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

jahenders

Banned
1) Men fought and died to preserve slavery in the 1860's and in very large numbers. No way they are giving it up that quick. That would be saying that their friends fought and died to beat back the "Abolitionist Hordes" just to do the same thing themselves. It would be seen as utter madness. The next generation would seeing at spitting on the grave of their fathers who fought and sometimes died to prevent the abolition of slavery.
2) You would have to change the CSA constitution which would take agreement from planters who controlled the various state governments. Individual states couldn't do as "slave transit rights" in the CSA constitution made it so that if it was legal in even one state it was de-facto legal in all.
3) South Carolina and Texas, at the very least, would threaten to secede from the CSA if even a small step towards abolitionism was made.

I'm not suggesting they'd be happy about it. However, keep in mind their likely trading partners -- primarily the US, UK, and France. It's entirely possible that any of those might impose trade sanctions, high tariffs, etc. on the CSA if they still have slavery by 1875 or so. CSA would feel that pretty quick.

Actually, I think the CSA would more likely start to unravel by around 1875, with some states pulling out and the US being willing to assist them (and take them back) if necessary.
 

bguy

Donor
Not if it wants to avoid bankruptcy. I don't think it could pull it off if it were debt free not talking about it being saddled with so much debt it owed everyone and his cousin in GB and France. The CSA government as is would be on a hamster wheel where virtually all its money is being used to pay off the debt and to keep the military happy.

TheYoungPretender said:
There's no majority for changing the situation of black people in the South, and there isn't going to be until Northern in-migration to places like Virginia and North Carolina start changing the culture of the place in the 1990s.

Agreed. But those are also practical considerations on whether the Confederate government would ever pursue emancipation. I fully agree with you that there are numerous practical reasons why emancipation would likely never happen (the expense, the lack of public support, the risk of causing one or more states to secede, etc.) But Anaxagoras had listed a legal difficulty (that the Confederate Constitution prohibited the Confederate government from banning slavery) as a reason why emancipation would not happen, so the point of highlighting the Eminent Domain option was to show that Confederate law isn't actually a bar to the Confederate government emancipating the slaves. The Confederate government legally could end slavery though the use of its eminent domain authority, it is simply extremely unlikely to ever employ that authority.
 
Any advance on thirty?

According to who? In the whole of the second half of the nineteenth century, there was only one decade (the 1880s) in which the increase in imperial population was greater by annexation than by natural increase. If they're set on a global empire, they're certainly not very active in going out and getting it.

Depending on what I've read most recently, I'll either look at the fertile ground of people grasping towards race theory in the 1880s, or I'll say that it really has to wait on the rediscovery of Mendel in 1900. But from those points, it's hugely popular until the mid-1930s, and quite popular until the end of the war and the horrible realization.

There are a number of Indians, Egyptians, Zulus, Kenyans, !Kung, San, Pashtuns, Muslims, etc. who would think there was sufficient activity to provide some proof for a rush to Empire, yes.

Agreed. But those are also practical considerations on whether the Confederate government would ever pursue emancipation. I fully agree with you that there are numerous practical reasons why emancipation would likely never happen (the expense, the lack of public support, the risk of causing one or more states to secede, etc.) But Anaxagoras had listed a legal difficulty (that the Confederate Constitution prohibited the Confederate government from banning slavery) as a reason why emancipation would not happen, so the point of highlighting the Eminent Domain option was to show that Confederate law isn't actually a bar to the Confederate government emancipating the slaves. The Confederate government legally could end slavery though the use of its eminent domain authority, it is simply extremely unlikely to ever employ that authority.

Ah, quite. Yes, I see what you are saying. I'd add to Anaxagoras that the legal receptiveness to eminent domain can be quite frosty - when it's applied against the majority. The sad truth is that American society is comfortable with eminent domain when it's applied against people who don't matter quite as much. In Minnesota, there's a reason that the interstate was built across the prosperous part of some historically black neighborhoods - they were the one community where the majority wouldn't act with outrage at all the equity being torched. I think in the case of our hypothetical South, you're talking about using the tool against the most prosperous part of the population.
 
