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
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.

Poor little Britain, forced to conquer the largest empire since the Mongol heyday against her best intentions, and bear that Burden.
 
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.

The problem is that they would be deep, deep in debt and be surrounded by hostile powers. At best it winds up as some perpetually broke banana republic.
 
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...

Yeah, the South can demand anything it wants but it doesn't mean it gets it. The CSA would be lucky to hold on to TN not talking about getting anything else including one thin dime from the USA.
 
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.

Even with his influence it resulted in the CSA refusing to pass a "Colored Soldiers bill" until just before Richmond fell. Lee' influence had definite limits.
 
It would have, eventually, once a generation or two had passed and the fire eaters had all passed on. Slavery isn't really viable economically.

Though it would probably be replaced with something worse than apartheid as blacks became second class citizens politically and economically. In real terms, their living conditions would improve only marginally if at all.
 
It would have, eventually, once a generation or two had passed and the fire eaters had all passed on. Slavery isn't really viable economically.

Though it would probably be replaced with something worse than apartheid as blacks became second class citizens politically and economically. In real terms, their living conditions would improve only marginally if at all.

Try at least two probably three, it might start happening around 1905 at the earliest. More likely around 1925 or so.
 
It would have, eventually, once a generation or two had passed and the fire eaters had all passed on. Slavery isn't really viable economically.

Though it would probably be replaced with something worse than apartheid as blacks became second class citizens politically and economically. In real terms, their living conditions would improve only marginally if at all.

Their living conditions could even get worse...if you own property, you have some reason to prevent it from breaking down. If you can just throw it out and get a new one, there's less reason to worry about it breaking.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Poor little Britain, forced to conquer the largest empire since the Mongol heyday against her best intentions, and bear that Burden.
Make no mistake that the British "burden" attitude was a rationalization of a policy with genuine benefits (and strong ones), but the benefits were usually commercial - and the British interventions usually provoked more by an attitude of "do what's best for business" than anything. (As Cerebro notes, if the British were trying to grab and conquer all the territory they possibly could they act rather oddly for it.)

Their living conditions could even get worse...if you own property, you have some reason to prevent it from breaking down. If you can just throw it out and get a new one, there's less reason to worry about it breaking.
An important nuance to the "property" argument is the word "valuable". The average value of a slave in 1860 was $800 - which is 4,500 hours of work for a skilled carpenter, to give some comparison. (That is, it's the equivalent of $87,000 today - more than most cars.)
If slaves become either scarcer or more useful, this drives the price up - hence further incentive attaches to taking care of your investment.
 
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They would at some point start to call it something else and be like "hey, we totally abloished slavery".

They could have done so before the war and saved themselves a lot of money and a few hundred thousand dead. They thought slavery was moral and abolitionism was evil. Just as much as the North , Southerners saw the war as a struggle between good and evil. The "decent, beneficent slave-owners" vs the "Abolitionist Horde". That Blacks couldn't handle freedom and without the "Civilizing effects of slavery" were doomed to fall into cannibalism, heathenism and devil worship. That they would rape and loot the countryside. Changing the name would make them look like they were ashamed of it but they were proud slave owners. Winning the war would reinforce it as it would be seen by them that it was proof that "God was on their side". They couldn't do so without "losing face" and that is something they couldn't allow. They might well do something like that eventually but it would take two or three generations at least.
 
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.

Prior to the 1880s, Britain conquered most or all of present-day Canada, Australia and New Zealand, in addition to India, Singapore, Hong Kong and probably others I'm forgetting. That was already a massive, massive territorial expansion. It's true that they didn't conquer much of Sub-Saharan Africa before this time, but Western medicine wasn't able to deal with its tropical diseases until about then (which is why the other European countries hadn't conquered the interior, either).

As for creating protectorates, that was pragmatism. The UK didn't have an unlimited supply of manpower. Why use up a lot of it setting up and defending a colony when you can get a local chieftain to officially run the show for you? The other powers did the same. Colonial territories were often, in practice, a mishmash of civil, military and local rule.

All the Western powers engaged in territorial expansion (or at least wanted to) during this time period. Some just had a catchier slogan for it than others.
 
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The british empire was magnitudes bigger than either of the states run by the principles of 'Lebensraum' or 'Manifest Destiny'.

This argument started with the idea that scientific racism would come into vogue after the american civil war and so make the csa more palatable to Europe. The argument on your side in counter to that was that an existing slave slate would prevent the rise of scientific racism. The fact that the existence of the congo free state or the various other appalling colonial institutions didn't prevent that does seem to indicate otherwise.

Your argument only works if either a) the csa will be viewed differently to the oppression of Africans in the European empires due to spin or b) the oppression of Africans in the European empires didn't happen. The latter strikes me as entirely unsupportable as an argument and arguing in defence of that, that the largest empire to ever exist was formed reluctantly and against the british will and there was no actual drive by the European public for europe to conquer Africa and Asia strikes me as equally silly.

A much more persuasive argument would be one based on hypocrisy and that the Europeans liked to lie to their public about the true nature of their work in Africa, whereas the csa would be under no such protection.
 
