The alternate-history novel The Two Georges, by Richard Dreyfus and Harry Turtledove, is set in a world where the grievances of the American colonies were settled by negotiation between George III and an American delegation led by George Washington. The colonies remained under the British crown with a semi-autonomous government, the North American Union. As in our timeline, Parliament abolished slavery throughout British dominions in 1833. This included the American South. There was no resistance or rebellion. The government educated the freed slaves, and they found a niche in NAU society as clerks and civil servants, with a reputation for precision and fussiness.
Seems to me that if the South was willing to go to war with the North over slavery, they’d have been twice as willing to go to war with England over it.
I don’t know about that. Without seperation from Great Britain, the South wouldn’t have had the attitude they had leading up to the Civil War. Remember, the American Revolution was only 90 years previous. If that had never happened, the plantation owners would still consider themselves good Englishmen, and wouldn’t have dreamed of succession. It would have caused economic upheaval, but war? I doubt it.
Not really. In this scenario, the differences between England and America have been reconciled, and England isn’t regarded as some exploitative power. And, they’d have had even less of a chance than they did in real life, and might actually realize it. If it went to a Civil War, with the resources of the British Empire added to those of the North, they’d be pretty screwed.
But you’re assuming as populated a South as existed in our timeline. Remember - one point that Turtledove made was that one of the issues that the colonists had with the gov’t back in Britain was that it was trying to restrict expansion into the Ohio Valley. Turtledove’s NAU did exactly that.
I’m not sure that there would have been enough of a populace available in 1833 to fight off not simply the UK, but Colonial troops from the other NAU provinces. It’s hard to say - would the NAU allow immigration from the Germanies the way that happened in our timeline? ISTR that it was that immigrant influx that really fueled the manufacturing power of the North. And fed the demographic shift away from the South as being the most populated portion of the nation.
Also, by 1861 the issue of slavery and abolition in the US had painted a lot of people into corners. Extremism on both sides was rising, and part of the reasons for the US Civil War. One might be able to argue that without that slow escalation the willingness to fight for succession might not have been there.
But the plantation owners in 1776 were also “good Englishmen” and they seceded. I don’t see why their great-grandchildren would have a been any different. Of course, they’d have to fight the North and England, so it would’ve probably been a much quicker war. The North/South line might have been drawn slightly differently (maybe more northwards), of course, but I don’t think that would’ve given the South enough of an advantage to make much difference.
Also, it wouldn’t have been 90 years-- more like 60-- since this would have come to a head in the 1830s, not the 1860s.
Another couple of issues to consider: without the South getting manufactured goods from overseas, as it did in our timeline, how long could it have maintained an effective military? And just how important would colonial manufacturing, in the North, or the Canadian, provinces be for military campaigns?
In real life, how did the rest of the British Empire take the order to end slavery? Was it, “no big deal, that’s already on the way out,” or “over my dead body!”
If I recall correctly, Turtledove and Dreyfus said that there had been a lot of resistance in the south over abolition and there was talk of rebellion. But Andrew Jackson was Governor General of North America when the law was passed and he had the backing of the British Empire so he was able to squash any actual uprising.
According to Wikipedia, the Slavery Abolition Act – unlike the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment – provided for monetary compensation to the slaveowners. I’ve read that emancipation with compensation was not a realistic option in the U.S., where the aggregate value of the slaves was many times the federal budget. But it might have been within the means of the British Empire.
The only places that had any sort of large scale slavery in the Empire at the time were the West Indies and South Africa/the Cape Colony. In the West Indies, slavery was abolished fairly peacefully, although there was an “apprentice system” imposed, that compelled slaves to work for their masters until 1838.
In the Cape, the abolition of slavery was one of the contributing factors to the Great Trek.