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
Slavery is just not going to become uneconomical. However you try to logic your way around it, the data says it's an extremely profitable and efficient economic institution; they're not going to 'realize free labor is more efficient' because it just isn't. Antebellum Virginia pointed the way; even if cotton suffers a contraction, they can made great profits off slave wheat and corn production, and were using slaves to build railroads, to mine, to work in sawmills and distilleries and iron works. By renting out slaves, they can mimic the economics of free labor; I can imagine lots of slaveowners not even putting their slaves to work for them, just renting them out into whatever sector of the economy gives the best returns on labor.
 
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.

The boll weevil wouldn't end slavery it would merely cause the slaves to do other work. It isn't like they were simple machines that could do only one task.
 
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).
Even without excluding the areas that weren't conquered (Singapore ceded legally by treaty, New Zealand established by the Treaty of Waitangi), these were not just acquired prior to 1880- they were acquired prior to the 1840s. The whole point of what I've been saying, which has been established pretty well by the supposed counter-examples that have been thrown at me, is that there was a forty year period centred right on the era which we're discussing in which the British empire basically stood still. Conflating the expansion that came before with the expansion that came afterwards in the hope of papering over the cracks is not going to help us understand British mentalities in this period. We need to engage with what was actually going on.

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?
But the biggest threat to a territory is an external one, and that needs just as much manpower to defend against it. The only difference it makes is the likelihood of rebellion: however, the implicit bargain for reducing the risk of rebellion is exercising the lightest touch in governing and not interfering with local institutions and governments. But for a state to choose not to interfere with the subaltern cultures it control suggests that the belief in its racial and cultural superiority is not absolute: the US, for instance, had no qualms in forcing Native Americans to adopt Western norms.

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

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.
You're both misinterpreting my argument. The original claim was that the British conquering much of the world proved that they saw everybody as racially inferior. I therefore pointed out that at the time we're talking about they didn't do much expanding. I further explained that even twenty years later, much of the expansion that did take place can be explained in terms other than an all-encompassing desire to subjugate the globe (e.g. local political instability, the pressure of events, over-zealous local officials acting without Whitehall's sanction). We would have got further if people had taken this point on board and considering whether there was the potential for views of race to evolve differently from their mid-1860s starting point. Instead, people seem determined to shoot the messenger.

Your argument only works if either a) the csa will be viewed differently to the oppression of Africans in the European empires
Even if we leave aside the fact that there are almost no Africans in European empires at the point we're discussing, I can think of two reasons why the CSA will be viewed differently.

Firstly, the CSA has a system of chattel slavery. You evidently think that it was hypocritical for the Victorians to differentiate between the two, but what's important is that the Victorians didn't. It mattered to them that someone owned the slaves, and nobody owned the Africans. Africans could be patronised and condescended to, as could the working classes; they could be legally discriminated against, as could women; but they could not be bought and sold. If you don't understand how the Victorians felt about slavery, try reading Dr Livingstone- who ventured into the heart of Africa not to spread formal British domination, but to advance the cause of commerce and Christianity in the interest of ending the slave trade. Slavery is unacceptable even for Victorian conservatives because it attacks many of the institutions they hold dearest, from the family to the Church.

Secondly, slavery in America produced a large number of English-speaking educated black anti-slavery activists capable of speaking to Britain in a style that they could understand. This didn't tend to happen in Africa, where individuals like the Most Reverend Samuel Ajayi Crowther tended broadly to endorse the system- even the African National Congress tended towards an overtly loyalistic Anglophilia as a reaction against the Afrikaaners who were the most direct faces of their oppression. However, the election of Dadabhai Naoroji as MP for Finsbury Central in 1892 suggests that the British were not wholly unreceptive to even anti-imperial messages if delivered in the right way. The continued existence of slavery not only keeps racial equality a live issue, but also provides people capable of speaking passionately in the service of the cause.
 