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I haven't posted much on this site but still, just wanted to get my two cents on this:

More than likely in the end slavery was probably going to end in the CSA, the weight o history was kinda just working in that direction. The question is not a matter of if but a matter of when, which I honestly could not give a definitive answer but I would argue around the time that Brazil and Cuba got rid of it would be a good starting point. The early to mid 20th century would be the latest I could see it persisting, the CSA even before the war was dependent on imports of both manufactured and even agricultural products in the form of food stuffs as such they wouldn't be completely resistant to foreign pressures and unlike the USA they do not have the population or the economy size necessary to be relatively self sustaining.

Now on the domestic front one could also mix that in with the fact that escaped slaves would be even more of an issue with said slaves only having to reach the Mason Dixon line rather than run all the way to Canada add that in with possible USA backed insurgency groups who may even be able to make use of it for basing purposes and you got yourselves a lot of issues with keeping the "Peculiar Institution" running. I personally could see Abolition being used as cold hard pragmatic way to reduce if not eliminate many of these foreign and internal pressures which would only continue to mount as time went on.

I'm not an expert mind you, this mostly speculation on my part.
 
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no, their constitution quite literally made freeing slaves impossible, and abolition illegal.

You cannot have the Confederacy without slavery.
 
An important nuance to the "property" argument is the word "valuable". The average value of a slave in 1860 was $800 - which is 4,500 hours of work for a skilled carpenter, to give some comparison. (That is, it's the equivalent of $87,000 today - more than most cars.)
If slaves become either scarcer or more useful, this drives the price up - hence further incentive attaches to taking care of your investment.

But slaves aren't going to become scarcer or more useful. Once the emotions of the immediate aftermath have died down people are going to (slowly) start realising it costs a hell of a lot more to force someone to work for nothing than to convince them to work for next to nothing. Slavery will die, in time, but it will die in name only. The condition of the erstwhile slaves will improve not one bit.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
no, their constitution quite literally made freeing slaves impossible, and abolition illegal.
Incorrect. It made freeing slaves extremely difficult - the Confederate government could not pass any sort of law preventing slavery, so each state would have to do so individually and they would all have to concur. It also made slavery explicitly protected in the territories; once a state was admitted into the CSA it would be able to ban slavery.

This is of course an extremely high bar and probably impractical; however, it's not a complete forbiddance. It is also a constitutional matter and therefore it can be amended.


a) the csa will be viewed differently to the oppression of Africans in the European empires due to spain
That's what cerebro is saying. That an English-speaking slave power will drive anti-slavery in Britain much like OTL the British defined themselves as antislavery in opposition to the slave-power of the USA.
 
I tend to agree with those that think the Confederacy would free their Slaves and end the Peculiar Institution only after considerable (presumably painful) Efforts (probably later, rather than sooner), but I do think that the South would have been obliged to give it up at some point near the end of the Nineteenth or at the dawn of the Twentieth Century; quite frankly Slaves are a liability in an industrialised society and those Cotton fields won't be turning a profit indefinitely.

"Why?" you may ask and I answer with Two Words - BOLL WEEVIL.
 
Tiro
I tend to agree with those that think the Confederacy would free their Slaves and end the Peculiar Institution only after considerable (presumably painful) Efforts (probably later, rather than sooner), but I do think that the South would have been obliged to give it up at some point near the end of the Nineteenth or at the dawn of the Twentieth Century; quite frankly Slaves are a liability in an industrialised society and those Cotton fields won't be turning a profit indefinitely.

"Why?" you may ask and I answer with Two Words - BOLL WEEVIL.

It wrecked the economy of the south in ATL I'm pretty sure that it will do the same here. It's going to make it hard to maintain the presumably large army that they will need to keep the USA off their backs and crush local insurgencies which as my post mentioned I'm pretty sure would create issues in maintaining the "Peculiar Institution". Kinda hard to maintain such a system if the workers keep rebelling and running off. Not only that but I imagine the aforementioned presumably large army is not going to like the fact that it's not getting payed. For you thekingsguard might I ask if no one is willing to uphold it isn't it true that a constitution is just a piece of paper at that point? Just a thought to keep in mind.
 
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oberdada

Gone Fishin'
I have an idea for another scenario, what about a huge speculation bubble regarding slaves? I don't know if the CSA could survive that long, but imagine a time where the demand for slaves goes up, as well as the prizes, even lower middle class whites start buying one slave or the other, if only for speculation purposes, maybe even on credit and working extra hard to keep up with the payments. Wouldn't that be ironic?

It has happened with houses, so why not with slaves.
Eventually the bubble will burst, a lot of people will be bancrupt or deeply in debt.
The market for slaves could collapse, keeping slaves around just incase the market will recover is not as easy at it is with houses or stock...

So if you can't sell your slave, because nobody is buying, and you can barely feed your own family you'd no choice but to tell him or her to get the hell out.

Maybe some old planter families would keep slaves after that, but that would be an oddity...
 
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