathed CSA including Kentucky, Maryland, western Virginia, and Delaware.

The politics of this state are dominated, initially, by the wealthy planters. But there is also an old tradition of Jacksonian "common man" Democracy. With no Yankees to unite against, the two factions find themselves increasingly at odds, and coalesce into two political parties: the Conservative Democrats and the Popular Democrats. Both support slavery and white supremacy, but they disagree about the distribution of the fruits of slave labor.

The late 1860's and 1870's are a rough time for the CSA. The planter class invests nothing in national improvement, and slaves remain the only significant form of wealth in the country. Poor, non-slave-owning Confederate citizens begin to advocate radical measures that would allow them to share in that wealth.

They first succeed in states like Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland, where there are few slaves and a more diverse economic base. Popular state governments declare the remaining slaves state property, and organize them into labor brigades.

Following a disastrous attempt by the CSA to conquer Cuba, the Populars are swept into office in a climate of revolutionary fervor and anti-planter hostility. Over the next few decades, all privately owned slaves in the CSA are nationalized by successive Popular governments. Slaves are rented out to planters, but also used as laborers on railroads, factories, public works, etc.

I have two questions: (1) Is this remotely plausible? (2) Would this prolong the institution of slavery or hasten its end?
 
The problem with the plausability of this is that slaves live in families. You can't make labour batallions out of old people and children (under 10 or 11 anyway).

It would also be difficult regaarding the slaves employed in housekeeping, book-keeping etc if you threw them into manual labour

Best regards
Grey Wolf
 
Conversely, I could see nationalisation but mainly as a prelude to emancipation / manumission.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
The problem with the plausability of this is that slaves live in families. You can't make labour batallions out of old people and children (under 10 or 11 anyway).

It would also be difficult regaarding the slaves employed in housekeeping, book-keeping etc if you threw them into manual labour

Best regards
Grey Wolf

When did southern slave-owners ever care about preserving slave families? Obviously any nationalized slavery scheme would be ruthless and inhuman, but that wouldn't exactly be a big change from the traditional system.

It doesn't have to be battalions, of course. It could be organized in any number of ways. Collective farms, for instance. The elderly might be euthanized, and the young brought up in vast slave nurseries. You can bet it would be nasty. But that side of it, unfortunately, doesn't strike me as implausible at all.

I'm more doubtful about the plausibility of poor whites rising up and confiscating the wealth of the planter elite. Would that be too radical a program to succeed?
 
Suppose that maximal Union incompetence leads to a brief and bumbling Secession War, after which the USA signs a treaty recognizing an independent, unscathed CSA including Kentucky, Maryland, western Virginia, and Delaware.

The politics of this state are dominated, initially, by the wealthy planters. But there is also an old tradition of Jacksonian "common man" Democracy. With no Yankees to unite against, the two factions find themselves increasingly at odds, and coalesce into two political parties: the Conservative Democrats and the Popular Democrats. Both support slavery and white supremacy, but they disagree about the distribution of the fruits of slave labor.

The late 1860's and 1870's are a rough time for the CSA. The planter class invests nothing in national improvement, and slaves remain the only significant form of wealth in the country. Poor, non-slave-owning Confederate citizens begin to advocate radical measures that would allow them to share in that wealth.

They first succeed in states like Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland, where there are few slaves and a more diverse economic base. Popular state governments declare the remaining slaves state property, and organize them into labor brigades.

Following a disastrous attempt by the CSA to conquer Cuba, the Populars are swept into office in a climate of revolutionary fervor and anti-planter hostility. Over the next few decades, all privately owned slaves in the CSA are nationalized by successive Popular governments. Slaves are rented out to planters, but also used as laborers on railroads, factories, public works, etc.

I have two questions: (1) Is this remotely plausible? (2) Would this prolong the institution of slavery or hasten its end?

It would be damn near impossible for the South to get Kentucky, Maryland, western Virginia, and Delaware, particularly Delaware which had very few slaves.
 
When did southern slave-owners ever care about preserving slave families? Obviously any nationalized slavery scheme would be ruthless and inhuman, but that wouldn't exactly be a big change from the traditional system.

It doesn't have to be battalions, of course. It could be organized in any number of ways. Collective farms, for instance. The elderly might be euthanized, and the young brought up in vast slave nurseries. You can bet it would be nasty. But that side of it, unfortunately, doesn't strike me as implausible at all.

I'm more doubtful about the plausibility of poor whites rising up and confiscating the wealth of the planter elite. Would that be too radical a program to succeed?

The slave nurseries and euthanizing the elderly are very unlikely. Much as I despise the CSA they weren't THAT stupid. Euthanasia would inspire wholesale slave revolts as the slaves would have little to lose and the nurseries would be expensive . The kids would be raised by their mothers which would be cheaper and the elderly stuck in some sort of old age home.
 
The problem with the plausability of this is that slaves live in families. You can't make labour batallions out of old people and children (under 10 or 11 anyway).

It would also be difficult regaarding the slaves employed in housekeeping, book-keeping etc if you threw them into manual labour

Best regards
Grey Wolf

I would imagine the old and young would be employed in tasks suited to their capabilities--or to be used as hostages to ensure the compliance of more fit slaves included in dangerous tasks (i.e. the jobs that used to be done by more expendable poor whites than valued slaves).

About throwing the skilled slaves into manual labor, I don't that'd realistically happen unless it's done out of incompetence or, more likely, spite.

(I.e. making skilled slaves do jobs that are "beneath" them to appease whites unable to get certain jobs b/c they'd been done by slaves. "The Key To Uncle Tom's Cabin" describes problems with skilled labor resulting from slavery leading to the impoverishment of poor whites.)
 
HH,

I've got a Confederate victory TL that ends up in a kind of steampunky world (i.e. airship pirates based in the margins of a disintegrating Confederacy) and there is a "Confederate National Socialist Party" that seeks to nationalize the slaves to create a welfare state for whites.

They don't manage to take over, but the idea is there.
 
Umm, well, I must point out that institutionalized national slavery was basically what the Apartheid regime is. Outside of outsiders interference, especially with white : black ratio that still leaning on whites means they can be quite stable and could enduring well into 1950s or even 2000s.

And with more security being put to observe the slaves, the whites are more likely than not developed into martial society like spa.....

Wait a minute, are you just found a way to create Draka-like society that was quite possible IOTL?
 
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