Just another related what-if to the ongoing Buchanan: what if the secession was not contested? What would have happened?
Could they have been brought back into the fold and slavery abolished with economic pressures alone? The South was agricultural and just agricultural. The North had could exist on its own agricultural base and also was an emerging power in the industrializing world. The North could have survived without the South’s cotton. How well would have the South made it without the manufacturing North? No taxation system to speak of … a world beginning to sour of the idea of slavery all round … just agriculture. Could Lincoln have convinced Europe to help isolate the South and have pressured them without the massive costs that the War wrought?
Lincoln’s actions and leadership are widely lauded, but the war cost many hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars back when a billion really was money … the result was a Southern infrastructure destroyed and Blacks out of slavery but into a world in which their day to day living wasn’t often all that much better.
Slavery probably would have died out eventually, but it would have taken much longer. Lincoln himself estimated that it would take many decades for slavery to die out naturally before he decided to force the issue. And I think being a free black man in the Jim Crow south was still better than being a slave. So there may not have been a morally superior option (depending on how you weigh the war deaths).
The problem with bringing the states back into the fold later is that there is no guarantee some other states wouldn’t secede again the next time some big political issue arises. In many ways, the question of a state’s right to withdraw had to be settled at some point, and most likely had to be settled by violence.
Strictly my personal opinion, but I think slavery would have died faster than you imagine. The world was rapidly industrializing in the mid to late 1800’s, and agriculture was industrializing especially quickly. I just don’t see illiterate, uneducated slaves running complex machines. I really believe chattel slavery was probably not sustainable for than 10-15 years tops beyond when the Civil War ended.
I don’t have a strong opinion either way. Just saying, Abe probably knew a thing or two about it, and he said it wouldn’t happen in “less than one hundred years, at the least.” Even if he was wrong by half, that’s still a long period of that institution which Lincoln also declared “if not wrong, nothing is wrong.”
Slavery would probably have lingered at least for several decades. A South which broke up the Union over slavery (gussied up as “states’ rights,” I know, but read Alexander Stephens’s Cornerstone Speech for the unvarnished truth) would be reluctant to give it up, even if it made economic sense to do so. The entire Southern social structure was essentially built upon it, after all. And secession, if allowed as a precedent, would have surely happened again, perhaps in California or the Pacific Northwest, realizing George Washington’s fears that a mere collection of states would not hold together in the long term and perhaps leaving the United States, the Confederacy and their splinter states weakened and demoralized, the playthings of European imperialists.
One problem with peaceful secession scenarios was the federal territories. The conflict over slavery had centered on the territories for 15 years before the war, and it’s unlikely the CSA wouldn’t have lodged a claim for its share of the inheritance.
If you assume that problem away–say the CSA renounces the territories in return for recognition–the next problem would have been fugitive slaves. The Constitution (and federal law) required Northern states to return fugitives to Southern states, but not to a foreign country. With the Underground Railroad running to Pennsylvania and Indiana instead of Canada, it would have gotten a lot more traffic. This in itself may have precipitated war.
If you also assume that problem away, then yeah, I don’t see why the CSA couldn’t survive. They didn’t have much of a tax base, but neither did the federal government in those days. Slavery could have lasted as long as sharecropping–that is, roughly until World War II. A depressing thought.
There’s also a possibility that the CSA would have ended up as a quasi-British Protectorate- technically independent of the USA, but with their economic livelihood and ability to defend themselves depending on trade with the British Empire.
This is true, but knowing the British, I suspect they would have been having High Level Meetings with various members of the CSA’s Government…
“Ah, now, Mr. Davis, about the whole ‘Slavery’ thing- you see, some of Our People feel that it’s perhaps… well, it’s not Cricket, old chap, you see, and considering our own delicate position in some of the Colonies, we thought you might see your way to, well, not having “Slaves” so much as “Indentured Workers”- who all happen to be from Africa, but oh well, can’t be helped. More Tea?”
Blacks would not be equal citizens in the Confederate States of America even today. They might not be “slaves” but they would not have equal protection under the law. They didn’t have equal protection under the law even WITH the civil war until more than a hundred years later.
The Confederate States would be a terrible mess of failing agricultural economy, powerless government, and little (no) modern infrastructure. Nations like that do not make great friends, and are not places where Democracy flourishes. The USA would have a bitter, belligerent neighbor long on pride and will, but short on resources and money. It would be an awful mess, and I certainly wouldn’t want to live in that hypothetical world.
I don’t buy the idea of slavery just magically disappearing on its own no matter what the economics of the situation. Even if there were no market for cotton-picking field slaves, there would still be a subset of the population who would own slaves for other purposes.
I seem to remember reading somewhere (possibly on the boards themselves) that Britain was able to get cheap cotton from Egypt about the same time that they might plausibly have involved themselves and so had even less reason to be involved, is that true?
I have no idea. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that. As Martini Enfield suggests above, we should probably be a little skeptical that Britain would determine its foreign policy in the 1860’s on such moral grounds.
Why not? Most of the factory workers at the time were illiterate and uneducated.
Also, not all slaves were uneducated. Most were, especially the ones used for unskilled labor, but there was a set of slave craftsmen (carpenters, smiths, masons, tanners, etc.) who were just as skilled as their free counterparts.
As to cheap cotton from Egypt: and India as I understand. There was also the practicalities of trade between Europe and the South: the South didn’t import much - ships leaving fully loaded with cotton would need to come back fairly empty - highly inefficient. That’s why most export went by way of New York not direct with the South. Also established cotton plantations were becoming less productive as the soil was depleted. Many plantations were profitable only by virtue of selling slaves to exploit new farming areas in the West - hence the issue over slavery there.
As to
I find this an interesting POV and wonder if that is exactly the position that China takes today. Force is indicated to keep a region from secession lest other regions get the same idea in the future and the imperialists win. Or how it applies to any of a variety of secessionist situations curently and in the past hundred or so years.
Consider instead an economic Cold War of sorts, which the North was in a very good position to win handily, with the olive branch of economic incentives held out for a return to the fold with an emancipation process that included some economic recompense for slaves emancipated along with help transitioning to a more diverse economy.
What motivated England to get out of the slave trade business? Was it primarily a newfound morality or merely that it became less attractive as a business? I suspect that it wasn’t morality and the changing economy may have made such a deal an offer the South couldn’t refuse as well.
They’d probably have linked up with the apartheid Boer republics, and next thing you know we’d have a race of genetic supermen on our hands…
Seriously, though - I think it would have ended pretty much like Apartheid South Africa - an international pariah, somewhat backwards in some respects but reasonably up-to-date in others.
Also, remind me, where was all the oil from, that fueled the early car age of Ford Model Ts? Was that Texan oil? That might have made trade with them slightly more palatable for the North.
In China’s case, it may just be basic behavior theory–if we don’t punish this, we’ll get more of it. In the US case, it was more of a legal issue. Secession was a problem inherent to our new and unique system. If state governments consented to government, the question of withdrawing their consent is inevitable.
The first commercial oil drilling in the U.S. was in Pennsylvania. The Texas and Oklahoma fields came along a little later, IIRC. At least in the early days, both the United and the Confederate States would have sufficient domestic oil production for their needs, I’d expect.
The free black men & women could move from the country to the city. Even Houston offered more opportunities than rural East Texas. Or they could go North. They still faced many struggles–but they weren’t slaves!
… the result was a Southern infrastructure destroyed and Blacks out of slavery but into a world in which their day to day living wasn’t often all that much better.