In all honesty slavery was to the CSA what communism was to the USSR; an ideology that dominated all levels of life. So as long as the CSA exists slavery exists, as any effort to dismantle the ideology runs the risk of bringing down the whole jenga tower.
 
Even if we leave aside the fact that there are almost no Africans in European empires at the point we're discussing, I can think of two reasons why the CSA will be viewed differently.

Firstly, the CSA has a system of chattel slavery. You evidently think that it was hypocritical for the Victorians to differentiate between the two, but what's important is that the Victorians didn't. It mattered to them that someone owned the slaves, and nobody owned the Africans. Africans could be patronised and condescended to, as could the working classes; they could be legally discriminated against, as could women; but they could not be bought and sold. If you don't understand how the Victorians felt about slavery, try reading Dr Livingstone- who ventured into the heart of Africa not to spread formal British domination, but to advance the cause of commerce and Christianity in the interest of ending the slave trade. Slavery is unacceptable even for Victorian conservatives because it attacks many of the institutions they hold dearest, from the family to the Church.

Secondly, slavery in America produced a large number of English-speaking educated black anti-slavery activists capable of speaking to Britain in a style that they could understand. This didn't tend to happen in Africa, where individuals like the Most Reverend Samuel Ajayi Crowther tended broadly to endorse the system- even the African National Congress tended towards an overtly loyalistic Anglophilia as a reaction against the Afrikaaners who were the most direct faces of their oppression. However, the election of Dadabhai Naoroji as MP for Finsbury Central in 1892 suggests that the British were not wholly unreceptive to even anti-imperial messages if delivered in the right way. The continued existence of slavery not only keeps racial equality a live issue, but also provides people capable of speaking passionately in the service of the cause.

I mean, yes obviously. All of that is blatantly obvious which is why I said that argument a (that the csa will be viewed differently to the forced labour in european colonies) was a clearly more convincing argument than b (that forced labour in the european coloneis wasn't happening which is why britain wasn't interested in expanding it's empire at that point). And that's why it was surprising to me that you seemed to be making b) instead.
 
I mean, yes obviously. All of that is blatantly obvious which is why i said that argument a (that the csa will be viewed differently to the forced labour in european colonies) was a clearly more convincing argument rather than b (that forced labour in the european coloneis wasn't happening which is why britain wans't interested in expanding it's empire at that point). And why it was surprising to me that you seemed to be making b) instead.
But the two arguments are complementary. Firstly, my point was that large European empires in sub-Saharan Africa are a phenomenon of a later period (and, in that later period, don't necessarily demonstrate that the British were the Borg with handlebar moustaches). When the Victorians of 1865 think of Africa, they think not of Cetshwayo or even Ghezo of Dahomey but of the Most Reverend Samuel Ajayi Crowther, liberated from Portuguese slave traders and ordained Anglican Bishop of the Niger in 1864 (or, indeed, Sara Forbes Bonetta, the aforementioned god-daughter of Queen Victoria); alternatively, they think of Frederick Douglass or Rev. William Howard Day. As the scramble for Africa begins, Britain has to choose between annexing African territory or risking being shut out of it by protectionist European rivals. It's then, with slavery in the United States over for decades, that the educated black anti-slavery activist is superseded in the British public consciousness by the tribal figure. What Saphroneth and I are both suggesting, I think, is that the continuation of slavery in the CSA may contribute towards the perpetuation of earlier attitudes in which differences between black and white, seen through the lens of cultural differences rather than racial ones.
 
But the biggest threat to a territory is an external one, and that needs just as much manpower to defend against it. The only difference it makes is the likelihood of rebellion: however, the implicit bargain for reducing the risk of rebellion is exercising the lightest touch in governing and not interfering with local institutions and governments. But for a state to choose not to interfere with the subaltern cultures it control suggests that the belief in its racial and cultural superiority is not absolute: the US, for instance, had no qualms in forcing Native Americans to adopt Western norms.

