Slavery's Accelerated Demise

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Perhaps the most tragic thing about the Civil War is that it could have been avoided, and avoided in a way that would have accelerated slavery's demise.

The Crittenden Compromise would have banned slavery from 75% of the western territories, would have significantly improved the fugitive slave legal process in the slaves' favor, would have set up a sort of de facto compensated emancipation system for some/many runaway slaves, and would have given Southern slavery the same protection that Lincoln was willing to give it in the Corwin Amendment.

If the Republicans had at least allowed a nationwide referendum on the Crittenden Compromise, it would have won overwhelmingly and the momentum for compromise would have gained enormous steam.

Lincoln defenders fault Southern leaders for calling for secession "just because they lost an election." True, but they rarely consider the fact that Lincoln won with less than 40% of the vote. How do you suppose Northern leaders would have felt if Breckenridge had won with less than 40% of the vote?

RE: Perhaps the most tragic thing about the Civil War is that it could have been avoided, and avoided in a way that would have accelerated slavery's demise.

OK, I'll bite. Slavery was abolished at the end of 1865. What is the accelerated basis on which slavery would have ended that you're referring to?

I would point out that according to the Georgia secession declaration, slaves were worth $3 billion in 1860, and were the linchpin of southern wealth accumulation.

- Alan
 
I think it would have died out as machines took over......the time table? Maybe another ten or twenty years, just a guess.
The main thing for me is, no person should ever be held as a slave. It happened, and I'm as southern as a summer day is long but I'm just against slavery of any kind. We humans need to accept that people are humans...yes! I at times wonder that thought myself at some of the things people do. Murder,rape, steal, just unthinkable things.
Machine power would have taken over just as the machines and robots have taken jobs away from humans today and more tomorrow.
 
If the Crittenden Compromise was what to took to avoid war, then slavery would have no demise as slavery would still be legal in 5 U.S. Territories. It would be a question of how many slaves anyone wanted to own in each of the 5 territories.
 
the first cotton harvester was built in 1944 - you got two more guesses to get it right

So maybe 15-25 years for most cotton plantations to purchase cotton picker machines. So perhaps in 1959-1969 until the end of using slaves to pick cotton. A few more years for the currently owned slaves to grow old. Then a few years to pass legislation. So 1980-1990 would be a good guess? I am OK with that range but others may believe earlier or later.
 
I'm curious to hear what @Mike Griffith says about this. He opined that if the Civil War had been avoided, it would have "accelerated" the demise of slavery. I am curious to know exactly what that means.

- Alan

Well slavery ended in 1865 so I am not sure how slavery could have ended any factor. Slavery could have ended in 1863?
 
So maybe 15-25 years for most cotton plantations to purchase cotton picker machines. So perhaps in 1959-1969 until the end of using slaves to pick cotton. A few more years for the currently owned slaves to grow old. Then a few years to pass legislation. So 1980-1990 would be a good guess? I am OK with that range but others may believe earlier or later.

i guess that's all the yankee's fault - why did they need that much time to invent the machine - international harvester from illinois is to blame.

/sarcasm

my guess is that those men doing the picking were needed desperately elsewhere from the 7th of december 1941 onward but i do not know that for sure
 
i guess that's all the yankee's fault - why did they need that much time to invent the machine - international harvester from illinois is to blame.

/sarcasm

my guess is that those men doing the picking were needed desperately elsewhere from the 7th of december 1941 onward but i do not know that for sure

Cotton was a vital war material, so maybe not. If slavery was still legal in 1941 can we be sure that the Army would have accepted non white soldiers? The Army draft a free black man to be soldier, the drafted man stays over 90 days in a slave state, the black soldier is arrested by the state and sold into slavery.
 
