Slavery, would it have died out in the US without the war?

[SpiritofPickett]

[quote=suwannee]If the British who outlawed slavery in the 1850's stopped clamoring for slave cotton because it was better quality than the cotton of India, their enslaved nation.


'Enslaved Nation' so no emotive words there then.

[amhistoryguy]

While it is impossible to say with any certainty what may or may not have happened, it is, IMO, worth considering that perhaps the education of the young Southerner might be a fair indicator of what the people of the South felt was good for the future of their country.

"The most distinctive feature of these Confederate textbooks was their unabashed defense of slavery. Much of the impetus for educational independence had originated in fears that antislavery sentiments might creep into the Southern classrooms," wrote George Rable in his book, "Confederate Republic."

Despite shortages of ink and paper, Southerners saw education as an important element in the future of their new country. Seventy-five percent of children's books published in the Confederacy were textbooks. The South held a perception that Northern textbooks exhibited strong anti-southern, anti-slavery bias. In an "Address to the People of North Carolina," teachers of North Carolina stated that Southerners must write their own textbooks to uphold their "peculiar social system." They announced their intent not only to establish the legitimacy of slavery, but to spread the pro-slavery argument around the globe.

Teachers were exempt from the draft, at least in part, because of the need for textbooks to defend Southern children from the "poisonous flood of Yankee schoolbooks and Yankee literature," according to Junius in his "Conscription of Teachers," as cited in Rable's book.

The few Northern textbooks that did attack slavery were all published prior to 1830, and in many cases were no longer in use. Northern texts continued to be used in the South during the war, with some cosmetic changes, such as adding Confederate flags to the cover. The only mention of slavery in Northern texts, according to James Marten's book, "The Children's War," was reference to the laws and compromises related to slavery in America.

Most Northern textbook publishers were sensitive to the sectional issues because they did not want to jeopardize the sale of books in the South.
The Southern misperception of Northern books resulted in many new texts being used to teach Southern school children, the future of the Confederacy. What these children were taught is what the South intended for its future.
In Mirinda Moore's Confederate geography text, "Geographical Reader," she describes Africans as, "slothful and vicious." The black slaves in America, the text notes, were not only better fed and clothed, but, "better instructed than in their native country."
John Rice, in his "System of Modern Geography" text, stated, "Under the influence of slavery, which is the cornerstone of her governmental fabric.. (wonder where he got that line ??).. the Confederate States has just commenced a career of greatness."

"Our Own Primary Grammar," "Confederate Spelling Book," "Southern Pictorial Primer," "Dixie Speller," and dozens of other Confederate texts not only promoted Southern values, they offered a reassurance of the Christian nature of slavery.

Slavery was the natural condition of the black man, sympathy was foolish, suggested the textbooks. One elementary "reader" portrays a slave named Tom assuring his owner's young daughter that he is fit only for physical labor and is happy that his master takes care of all his needs. Moore's geography text promised that God would soon wreak vengeance upon those men who caused all this misery. "If the rulers of the United States had been good Christian men, the present war would not have come upon us..." wrote another Southern textbook author.

Using Southern textbooks as evidence of the values and attitudes the Southern people sought for their children, for their future, it is hard to imagine that the end of slavery would have arrived on its own. The next generation was being formally educated to accept and continue the South's "peculiar institutions."

Regards, Dave Gorski

[Freddy]

Great post Dave! It is interesting that a Northern publisher valued profit over morality when publishing Southern school textbooks.
From Dave Gorski's post:
"Most Northern textbook publishers were sensitive to the sectional issues because they did not want to jeopardize the sale of books in the South."

[cedarstripper]

Originally Posted by Freddy

"Most Northern textbook publishers were sensitive to the sectional issues because they did not want to jeopardize the sale of books in the South."

Some would say that things have not changed a great deal in this regard. Well known to publishers is the fact that Texas is the second largest purchaser of textbooks in the nation and all textbooks purchased there have to be approved by the state education board. As a result, what Texas wants is what the US gets.

[matthew mckeon]

There is an interesting book by Frances Fitzgerald called "America Revised" about the composing, buying and selling of history textbooks in the United States since the 19th century.