I'm not suggesting they'd be happy about it. However, keep in mind their likely trading partners -- primarily the US, UK, and France. It's entirely possible that any of those might impose trade sanctions, high tariffs, etc. on the CSA if they still have slavery by 1875 or so. CSA would feel that pretty quick.

Actually, I think the CSA would more likely start to unravel by around 1875, with some states pulling out and the US being willing to assist them (and take them back) if necessary.

I think Saphreneth brought up above that embargoes and such were very rare in the 19th. They didn't give a shit where the cotton came from before the war, why should they give a shit after, especially with the culture shifting to a greater comfort with racial hierarchy?
 
There are a number of Indians, Egyptians, Zulus, Kenyans, !Kung, San, Pashtuns, Muslims, etc. who would think there was sufficient activity to provide some proof for a rush to Empire, yes.
Indians- brought, unwillingly on the part of the British, under direct rule as a result of the 1857 rebellion
Egyptians- Never annexed; shared with the French even after the British invasion of 1882
Zulus- Annexed in 1879
Kenyans- Protectorate established in 1895
!Kung- Though most of the tribe live in German Namibia and Portuguese Angola, some were included in the Bechuanaland Protectorate established in 1885 at the request of the Batswana leaders Khama III, Bathoen and Sebele.
San (not including !Kung)- Excluding those living in Namibia, Angola and Bechuanaland, some were included in Zambia (conquered 1897), Zimbabwe (conquered 1895 by the British South Africa Company), Lesotho (made a protectorate at Moshoeshoe's request in 1869), and South Africa (annexed 1806)
Pashtuns- Mostly living in Afghanistan (never annexed by the British despite the successfully prosecuted war of 1878-1881) though some were included in British territory by the Durand Line (negotiated 1893)
Muslims- ? You might mean Zanzibar (protectorate 1890, though the British had been interfering in domestic politics to end the slave trade much earlier), or Afghanistan (see above), or Somaliland (protectorate 1888), or possibly Bahrain (protectorate 1880)

Like I said, for a power "still set on a global empire over nonwhite peoples," the British don't seem to be very active in going out and getting it. They show relatively little interest in increasing their territory up to the 1880s, and after that they're as prone to hand territory back, make it a protectorate, or begrudgingly take over its government at native request as to actively conquer it. Certainly, they don't appear to be a power on the hunt for a justification for territorial conquest, on a par with Lebensraum or Manifest Destiny.
 
They would receive some, no doubt, but it would be insignificant. They would have even less immigration than the pathetic handful of OTL. Slavery would last as long as the Deep South held on. According to the CSA Constitution if it was legal in even one state it was de-facto legal in all of them.

Well that I have no doubt. The whole point I was trying to make is a required demographic shift was needed to even make a dent in just one state. That's the hard part.

And Delaware refused to ratify the 13th amendment in 1865. That tells you something.

The irony in all that is graduated emancipation was proposed in Delaware more than once prior to 1850.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The irony in all that is graduated emancipation was proposed in Delaware more than once prior to 1850.

Even more ironic is the fact that slavery lasted longer in Delaware than it did in South Carolina. Just by a few months, of course, but still.
 
I don't think a Confederate breakup is very likely; the war produced extremely strong nationalism in the South, and on legal terms, the Confederate constitution essentially forbids secession when it refers to the Confederate union as perpetual. If the Confederacy fares well economically (as it very well may; slavery was a frighteningly strong and remarkably flexible economic foundation), I don't think any Confederate states are going to try secession.
 
There is only one way for CSA to abolish slavery without being invaded. Side-effect of someone taking advantage of white populism.
Eventually poor whites decide that it sucks for them that:
- Slaves are "taking" away jobs from poor whites - hard to compete with non-paid labour.
- Planters are conscripting poor whites (without any compensation) to go on slave patrols (why I have to help them catch their runaway slaves, but nobody has to help me catch my runaway cow?)
- Some free whites are gonna get accused of being runaway slaves (plenty fair skinned slaves. running gag was that wives of planters pretended to not notice). And runaway slaves were not given right to trial.
That those white populists will undermine institution of slavery in a way that will make it unprofitable for planters. Not out of any love for slaves, but out of hate for planters.
Slavery would no longer be profitable if you'd have to pay people to guard and recapture your slaves. Doubly so if some sort semi-socialists political movement decided to tax businesses that don't hire enough freemen to give unemployed whites welfare. (Think bizarro-verse affirmative action: Business in state with 70% free population must have its workforce be 70% freemen)
Once you get mental imagine of slaver hiring two guards per each of his slaves, you'll no longer hold silly notions that slavery is profitable for society as a whole. Slavery is 1800s version of corporate welfare. Its rich skimming the poor. I imagine planters trying to use version of trickle-down rhetoric to justify continuation of slavery.
 
