Would the Confederates ever abolish slavery if they had won?

Would the Confederates ever abolish slavery if they had won?

  • Yes

    Votes: 140 69.3%
  • No

    Votes: 62 30.7%

  • Total voters
    202
They were fighting a war for it, but then again, I doubt a government that not only allows Slavery, but takes part in it, would last long due to international pressure.
 
The popular opinion here is that the Confederacy would not survive until the time when maintaining slavery is not politically, diplomatically or economically viable. So I don´t know.
 

spendabuck

Banned
Seeing as many Confederates were also mainly fighting for states' rights, the Confederacy would probably abolish slavery eventually, but probably later than most other countries (mid 20th century?).
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I think it's likely that they would - after much internal debate - start doing things that are "totally not" slavery, and keep doing those little changes ("intentured servitude", "apprenticeship") until they got to something which British public opinion would reluctantly accept. Definitely well behind the Western Civilization curve on the matter, but not quite wilfully ignoring it.

(I'm sort of interested in where slavery goes in the union in a CSA independence...)
 

Ryan

Donor
chances are that the US would have been given a casus belli to go to war with and subsequently annex the confederacy before confederate culture changes enough for slavery to be unacceptable and abolished.
 
They would eventually. As much as slavery was beneficial to the Southern way of life technology would have eventually found no need of slaves.

Then again, they might keep it as long as they can find a way to control the slaves through increasing technology.
 
Not without a Constitutional amendment. Slavery was protected as a right in the Confederate Constitution. There was also no Supreme Court of the Confederate States, which was likely a deliberate omission. A Supreme Court decision could, in theory, have interpreted the right to slavery a much different way in the future. By keeping power in the hands of Congress, which would have been dominated by the wealthy planter class, slavery would go unchallenged for many generations. So you're essentially relying on a demographic shift that would be against slavery as a form of labor.
 
Slavery is not likely to die of natural causes at least until well into the 20th century, maybe even the information age. It's an extremely profitable form of labor control, and one that's very much compatible with semi-skilled industrial labor; the future of slavery had never looked better than in 1860.

If it does abolish slavery, it will probably be part of an international agreement that they reluctantly sign on to (gradual manumission in exchange for perpetual peace, something like that). Even that could be uncertain, depending on how the Confederacy works with its fellow slave states in Cuba and Brazil; if they see a new slave confederacy win independence and chart a path towards a new slave modernity, it could reinforce the institution.
 
Not without a Constitutional amendment. Slavery was protected as a right in the Confederate Constitution. There was also no Supreme Court of the Confederate States, which was likely a deliberate omission. A Supreme Court decision could, in theory, have interpreted the right to slavery a much different way in the future. By keeping power in the hands of Congress, which would have been dominated by the wealthy planter class, slavery would go unchallenged for many generations. So you're essentially relying on a demographic shift that would be against slavery as a form of labor.

And a Constitution is changeable. If not by the ballot then by the bullet. I have no doubt the Confederacy would be the last "western" nation to abolish slavery (even after Brazil), but no later than the early 20th century. By the disfunctional, Latin America-type system they had set up for themselves, the CSA military would do the job sooner or later to help modernise the place.
 
Abolish in the sense that it would be ended by the passage of a law? Never.

Abolish in the sense that it would change from outright chattel slavery to some lesser form of oppression? Yes eventually.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Abolish in the sense that it would be ended by the passage of a law? Never.

Abolish in the sense that it would change from outright chattel slavery to some lesser form of oppression? Yes eventually.
Actually, I think the Confederacy would be more likely to loudly proclaim they'd ended slavery by passing a law than to actually improve the position of black slaves.
 
Seeing as many Confederates were also mainly fighting for states' rights, the Confederacy would probably abolish slavery eventually, but probably later than most other countries (mid 20th century?).

No. And they all said as much, that it was slavery first of all.

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/cornerstone-speech/

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp


I think it's likely that they would - after much internal debate - start doing things that are "totally not" slavery, and keep doing those little changes ("intentured servitude", "apprenticeship") until they got to something which British public opinion would reluctantly accept. Definitely well behind the Western Civilization curve on the matter, but not quite wilfully ignoring it.

(I'm sort of interested in where slavery goes in the union in a CSA independence...)

It had been on the decline in the North for quite some time, but the border states on the USA side of the line would be a different matter.

Not without a Constitutional amendment. Slavery was protected as a right in the Confederate Constitution. There was also no Supreme Court of the Confederate States, which was likely a deliberate omission. A Supreme Court decision could, in theory, have interpreted the right to slavery a much different way in the future. By keeping power in the hands of Congress, which would have been dominated by the wealthy planter class, slavery would go unchallenged for many generations. So you're essentially relying on a demographic shift that would be against slavery as a form of labor.

The cold truth.
 
I agree with the popular idea that eventually slavery as practised in the US at the time would no longer be economically viable.

However that point may have been a lot further down the time-line than many people realize and it seems unlikely that the Confederate States of America would have managed to last that long.

The South would have to become a place like Mauritania to keep slavery up until modern times: poor and agrarian.

If they kept slavery than I would expect that at some point the institution would change to some sort of Apartheid state or something.
 
I said, "NO" for the simple reason that I don't think a unified CSA could last long enough to abolish slavery. I can easiy see some internal dispute turning into a secession crisis. One possible breakup cause that I can see, off the top of y head: The USA wants to use the Mississippi and deposit goods at New Orlenas. The Mississippi River states like the idea, as that gets them cheap access to northern goods, and perhaps river tolls/port use fees. The east doesn't like this, seeing too much Yankee prosperity going to New Orleans instead of the east coast, and tries to stop it.

Alternatively, the CSA gets crunched in a few years by the United States. An American gets kidnapped for being a "runaway slave," and that spirals into war. Or, if the USA is ready for war, a genuine runaway is represented as an American citizen to provide grounds for war.
 
Not without a Constitutional amendment. Slavery was protected as a right in the Confederate Constitution. There was also no Supreme Court of the Confederate States, which was likely a deliberate omission. A Supreme Court decision could, in theory, have interpreted the right to slavery a much different way in the future. By keeping power in the hands of Congress, which would have been dominated by the wealthy planter class, slavery would go unchallenged for many generations. So you're essentially relying on a demographic shift that would be against slavery as a form of labor.

Their Constitution actually called for the creation of a Supreme Court.

ARTICLE III
Section I. (I) The judicial power of the Confederate States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish. The judges, both of the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.

They just never got around to establishing it cause they were fighting a massive war.
 
Slavery is not likely to die of natural causes at least until well into the 20th century, maybe even the information age. It's an extremely profitable form of labor control, and one that's very much compatible with semi-skilled industrial labor; the future of slavery had never looked better than in 1860.

By 1860, slavery had been abolished in Britain, France, all of the new Latin American nations except Brazil, as well as in the Northern states. The global trend was definitely in the direction of abolitionism. Moral arguments aside, many people had come to the conclusion that paying workers a meager wage was preferable to housing, feeding and clothing them as slaves, while living in constant fear of uprisings.

Arguably the biggest thing that kept slavery going was the value of the slaves themselves. They represented a major investment on the part of their owners, who would demand compensation in the event of liberation.
 
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