I don’t know if this is more appropriately placed in Great Debates but since another thread on which states ended slavery when is in GQ I thought I’d drop this here as well.
I’ve been on smewhat of a counter-history kick now that I am reading What If? : The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been. It’s a very interesting read on how our world might be very different today if any number of things had played out differently (things that very very easily could or even seemingly should have played out differently).
I was just reading the section on the Civil War and how the south could have won (the “Lost Order” from R. E. Lee was never lost or at least never found by Union soldiers). That plus the other thread on when slavery ended in various states got me to thinking just how long slavery could have existed if the south had won.
I know of no nation today that condones slavery. There may be some tribes in Africa that practice slavery in some form or another but I’m not even sure about that (I am not counting illegal slavery such as might be done by some mafias or their equivalents).
How long could the South, which would have constituted a nation in its own right in this scenario, have held on to the institution of slavery? When I try to think of an answer myself I can’t even begin to speculate (unusual for me). Anyone else have any ideas?
My personal opinion – not long.
A friend once asked me why slavery disappeared and my immediate answer was — Steam.
Stem power, and later on, gasoline engines and electricity, provided the mechanical energy thateliminated the need for human muscle. Compassion and Empathy have, after all, been with the human race for as long as we’ve been around (although not everyone paid attention to the implications), but slavery was practiced all over the world for a LONG time. Even in places where you wouldn’t have expected it (I think Mark Twain probably got it right with slavery in 6th century Britain in “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”.) It wasn’t until Steam came along that slavery vanished. Now you could get rid of your slaves and still be economically competitive.
Keeping slaves is an ugly business, even if you have a geart of flint. Each slave is expensive. They have to be housed and fed. Periodically there are slave uprisings.
One of the most telling documents about slavery, and the most surprising, is Federck Douglass’ autobiography. One of the things that upset him about slavery, on an intellectual level, was how inefficient it was. And he had been a slave, himself. It took too many people to perform a chore that they weren’t motivated to perform in the first place, and they usually had an overseer looking on.
So it makes sense that, as soon as an alternative system became available, people would abandon slavery for the new possibilities opened by the machine age. Slavery would have been gone by the turn of the century at the latest, impelled not only by machines, but by the social influence of Europe and Canada. Peobably it would be gone before then. If this is true, it’s ironic that the South put so much effort into a War that (although fought at least in part for other reasons) had slavery at its root.
Impossible too tell, really. There are too many variables, such as the degree and effectiveness of mounting international pressure, to really give it much of a guess.
However, although I agree with CalMeacham that the economics of slavery would have soon collapsed ( steam is one thing, cotton is another - the cotton market would have eventually become unprofitable for the South, war or no war, thus eliminating the value of mass chattel slavery ), there is the possibility that the instituition of slavery might have lingered on as a relic for some decades. Remember, the southern Planter Class, though a small minority of the south’s population, really were culturally attached to slavery. And they held the bulk of the wealth. After the cotton market collapsed, many ( maybe most ) would have been bankrupted. But property and industrial holdings would have kept some afloat and they would have retained enormous political clout. It is possible it may have been a slow, protracted affair, with states opting out under pressure one by one. Maybe a few backwaters resisting change a little longer, with slaves continuing as household servants, dragging well into the twentieth century.
And of course, there is the really terrifying ( but much less likely ) scenario of the South attempting to industrialize with a slave workforce. I don’t think this would have lasted ( plenty of poor whites would want those jobs as the southern economy tanked, with the possible result of class warfare - Hmmm…perhaps the southern proletariat would have radicalized and we would have ended up with a Confederate SSR ), but it might have prolonged the process.
Regardless of what might have happened, it is certain that southern victory would have set Civil Rights and race relations back decades, to the detriment of this country.
Slavery would probably lasted until recently, maybe still exist.
There was nothing that said blacks had to be slaves. Most would be freed because it would not be economical to keep them. Families with strong ties to slavery would keep a few slaves.
It took about a 100 years after slavery was abolished for blacks to get basic civil rights. That’s only three generations. Without the sudden change at the end of the war, it would have taken a lot longer.