I'm not suggesting they'd be happy about it. However, keep in mind their likely trading partners -- primarily the US, UK, and France. It's entirely possible that any of those might impose trade sanctions, high tariffs, etc. on the CSA if they still have slavery by 1875 or so. CSA would feel that pretty quick.

Actually, I think the CSA would more likely start to unravel by around 1875, with some states pulling out and the US being willing to assist them (and take them back) if necessary.

Happy or unhappy it would be politically impossible. They would simply smuggle out the cotton, probably to Mexico.
 
Agreed. But those are also practical considerations on whether the Confederate government would ever pursue emancipation. I fully agree with you that there are numerous practical reasons why emancipation would likely never happen (the expense, the lack of public support, the risk of causing one or more states to secede, etc.) But Anaxagoras had listed a legal difficulty (that the Confederate Constitution prohibited the Confederate government from banning slavery) as a reason why emancipation would not happen, so the point of highlighting the Eminent Domain option was to show that Confederate law isn't actually a bar to the Confederate government emancipating the slaves. The Confederate government legally could end slavery though the use of its eminent domain authority, it is simply extremely unlikely to ever employ that authority.

Fair enough.
 
Gary Gallagher points out that there were quite strong reciprocal relationships between slaveowners and plain folk; a poor cotton farmer probably can't afford his own cotton gin, so the local planter lets him gin his cotton with his gin, and in return the poor cotton farmer serves on slave patrol. That kind of thing. It does depend on how the war shakes out, though; IIRC, one of the principle causes of dissatisfaction with the Confederate ruling classes was their failure to provide for the needy in their communities during war as they had in peace, which increased desertion rates. I need to borrow More Ruinous than Slaughter again, though.
 
Even more ironic is the fact that slavery lasted longer in Delaware than it did in South Carolina. Just by a few months, of course, but still.

The crowning stupidity of it was that the Border States could have received a financial windfall by agreeing to compensated emancipation. As is they received squat.
 
Gary Gallagher points out that there were quite strong reciprocal relationships between slaveowners and plain folk; a poor cotton farmer probably can't afford his own cotton gin, so the local planter lets him gin his cotton with his gin, and in return the poor cotton farmer serves on slave patrol. That kind of thing. It does depend on how the war shakes out, though; IIRC, one of the principle causes of dissatisfaction with the Confederate ruling classes was their failure to provide for the needy in their communities during war as they had in peace, which increased desertion rates. I need to borrow More Ruinous than Slaughter again, though.

True, but that wouldn't result in emancipation. As long as Blacks were slaves the Poor Whites had someone to look down on. Emancipate slaves and the Poor Whites have a shorter distance to look down.
 
That was more of a war time measure, but was by no means a great war time measure once slaves started fleeing North. The Confederate government likely would have demanded reparations for seized property (including slaves) during the war, some of which would have been used to compensate slave owners for the loss of their slaves.

I don't expect the CSA to be able to receive any sort of reparations from the North--more likely, if there's any reparations, they'll be going the other way, with paying for seized federal property as part of the price of their (probably brief) independence. That might be a good strategy for the north, to hurt them where it counts. (Then, in a couple of decades, march south and take them back.)

Reincorporation after a generation apart won't be anywhere near as nice as OTL's reconstruction...
 
True, but that wouldn't result in emancipation. As long as Blacks were slaves the Poor Whites had someone to look down on. Emancipate slaves and the Poor Whites have a shorter distance to look down.
Right; my point was that everyone in the South benefitted from slavery, not just socially, but materially too, and they understood that they had a vested interest in maintaining the institution.