The US White population massively outnumbered the natives. Indians alone vastly outnumbered the Brits, hardly the same situation. They treated the natives little differently when they outnumbered them in Australia and the other White Colonies.
 
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But the two arguments are complementary. Firstly, my point was that large European empires in sub-Saharan Africa are a phenomenon of a later period (and, in that later period, don't necessarily demonstrate that the British were the Borg with handlebar moustaches). When the Victorians of 1865 think of Africa, they think not of Cetshwayo or even Ghezo of Dahomey but of the Most Reverend Samuel Ajayi Crowther, liberated from Portuguese slave traders and ordained Anglican Bishop of the Niger in 1864 (or, indeed, Sara Forbes Bonetta, the aforementioned god-daughter of Queen Victoria); alternatively, they think of Frederick Douglass or Rev. William Howard Day. As the scramble for Africa begins, Britain has to choose between annexing African territory or risking being shut out of it by protectionist European rivals. It's then, with slavery in the United States over for decades, that the educated black anti-slavery activist is superseded in the British public consciousness by the tribal figure. What Saphroneth and I are both suggesting, I think, is that the continuation of slavery in the CSA may contribute towards the perpetuation of earlier attitudes in which differences between black and white, seen through the lens of cultural differences rather than racial ones.

I'm far from convinced. The thing is for all you argue that Sara Forbes Bonetta rather than Ghezo is the victorian image of the black african, Ghezo is a huge part of the story of Sara Forbes Bonetta. He can't not be.

Have you read Richard Burton's book about his time in Dahomey trying to convince Ghezo to stop exporting slaves? Burton came to the conclusion that Dahomey was savage because it was black, that the black kingdoms would always have slaves and human sacrifices because it was the nature of the black kingdoms. And Burton mentions having read a book published in London that made the same argument.

And that, Burton's memoir, was published in 1865, the year the civil war ended. That attitude that Blacks were innately barbaric and needed to be civilised was one that the csa would recognise.
 
IMHO you won't see a good deal of immigration in to the CSA. The south, even more so than the north, would want Northern European immigrants only. Even more important is the reality that there isn't much to draw immigrants to the south. Unlike the USA which has a vast amount of land available for farmers for free (more or less) most of the arable land in the CSA is already taken, whether by large plantations or smaller farms. While the CSA may have some industrial growth/expansion after independence, compared to the USA this is going to be small. Furthermore unlike the USA where new mills and factories will need the new workers, here the CSA will be able to use slaves as factory workers at least in lower skill jobs (the sorts new immigrants got when they first came to the USA OTL). Those immigrants that become industrial workers will have to compete with slaves, meaning wages and conditions will be worse than OTL's USA, although better than slaves.

It is reasonable to expect that with a USA and a CSA instead of the unitary USA the total European immigration to the USA will be less than OTL, but as a percentage of decline I would bet that the CSA will see fewer immigrants than the same states OTL, with the north seeing a smaller decrease.
 
I'm far from convinced. The thing is for all you argue that Sara Forbes Bonetta rather than Ghezo is the victorian image of the black african, Ghezo is a huge part of the story of Sara Forbes Bonetta. He can't not be.
At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, Ghezo was over there and Sara Forbes Bonetta (along with Frederick Douglass et. al.) was over here. Furthermore, if a race can produce a Sara Forbes Bonetta (in all respects except skin colour a perfect lady) then how can it be innately inferior without prospect of improvement?

