I just thought of this because of an argument in another thread. It will probably fall on deaf ears because it is hardly a current event. And not every one here is a Civil War geek like me. How long do you guys think slavery would have lasted if the South did NOT secede from the U.S.? I think there is no doubt that it would have lasted past January 1, 1863 or April 12, 1865 - as Lincoln's platform expressly stated that he would leave slavery alone where it already existed.
Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy believed slavery would be a thing of the past and would no longer exist past 1900. He said this during the civil war, so my guess would be that it would've lasted another 30yrs or so.
I think it would still be going on now in some form or another. [heck it happens in some parts of the world now] The slaves working the fields etc . .. .maybe . . maybe no Sex Slaves? Probably Debt Slaves? Likely It maybe greatly reduced. .. but i think some parts of society may have them Maybe owning a slave is like owning a Maybach [sp?] only the super Rich would have them Rocket River
What is crazy is that there was a slavery clause in the constitution. They prohibited the import of slaves into the US by the year 1808. The main purpose was to give the south 20 years to eliminate slavery. Really this was a fight that was going to happen no matter what. To answer your question, I just think the civil war would have happened a little longer down the road. There had been several compromises on the slavery issue, but none that took care of the real problem.
I'll bypass Rocket River's response and address your real question. The war would have happened later is all. Unless your qualification is that the South NEVER seceded or went to war over it which I think is just unrealistic. The dynamics were changing. The tipping point had been reached. If the South wanted slavery to continue for more than 8 years they had to go to war/secede.
I think by about 1900 it would have died out without the civil war, as technology advanced, the cost of owning and keeping slaves would have eventually superceded their abilities as a work force. DD
Eventually slavery would of died out (especially when the South lost its monoply on being UK's cotton supply.
I think slavery would have lasted until electricity became somewhat common across the South. Slaves were terrible workers, the worst available labor source, and once you factor in their purchase price and having to provide for them, they weren't much cheaper than paid laborers. Slaves were the major group that didn't buy into the "Protestant work ethic" that was (is?) such a part of the American character.* But without electricity, the heat makes the South a pretty miserable place for workers, so free workers tended to move north and west, so slavery was necessary for the Southern economy. Slavery might have been eliminated with mechanization of agriculture, but the day that someone could turn a fan on and get some relief from the Southern heat would have allowed a better class of workers to compete for the labor that slaves were doing. * - Please don't take this to mean that Black people aren't good workers now. This has all changed. I suspect during the sharecropper era, but I don't know.
One factor that is often overlooked in these debates: The wage system was just getting a strong foothold as the Northern states were getting more and more agitated by slavery. The war hastened something that, to some extent, was already happening. Wage laborers are less expensive, dollar per dollar, than slaves. An employer doesn't have to care for wage laborers, doesn't have to feed them, doesn't have to give them a place to stay, and doesn't have to worry about diminishing the value of a worker by working him too hard (unlike slaves, who were both valuable commodities as well as status symbols). Also, wage laborers don't require a massive initial cost like slaves. The reason wage labor has replaced slavery is because wage laborers are less expensive and can be worked harder. I don't know if slavery would have died out on its own - it's next to impossible to judge. But, in many respects, even though race-based slavery gradually winded down at the end of the war, slavery itself has just changed forms and still thrives.
This isn't completely true. The wage system was well-established in the North with shipbuilders, barrel manufacturers, etc., from the very early 18th-century. Because of factory work, the number of wage-earners was increasing, but the system had been there for a long time.
Makes perfect sense since they were slaves.. Anyway agree with this analysis. The peculiar institution was one that was doomed in the face of mechanization and increased trade. Given though how long the sharecropper system existed it might've hung on for another 50 years or so in some limited form but as the South started to lag farther and farther behind the North economically it would start to die off.
That's true that it still exist but here in the US it seems mostly to be sex slavery. While miscegenation was quite common it was still looked down upon and I doubt that the South would've legally preserved race based slavery primarily for sex slavery.