Cotton was a vital war material, so maybe not. If slavery was still legal in 1941 can we be sure that the Army would have accepted non white soldiers? The Army draft a free black man to be soldier, the drafted man stays over 90 days in a slave state, the black soldier is arrested by the state and sold into slavery.

two parts - my guess is for the real world
 
Anyway Schwallanscher if the adult slaves go in the Army you use women and underage slaves to pick cotton.
 
my guess is for reality, where slavery has ended in 1865 - if slavery continued it's a big if and i wouldn't take a bet that world war II even happened - if you change history that massively you cannot take anything you know for granted
 
So maybe 15-25 years for most cotton plantations to purchase cotton picker machines. So perhaps in 1959-1969 until the end of using slaves to pick cotton. A few more years for the currently owned slaves to grow old. Then a few years to pass legislation. So 1980-1990 would be a good guess? I am OK with that range but others may believe earlier or later.
I'm wondering where the slaves would go, if they were freed sooner than your estimation, because Im thinking it would take that long. In other words, I agree with you, and it would take a long time because of some of the following problems:

Just thinking aloud here. If one machine could pick for 40 laborers, I wonder how the cost figured out. Did it cost what 40 laborers cost to buy, more, less? Did it take only one man to run it? There would have been a transition where plantations had to raise the money to buy the pickers, while still owning healthy slaves able to pick. So the plantation sells 39 slaves (to whom?) and buys the picker, or mortgages the slaves and still needs to keep them profitably busy (doing what?)

There were surely similar transitions from hand to machine labor, and almost worse because the free laborers could just be told, "don't show up tomorrow--we've got a good machine." I'm thinking of John Henry vs. the steam drill.

Ironically, slaves would be put in the position to prove it was better for the master to own a slave who could pick faster than a cotton picking machine, than to turn them out to do... what? What alternative work would they be given? Somehow, healthy women and men like John Henry (well, John Henry died, but you know) could find work elsewhere, or be transfered to other jobs as slaves, and the whole economic system adjusted, just as it did for so many other industries, but it would be rough for a while.
 
The slave owners would have found some other work for their slaves to do. The fact that that alternative work did not have as high of return as using slaves to pick cotton, does not mean that there would be no profit from the slaves, only diminished return per slave. A proffer from owning slaves is still a profit.
 
The slave owners would have found some other work for their slaves to do. The fact that that alternative work did not have as high of return as using slaves to pick cotton, does not mean that there would be no profit from the slaves, only diminished return per slave. A proffer from owning slaves is still a profit.

in economical terms the price for slaves would drop to rock bottom (bad roi does that) - the slavers would lose lots of money and therefore lobby against the machine (maybe bribe or even try to murder the inventer)
 
I'm wondering where the slaves would go, if they were freed sooner than your estimation, because Im thinking it would take that long. In other words, I agree with you, and it would take a long time because of some of the following problems:

Just thinking aloud here. If one machine could pick for 40 laborers, I wonder how the cost figured out. Did it cost what 40 laborers cost to buy, more, less? Did it take only one man to run it? There would have been a transition where plantations had to raise the money to buy the pickers, while still owning healthy slaves able to pick. So the plantation sells 39 slaves (to whom?) and buys the picker, or mortgages the slaves and still needs to keep them profitably busy (doing what?)

There were surely similar transitions from hand to machine labor, and almost worse because the free laborers could just be told, "don't show up tomorrow--we've got a good machine." I'm thinking of John Henry vs. the steam drill.

Ironically, slaves would be put in the position to prove it was better for the master to own a slave who could pick faster than a cotton picking machine, than to turn them out to do... what? What alternative work would they be given? Somehow, healthy women and men like John Henry (well, John Henry died, but you know) could find work elsewhere, or be transfered to other jobs as slaves, and the whole economic system adjusted, just as it did for so many other industries, but it would be rough for a while.
Ever see that movie Powaqqatsi back in the '80s? Those opening scenes of brown-skinned people toiling up paths out of pits with huge sacks of mud/dirt/rock on their backs.... were filmed at gold mines in Brazil. In the 1980s. Yes, you could get mechanical earth-moving equipment and scoops to do this work, no? Ah, but that machinery requires a big expenditure of capital. In that part of the world, at that point in time, human labor was cheaper. Appalling.
 
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