Civil War History - "What if..." DiscussionsWhat if they had attacked instead of digging in...? What if he was in charge of the army instead...? Did you ever have a "What if..." question, and you weren't sure where to post it? Here's the place to ask these speculative questions!
The old saying that blood is thicker than water, comes to mind. I think that in many instances children of slaves were schooled, in disobedience to local laws, in part due to the fact that they were actually related by blood. I think that this interbreeding was the largest reason that there was no slave revolt, as such during the war. The practice was looked down on by most Northerners. Today, as it has been for the last 50 years that I can relate to, the races work together with few problems. For every Fredrick Douglas, there was a Holt Collier. In today's military, physical contact with a person of the opposite sex is prohibited. Sexual discrimination is closely guarded. When I am visited in my office by several colored ladies in military uniform, their first requirement is a hug, right in front of Bedford Forrest's portrait! We are friends. Different race, different sex, performing an illegal act. That's what makes loyalty. What the old folks (pre-war) intent was we'll never know, but I'll venture to guess that the slave owners, as a whole, never intended for their wards to be thrust into the world like so many cattle, without proper guidance. Lincoln's North made no provision for the care and instruction of the former slaves. The forty acres and a mule that was promised them was denied. People of color have a legal complaint. They may have been worked by the South, but they were turned out to fend for themselves with little guidance by the North. The great misconception is that all white Southerners are prejudiced against people of color today.
I agree that the slave owners never intended for their "wards" to be thrust into the world. They intended them to be slaves forever. And that their children, who ever fathered them, would be slaves forever as well.
Actually, I find the use of the word, "ward" in this context very strange.
Secession killed slavery. Economics did not kill slavery. When war started the abolutionists were unimportant. The end of slavery was the natural end of a long war. Remember, slavery was ended without compensation to the slaveholders. That was the direct result of a long Civil War.
Slavery never would have ended in the south, as long as slavery was the major means to wealth, in the slave-holding states. Slavery ended out of the barrel of a gun.
If slavery had been restricted to the states it existed in already, some sort of apartheid like situation would have continued well into 20th century, whatever it was called.
However slavery was what made the South different from the rest of the nation.
As long as the a region of the nation continued to hold slaves, the secession crisis would again arise. After an easing of immediate tensions, abolitionist criticism would again increase, conflicts over fugitive slaves would continue, and so forth.
If slavery had been restricted to the states it existed in already, some sort of apartheid like situation would have continued well into 20th century, whatever it was called.
However slavery was what made the South different from the rest of the nation.
As long as the a region of the nation continued to hold slaves, the secession crisis would again arise. After an easing of immediate tensions, abolitionist criticism would again increase, conflicts over fugitive slaves would continue, and so forth.
Respectfully disagree, Matthew. -- space -- Slavery, was necessary only to agriculture. At the rate the south was burning up its soil, it would have reached a point of rapidly diminishing returns. -- paragraph -- To be sure, slaves had proven themselves capable of technical and craft skills, and an argument can be made that the decline of southern agriculture would be replaced by industry and mercantilism. I personally don't see that transition. -- paragraph -- I see the plantations being replaced by yeoman farmers (continuing the agricultural tradition) and cottage industries with potential. -- para -- In either event, duing that transition period, the sticky part of the equation, the negro presence, would rise to prominence. The fear of slave uprisings would wane, but the unwelcome presence of the negro would gain in importance. Perhaps colonization would arise again? -- para -- The waning of "the institution" would silence much of the abolitionist howling (on the presumption that most of them would settle for gradual elimination when ultimate elimination was assured). What happens to the negro population is the hazy part. Free blacks were tolerable to a point. Four million of them is quite another matter. But, I digress. The possibilities spread infinitely from Lincoln's contention: that constrained slavery would dissipate itself. The question of southern sway in the government could not be so easily dismissed. -para - I also disagree with the statement: "However slavery was what made the South different from the rest of the nation." It was a defining point, but it was not THE defining point. From the first footstep on these shores, there were cultural differences. The "looking down on the neighbors" was, from the beginning, more than just poking fun at Brooklyn, New Jersey, or Iowa. Slavery widened that gulf, and perhaps made it irreparable. Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Dear Ole,
Of course millions of African Americans did leave the South, for the North in the Great Migration. If slavery still existed in the 1900-30 period when this occured, would it have happened?
If slavery became less economically profitable, and more slaves were freed as a result, they may have chosen to leave an area where race and slavery were linked. Colonialization was always a chimera, so perhaps to the West or North, as in the Great Migration. Also, I don't see a large free black population and black slavery coexisting very long. One would have to go or the other.
What would be the condition of the freedmen, legally and politically? Jim Crow and segregation lasted in the 1960s and would have lasted much longer if the civil rights movement had not been supported by the federal government. Would the federal government intervened more or less forcefully in this scenario?
I think Americans are more alike than different, then and now. The biggest difference was the South being a slaveholding region. Over half the population of the antebellum South was either slaves or slaveholders. Even white Southerners without slaves, and little involvement with the slave economy were influenced by it. Free blacks living in the South may not have been slaves, but surely their lives were strongly influenced by the existence of slavery.
Matthew: If slavery still existed in the 20s and 30s, there would have been no great migration. Jim Crowism and the other problems you mentioned would have been the second problem; the first would have been getting over the recession caused by the rapidly declining value of slaves (I don't see them being granted freedom en masse under any circumstances). Once the profitability is gone, then there's the problem of what to do with them. Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Sadly due to political correctness and all the false history going around, and ridiculously exaggerated numbers, (not by posters here specifically, but in general) much of this question can not be answered.
For instance it was earlier stated here about “knowing” about Jefferson having slave children. That is patently false. No one knows who the father of Sally Hemings children were, DNA tests have confirmed it was “A” Jefferson, but not Thomas. Most likely one of the nephews who were well known to “visit the cabins”
As to how long slavery would have lasted that too is near impossible to say. I do believe that the share cropper system, being economically better would have replaced it in time, but there is no way to prove it.
There was a study done around 1859 or so which has been tossed out as racist since it proved that whites were superior to black workers. It showed that white share croppers worked and produced nearly four times what there black counter parts did. HOWEVER what was not taken in to account was the blacks in question were slaves and the whites were share croppers. Very easy to believe that a person who gets to keep half or so of what they produce would work a lot harder.
But proof? None of course, can’t be. But lots of interesting speculation.
Ever read the book, Time on the Cross? you might find some of the proof you say cannot be found there that slavery was far more profitable than sharecropping.
I also find it very interesting that slavery was not just geared towards agriculture, but had proved very adaptable to other forms of labor, such as factory work, crafts, mechanical, etc.
One last observation. Cotton was still being harvested by hand in the 1940's.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
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