[samgrant]

In an essay titled "The Founding Fathers, Conditional Slavery, and the Nonradicalism of the American Revolution" (from his book, The Reintegration of American History), William Freehling examines the Founding Fathers' failure to follow through with the "antislavery imperatives" of the Declaration of Independence.

He credits the Founding Fathers for barring the African slave trade from American ports (tho they compromised on that by leaving a 20 year window open before that authority was given to Congress), banning slavery from the midwestern territories, dissolving the institution in northern states, and diluting slavery in the Border South. Yet they delayed emancipation in the North; they left antislavery half accomplished in the Border South; they rejected abolition in the Middle South; and they expanded slaveholder power in the Lower South." Most of these retreats were a result of a need to compromise with the states of the Deep South, particularly (you guessed it) South Carolina.

Any efforts at abolition were limited to what Freehling terms "Conditional Antislavery", that is, that abolition in any state became subject to conditions, such as re-colonization (the states were more willing to end slavery on the condition that that those freed slaves be deported); post-nati emancipation laws (which meant freedom for only those born after the law was enacted and only many years after their birth), "Only a property not yet on earth was to be freed, and only on some distant day" (under the Pennsylvania formula that day would come only after 28 years).

As to the question of this thread, Freehling writes: "By 1860 Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and the area that would become West Virginia had a lower percentage of slaves than New York had possessed at the time of the Revolution, and Kentucky did not have a much higher percentage. The goal of abolition had become almost as practicable in these border states as it had been in New York in 1776, twenty-five years before the state passed a post-nati law and fifty years before the last new York slave was freed. Had no Civil War occurred, fifty years after 1860 is a good estimate for when the last Border South slave might have been freed. Then slavery would have remained in only eleven of the fifteen slave states."



(Hightlighting is mine.)

[trice]

Originally Posted by samgrant

...
As to the question of this thread, Freehling writes: "By 1860 Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and the area that would become West Virginia had a lower percentage of slaves than New York had possessed at the time of the Revolution, and Kentucky did not have a much higher percentage. The goal of abolition had become almost as practicable in these border states as it had been in New York in 1776, twenty-five years before the state passed a post-nati law and fifty years before the last new York slave was freed. Had no Civil War occurred, fifty years after 1860 is a good estimate for when the last Border South slave might have been freed. Then slavery would have remained in only eleven of the fifteen slave states."

Delaware probably first, Maryland next, at a guess. Slave population in Maryland and Delaware had been declining for a long time, and there were already more free blacks than slaves in one of DE's three counties (Wilmington).

Fifty years, though, gets us to 1910. The boll weevil hit the South in 1892, and there would have been major booms/busts in an agricultural crop like cotton before then. Cash strapped plantation owners might have started looking for a way out from under long before then.

Regards,
Tim

[whitworth]

The Cotton "Reaper" wasn't invented until the 1930's. Even then it saw little use, as the government feared the machine's effect on sharecroppers and depression employment, futher hurting southern field workers.

I saw people picking cotton some three hundred yards off the road I was traveling in Texas. It was way back, way back, in 1963.

I pulled to the side of the road and watched. At that distance it was like watching a field in 1863, a hundred years earlier.

If you have any illusions that slavery would not continue, just read the Confederate Constitution (on the Internet) and note the number of times slave or slavery is mentioned. In that Confederate Constitution, states belonging to that union, had no "states rights" to ban slavery in their state or keep slaves out of their state.
It was slavery "forever" or until its citizens could amend their own constitution.

[FSPowers]

It took me a while to get through these posts.

I raised this question on another thread and I think it fits here.

How could a slave society survive industralization?

I think that slavery would have died of lack of necessity by 1890. I could be wrong, but that's my take.

BTW, I've been busy on a project that took a life of its own. It looks like within the next two years, I will be completing a book. My working title is "An Amatuer's Look at the Civil War." Some of the references to slavery would be usefull when I write a section on the issues surrounding the WBTS.

[larry_cockerham]

Go for it. I had the same two-year goal five years back. It get's interesting.