No, it wasn't. Maybe our criteria are different, but wage labor wasn't well established until the latter part of the nineteenth century when industry really started exploding. Prior to that, the majority of the country (by FAR) was still rural. Westward expansion move a lot of people westward, and independent farms still supplied the majority of goods to the cities. The apprenticeship system, while dying, still persisted (in some cases, it persisted into the 20th century). In coastal cities, and a handful of interior cities, the wage labor system was relatively well-established, but otherwise it was not. In terms of population, probably about half of the workers in the North operated under a wage system around the beginning of the war - but this owed more to the younger generation's movement to cities than to anything else, and it was something NEW ... not something well-established. It was a fresh system, and still far from dominant. It could easily be displaced and slavery (among other things) prevented it from gaining any sort of foothold in rural areas of the entire country and in just about ANY area below the Mason-Dixon line. Wage labor did not occupy a prominent position in the United States resembling the modern world until after the Civil War. Some historians (particularly Eric Foner in "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men") believe that the desire of the political/economic elite for an entire nation based on wage-labor was one of the root causes of the Civil War.
As I've mentioned in other threads, and others have mentioned here, slave owning was incredibly expensive. The vast majority of Whites in slave owning states simply couldn't afford them. There also existed an outright aristocracy of plantation owners with large numbers of slaves, who tended to look down on working class Whites in the South. One has to wonder just how long the average White Southerner would put up with a very narrow tiered social system. Of course, we see many Republicans today fighting for the wealthy at the cost bearing a greater tax burden on themselves, but the media wasn't as all pervasive back in the mid-1800's. As DD pointed out, technology would have eventually made slave owning obsolete, except for household slaves, and the like, and it would be cheaper to simply hire workers to do those chores for you. Slavery would have eventually died out in this country, certainly by the end of the 19th century, in my opinion. Anti-slavery sentiment was becoming stronger in Europe in the developed nations who traded with the South. It's very possible that we would have seen boycotts of good produced by slaves that would have been very effective in pushing towards an end to the system. Perhaps we didn't need a civil war. In any event, we had one, with Lincoln's death having very negative consequences that lasted long after his death.
The wage idea is an interesting one. I consider the post slavery situations of former slaves shapcropping, etc. Alot of which were de facto slavery or maybe eventually a debt slavery system [slavery without the 'up front' cost and reduced maintenance] I consider it base on the context of current issue mainly the push to legalize illegal immigrants so they could work various 'plantation' like jobs The threat of the 8$ tomato because of employee benefits Observation: When the Northern industrialist were pushing for wage based employment . . .there was no employee protection. These guys could work people 80 hours a day 7 days a week . . lose a hand and you fired etc. Hired 10 yrs olds. For business owners this was a pretty good economic fit During the early 1900s the avent of unions and employee protections came about 40 day work week etc. By this time. . slavery was outlaw QUESTION: Do you think . . . the push for wage employees would have been as great if those union lead protections were in place? If it were possible do you think the industrialist would have went back to slavery rather than concede to Union demands? Look at our modern state. Do you think it is more expensive still to own a slave versus paying an employee with full benefits and only have access to them for 40 hours a week or so. Whereas with a slave they are 24/7/365. Rocket River
Here's an interesting read from the Edinburgh University Press via Project Muse: The Development of the Anti-Slavery Movement after 1807 MIKE KAYE From the first meeting of the 12 men of the London Committee in May 1787 to the actual abolition of the slave trade throughout the British colonies in March 1807, took just under 20 years. In this relatively short period of time, a campaign developed into a mass movement that not only managed to challenge traditional assumptions about the slave trade, but also convinced many people that they had an obligation to end it. The campaign between 1787 and 1807 successfully engaged the support of different sections of society including both radicals and conservatives as well as members of the political ´elite and working class people. Ordinary members of the public voiced their opposition to the slave trade through a variety of mechanisms, including public meetings, petitions and consumer boycotts of slave produced goods. The strength of public opinion slowly began to have an impact in parliament as did the escalating human costs of maintaining the slave system, especially after the Haitian slave revolt in 1791. The achievements of the movement to abolish the transatlantic slave trade were unparalleled at the time and even today there are only a limited number of campaigns which could claim to have had the same impact. http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/parliamentary_history/v026/26.4Skaye.pdf What made the situation in America different from that in Britain (btw, France had also outlawed slavery by this time) was the fear of some exploited, low paid Ameirica White men in Northern industry that freed slaves would come and "steal" their jobs. That fear, which may have been stoked by agents from the South (my speculation... I can't prove it), didn't exist in Britain and France. RR, I think you are reaching a long distance with the idea that modern workers with benefits could be so expensive that slavery might be cheaper.
We Could've done what the british did. Buy out all the slaves We could've saved hundreds of thousands of people from dying plus save a bunch of money in the process
Oh they had sex slaves back then. Beautiful black woman were often the most bidded on at the auctions. It was a dirty little fact that was never mentioned.