Burton's memoir, was published in 1865, the year the civil war ended. That attitude that Blacks were innately barbaric and needed to be civilised was one that the csa would recognise.
Yes; Burton founded the Anthropological Society of London with James Hunt. However, you've mischaracterised their views. They believe not that black people need to be civilised, but that they cannot be civilised to the same level as white people and that attempts by British colonial authorities to do so are doomed to failure. Here's Hunt writing in 1863, in a work dedicated to Burton:

'The facts I have quoted I believe are sufficient to establish that the Negro is intellectually inferior to the European, and that the analogies are far more numerous between the ape and Negro than between the ape and the European... In an attempt to benefit the Negro we have brought on him endless misery and rendered some of the most beautiful and productive islands in the world of little more use to humanity at large than they were before the discovery of Columbus... I have stated that one of the results of my inquiry leads me to believe that English institutions are not suited to the Negro race. There seems to be a maximum testimony to show that the liberated and the Creoles in our colonies are a perfectly worthless set. They accept all the vices of our civilisation with none of its duties... it is not alone the man of science who has discerned the Negro's unfitness for civilisation as we understand it.'

Furthermore, you suggest that Burton's views were somehow representative of wider society. But look how Hunt describes their reception:

'You are fully aware that it is one thing to read a paper to an intelligent scientific audience, and quite another to promulgate the same views before the general public. And yet, perhaps, it is not men of science who require to be inoculated with these sentiments, but rather those "outer barbarians" whose habit it is to sneer at any views opposed to their own, and to denounce that which they cannot understand, and are unwilling to study. You will, therefore, not be surprised to hear that when I brought the facts contained in the first part of the paper before a miscellaneous audience at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, at the recent meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, my statement of the simple facts was received with such loud hisses that you would have thought the room had nearly been filled with a quantity of Eve's tempters instead of her amiable descendants. It was not till then that I fully realised the profound ignorance which exists In the minds of even the semi-scientific public on the Negro race, and indeed on African Anthropology generally...

My friend Mr. C. Carter Blake ably supported me, but the audience also favoured him with strong marks of disapprobation when he ventured to suggest that the question was one of fact, and that it was of no use to rail against the plain deductions to be made from the physical character of the Negro... I do not mean to assert that the views held by myself on this subject have met with universal acceptance from the Fellows of our Society; but I think we are all bound together by a firm determination to openly and fairly discuss this subject... In time the truth will come out, and then the public will have their eyes opened, and will see in its true dimensions that gigantic imposture known by the name of "Negro Emancipation."

...In France, in America, and in Germany, the physical and mental characters of the Negro have been frequently discussed, and England alone has neglected to pay that attention to the question which its importance demands... [I, as the author] trust that a fair and open discussion of this subject may eventually be the means of removing much of the misconception which appears to prevail on this subject both in the minds of the public, and too frequently in the minds of scientific men... Even such a generally fair and philosophic writer as Professor Waitz has accused men of science with promulgating scientific views which are practically in favour of the so-called "slavery" of the Confederate States of America. Many other scientific men could be named who have equally been guilty of imputing such unfair and uncharitable motives.'

Does it sounds like the views of Burton and Hunt were commonly accepted?
 
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SRBO

Banned
They would remove it sooner or later, but gradually, and probably deport ALL the blacks to Africa (this is what Lincoln actually planned anyway)

OTL, immediately after the war, the southern economy was decapitated because of the sudden removal of slaves
 
They would remove it sooner or later, but gradually, and probably deport ALL the blacks to Africa (this is what Lincoln actually planned anyway)

OTL, immediately after the war, the southern economy was decapitated because of the sudden removal of slaves

They could NOT deport all the Blacks to Africa it would be way too expensive. The proposal was little more than goop to serve John Q Stupid. It would have jammed up the rail networks and the ports for starters.
 
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.

Would strongly disagree with that idea. The CSA was founded almost purely on the idea of keeping African Americans inferior to white men under the law.
 
My belief is that the Confederacy would disintegrate or be reconquered long before it abolished slavery, so they don't abolish it qillingly, but are forced to as part of a regime change.
 
Would strongly disagree with that idea. The CSA was founded almost purely on the idea of keeping African Americans inferior to white men under the law.