I don't think abolition is going to come from poor whites; the only possible way I see them ending the institution is very gradually as part of the terms of some perpetual treaty with the USA, Great Britain, France, where members will never make war on each other, but aren't allowed to have slavery. I consider that a very unlikely scenario, but it would absolutely secure white supremacy; when declaring independence, their goals were, in order 1: White Supremacy 2: Independence 3: Slavery. Someone rational like Lee (or even Davis) could see that locking down 1 and 2 would be better than going for all three and risking getting nothing, but that depends on the Confederacy getting someone with that cool head to make that calculation.
 
Right; my point was that everyone in the South benefitted from slavery, not just socially, but materially too, and they understood that they had a vested interest in maintaining the institution.

I don't think abolition is going to come from poor whites; the only possible way I see them ending the institution is very gradually as part of the terms of some perpetual treaty with the USA, Great Britain, France, where members will never make war on each other, but aren't allowed to have slavery. I consider that a very unlikely scenario, but it would absolutely secure white supremacy; when declaring independence, their goals were, in order 1: White Supremacy 2: Independence 3: Slavery. Someone rational like Lee (or even Davis) could see that locking down 1 and 2 would be better than going for all three and risking getting nothing, but that depends on the Confederacy getting someone with that cool head to make that calculation.

There is pretty good evidence in the eyes of many slavery came before independence. Not only didn't the CSA pass a "Colored Soldier's Bill" until Grant was knocking on the door of Richmond and didn't even free slaves under it but there were newspaper opinions, letters to the editor and some Southern government officials that stated if slavery were abolished they would rather have it done to them than suffering the humiliation of doing it themselves. A lot of Southerners expressed pride in not stooping to using Black soldiers in trying to get independence. "Colored Troops" were for "Low down Yankees who would stoop to ANYTHING" not for the "Proud soldiers of the South".
 
True, but the most important voice, Lee's, reasoned it thus; if they conducted military manumission to win independence, they can keep white supremacy in place, even if they don't own them. If the Yankees succeed in crushing southern independence, the slaves will become the masters. Lee didn't know that Reconstruction would leave white supremacy in place; if the South won the war, Haiti would not happen, but if they lost, it could, and literally anything was preferable to than Haiti.
 
Well that I have no doubt. The whole point I was trying to make is a required demographic shift was needed to even make a dent in just one state. That's the hard part.

The irony in all that is graduated emancipation was proposed in Delaware more than once prior to 1850.

Even more ironic is the fact that slavery lasted longer in Delaware than it did in South Carolina. Just by a few months, of course, but still.

More on how the Jeffersonian attitude of slavery as an necessary evil declines through the 19th.

There is only one way for CSA to abolish slavery without being invaded. Side-effect of someone taking advantage of white populism.
Eventually poor whites decide that it sucks for them that:
- Slaves are "taking" away jobs from poor whites - hard to compete with non-paid labour.
- Planters are conscripting poor whites (without any compensation) to go on slave patrols (why I have to help them catch their runaway slaves, but nobody has to help me catch my runaway cow?)
- Some free whites are gonna get accused of being runaway slaves (plenty fair skinned slaves. running gag was that wives of planters pretended to not notice). And runaway slaves were not given right to trial.
That those white populists will undermine institution of slavery in a way that will make it unprofitable for planters. Not out of any love for slaves, but out of hate for planters.
Slavery would no longer be profitable if you'd have to pay people to guard and recapture your slaves. Doubly so if some sort semi-socialists political movement decided to tax businesses that don't hire enough freemen to give unemployed whites welfare. (Think bizarro-verse affirmative action: Business in state with 70% free population must have its workforce be 70% freemen)
Once you get mental imagine of slaver hiring two guards per each of his slaves, you'll no longer hold silly notions that slavery is profitable for society as a whole. Slavery is 1800s version of corporate welfare. Its rich skimming the poor. I imagine planters trying to use version of trickle-down rhetoric to justify continuation of slavery.

Thing is, poor whites were very willing, for the century on either side of 1865, (and longer) to happily inconvenience their own economic interests to maintain the color-line. They were more than willing to lose time and wages to take part in the rituals of the culture.
 
Top