Look how long it took women to get the right to vote. If blacks had not been given the right to vote, how long would it take in a mixed society of whites, free blacks and slave blacks.
It would be more interesting to see where they got slaves from. It would die out as the population of slave blacks got too small to be self sustaining. I doubt free blacks would sell their children into slavery.
There would be a steady movement of blacks from the South to the North. If they were separate countries, the North would not have to honor the South’s ownership rights.
And there I was thinking that there was still a problem with this. Nice to know that all Blacks have had full civil rights since 1965. All those reports of subsequent civil rights violations must have been illusory; this means that Black voters weren’t systematically excluded from the franchise in Florida, and therefore Dubya is legitimate; thank the lord for that ;).
Please read the words. “Basic” not “full”, there is a difference.
You will probably be surprised to learn that the justice department does prosecute civil rights violations. Just because people as a whole have civil rights, does not mean that an individual no longer has his rights violated.
I will agree that “reports of subsequent civil rights violations must have been illusory”. Those are reports, not court cases. The court cases are real.
If you can, look at it this non-political and non-racist way. There are laws concerning speeding. Having a law is not enough. Violators are prosecuted when they are caught.
“Black voters weren’t systematically excluded from the franchise in Florida.” This is not true. AFAIK they are allowed in any franchise other than certain Denny’s franchises. And that is changing based on prosecutions of civil rights violations.
The election was last year - get a life. If you want Bush bashing, search the archives.
Didn’t free blacks have to have paper that “proved” they were no longer slaves? Anyone without that paper could be captured and either “returned” to an owner or resold.
The British had already outlawed slavery and I can’t imagine that the emancipation movement would not have spread among other English speaking nations.
With a cheap labour force would industrialisation have happened in the US ? Probably but the delay might well have left it floundering in the wake of those who had already begun their Industrial revolutions.
I agree with CalMeacham and Tamerlane that the economics of slavery would have collapsed. Again, too many variables to speculate, but I would guess that if there had not been a civil war (a slightly different question than the OP, but relevent), the southern states would have started outlawing slavery by the end of the 19th century as the social condemnation began to outweigh the economic importance. At that point, a federal law would have been acceptable, and probably adopted.
Some of the better thinkers on the Confederate side realized that the entire obsolete plantation system had to change, of course. Their point was not that slavery was “right”, but that it was within the purview of the individual states to regulate. Another fallout of the Civil War that I find unfortunate is that “State’s Rights” is seen as some sort of encoded expression for disguised racism (and often is - but it SHOULDN’T be). We would have been vastely better off if a big confrontation over the limits of state government autonomy had focused on something morally defensible. You might be able to appeal to the 10th ammendment without having somebody accuse you of rabid lunacy or secret membership in the KKK.
Another point to remember - in the mid 19th century, the Southerners were not occupying a complete moral low ground. Sometimes they would point out that many slaves were materially in better circumstances than many northern factory workers. Industrial conditions at the time were such that this was a defensible argument, though it doesn’t justify chattel slavery at the end of the day.
Another economic aspect to consider is the importance of consumption in the creation of wealth. Slaves consume a bare minnimum and depress the value of labor generally which makes for a very poor economy.
I suspect it would have ended very quickly for a variety of reasons that people mentioned with a few differences. A major factor in resisting an end to slavery was the fear of 4 million free blacks. Had the South prevailed and ended slavery on their own terms they would have attempted to ship them elsewhere rather than simply freeing them.
**How long would slavery have existed of the South won? **
Probably forever.
I’ve encountered some down home, born in the south, descendents of Brave Rebel Boys in the battle of Northern Aggression and some are still fighting the Civil War. You have to be there in order to grasp the mind set these folks have. Slavery wasn’t so bad after all and, besides, what right did the North have sticking their noses in the business of the States of the** Stars and Bars** in the first place? (Not that they were under the Stars and Bars until war was declared.) Why, Suh, a good slave owner kept his stock in good condition because they was an investment!
), but it might have prolonged the process.
And that is changing based on prosecutions of civil rights violations.