But abolishing slavery and making blacks and whites equal under the law (even notionally) are two very different things. The Confederacy could theoretically be forced to abolish slavery by international pressure, but that wouldn't necessarily, or likely, extend any further than changing the legal status of blacks. They can still maintain white legal supremacy, plenty of states in the US passed laws that did just that during and after the Civil War, and Britain acknowledged the Caste System in India. The Confederacy can even maintain slavery in all but name, which they did to a significant extent IOTL with convict leasing and share-cropping, but to an even greater extent in this scenario through means like indentured labor, peonage, etc. When it comes to it, I think the South would prefer to maintain their economic and social system founded on white supremacy and black labor under another name and slightly different form than risk it coming apart due to an insistance on calling it slavery.

Eventually, the South would be forced to abolish slavery, but not for a long time and the act itself is unlikely to make much difference at all to the lives of blacks in the country. When you have an entire nation who's raison d'etre is the perpetuation of slavery and a system founded on it, there are a thousand ways to recreate a system every bit as brutal and effective at extracting the labor of the subject population. OTL's share-cropping shows one way, as does the peonage seen in Latin America, but I'm sure there are others that will be even more effective without the need to obscure the reality that was present IOTL. Sadly, the South is very likely to get away with this, because modern history shows that people will turn a blind eye to an awful lot of exploitative practices and systems. As IOTL calling it slavery and owning other humans will be enough to provoke ire, but it doesn't take much effort to make the truth just blurry enough for people to not care.

my two cents.
 
A lot of things aren't viable economically, but they still get practiced anyway.

Not indefinitely and for no reason. The south practiced it to make a point. Once that point was made by a victory in the civil war, economics will make a new case against slavery.
 
But abolishing slavery and making blacks and whites equal under the law (even notionally) are two very different things. The Confederacy could theoretically be forced to abolish slavery by international pressure, but that wouldn't necessarily, or likely, extend any further than changing the legal status of blacks. They can still maintain white legal supremacy, plenty of states in the US passed laws that did just that during and after the Civil War, and Britain acknowledged the Caste System in India. The Confederacy can even maintain slavery in all but name, which they did to a significant extent IOTL with convict leasing and share-cropping, but to an even greater extent in this scenario through means like indentured labor, peonage, etc. When it comes to it, I think the South would prefer to maintain their economic and social system founded on white supremacy and black labor under another name and slightly different form than risk it coming apart due to an insistance on calling it slavery.

Eventually, the South would be forced to abolish slavery, but not for a long time and the act itself is unlikely to make much difference at all to the lives of blacks in the country. When you have an entire nation who's raison d'etre is the perpetuation of slavery and a system founded on it, there are a thousand ways to recreate a system every bit as brutal and effective at extracting the labor of the subject population. OTL's share-cropping shows one way, as does the peonage seen in Latin America, but I'm sure there are others that will be even more effective without the need to obscure the reality that was present IOTL. Sadly, the South is very likely to get away with this, because modern history shows that people will turn a blind eye to an awful lot of exploitative practices and systems. As IOTL calling it slavery and owning other humans will be enough to provoke ire, but it doesn't take much effort to make the truth just blurry enough for people to not care.

my two cents.

I pretty much agree with you here.

My quibble is that the CSA is not the sort of state to pass a law appearing to uplift their black population for the sake of doing so. It would take time and economics to force them to do so, and it would very much be in the interests of the planter elite.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I pretty much agree with you here.

My quibble is that the CSA is not the sort of state to pass a law appearing to uplift their black population for the sake of doing so. It would take time and economics to force them to do so, and it would very much be in the interests of the planter elite.
I think this is true, but I think that of the "appear to uplift black population" and "actually uplift black population" choices, the CSA might well rather do the former before the latter.
 
In all honesty slavery was to the CSA what communism was to the USSR; an ideology that dominated all levels of life. So as long as the CSA exists slavery exists, as any effort to dismantle the ideology runs the risk of bringing down the whole jenga tower.

Well, yeah. This, pretty much.
 
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