Too late to save slavery?

major bill

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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Aug 25, 2012
Let us assume that the Confederacy would have won their independence. The Confederacy viewed chattel slavery was a positive good and slavery as the key to a more civilized world. Was it too late to change the minds of Europeans on this?

I guess what I am asking is, could an independent Confederate nation do anything to convince Europeans that their view on chattel slavery was wrong or was is simply to late to change Europe's minds? If the Confederacy was wildly successful in expanding slavery would it have been possible to convince Europeans that chattel slavery was the proper condition for all the world's non white peoples? By 1860 it seems that in the minds of most European nations had turned against chattel slavery and I am trying to imagine what an independent Confederacy could have possible done to change the European's minds back to the view that chattel slavery was right. I am of the opinion that by 1950s the Confederacy would have been a very isolated defender of chattel slavery and that most European people would have still viewed chattel slavery as morally wrong long before the 1950s. Perhaps I miss understand the ability of the Confederacy to prove that chattel slavery was proper and convince the world of this view. Perhaps I over estimate the opposition of Europeans to world wide chattel slavery. Any thoughts?
 
I don't think Europe would have accepted that slavery was morally acceptable even if the Confederacy had somehow been successful in seceding. Now then, that doesn't mean Europe would have been unwilling to trade with the Confederacy but it certainly would have been a sticky wicket. After all, Brazil didn't abandon slavery until 1888 but I don't think Europe cut ties with them. Over time, though, I do think it would have become a very difficult thing to maintain and would have died well before the 1950s. If nothing else, mechanization would have replaced slave labor in most industries regardless of any moral issues.

We've debated how long slavery might have existed in the United States a number of times considering different scenarios. My opinion is that it certainly could have persisted longer than it did but it didn't because the scenario that actually played out eliminated it. What if this, what if that .... I don't know. It didn't happen those ways.
 
Now then, that doesn't mean Europe would have been unwilling to trade with the Confederacy but it certainly would have been a sticky wicket. After all, Brazil didn't abandon slavery until 1888 but I don't think Europe cut ties with them.
What was being exported from Brazil that demanded slave labor? Britain was already finding other avenues for cotton about the same time as the Civil War. What was it that Brazil had that kept Europe trading with them?
 
I have seen the previous threads on when slavery would have ended. However most of these threads do not take in to account the possibility the South could have caused Europe to reevaluate chattel slavery. I have no doubt that Europe would have traded with the Confederacy despite the Confederacy having slavery. Would slavery have lasted longer in an independent Confederacy if Europeans changed their views and supported chattel slavery? I am not sure how firm most Europeans were against slavery. It would be possible that slavery could have became the norm and regained popularity, but the South would have had to prove the moral value of chattel slavery.
 
Let us assume that the Confederacy would have won their independence. The Confederacy viewed chattel slavery was a positive good and slavery as the key to a more civilized world. Was it too late to change the minds of Europeans on this?

I guess what I am asking is, could an independent Confederate nation do anything to convince Europeans that their view on chattel slavery was wrong or was is simply to late to change Europe's minds? If the Confederacy was wildly successful in expanding slavery would it have been possible to convince Europeans that chattel slavery was the proper condition for all the world's non white peoples? By 1860 it seems that in the minds of most European nations had turned against chattel slavery and I am trying to imagine what an independent Confederacy could have possible done to change the European's minds back to the view that chattel slavery was right. I am of the opinion that by 1950s the Confederacy would have been a very isolated defender of chattel slavery and that most European people would have still viewed chattel slavery as morally wrong long before the 1950s. Perhaps I miss understand the ability of the Confederacy to prove that chattel slavery was proper and convince the world of this view. Perhaps I over estimate the opposition of Europeans to world wide chattel slavery. Any thoughts?


Probably could not convince anyone that slavery was okay after the massive slave revolt that would have followed the first civil war.
 
I have seen the previous threads on when slavery would have ended. However most of these threads do not take in to account the possibility the South could have caused Europe to reevaluate chattel slavery. I have no doubt that Europe would have traded with the Confederacy despite the Confederacy having slavery. Would slavery have lasted longer in an independent Confederacy if Europeans changed their views and supported chattel slavery? I am not sure how firm most Europeans were against slavery. It would be possible that slavery could have became the norm and regained popularity, but the South would have had to prove the moral value of chattel slavery.
Being that European countries have and still trade with countries practicing slavery to this day such as Mauratania ( as does of course the US) having or not having slaves wouldn't necessarily affect trade relations if the CSA did achieve independence.
Leftyhunter
 
I concede that slavery and human trafficking are still a popular and profitable endeavor up to today and that most world nations have no problem trading with nations that more or less support this. But this is modern politics and my thoughts are if or if not an independent Confederacy could have changed the world view on the positive good that was, or still could be, achieved with expanding chattel slavery.
 
I concede that slavery and human trafficking are still a popular and profitable endeavor up to today and that most world nations have no problem trading with nations that more or less support this. But this is modern politics and my thoughts are if or if not an independent Confederacy could have changed the world view on the positive good that was, or still could be, achieved with expanding chattel slavery.

Only if Europe started growing cotton.

Seriously slavery needs a lot of government and societal support which is there only if slavery produced a lot of wealth directly for that country. Sans that wealth, the fate of the Confederacy does not affect slavery as a social good.
 
If the Confederacy was wildly successful in expanding slavery would it have been possible to convince Europeans that chattel slavery was the proper condition for all the world's non white peoples?

There's the rub. The only way the Confederacy could have been wildly successful in expanding slavery was through military conquest - mostly of regions that Europe was abandoning. It would only have reinforced the belief that slavery was wrong and made the Confederacy an international pariah.
 
There's the rub. The only way the Confederacy could have been wildly successful in expanding slavery was through military conquest - mostly of regions that Europe was abandoning. It would only have reinforced the belief that slavery was wrong and made the Confederacy an international pariah.

Good points.

My view is that a successful CSA is simply a trading partner. It does not matter where the cotton comes from as long as it comes. I cannot see an advanced industrial power like England being influenced by a backward agriculture country.
 
Good points.

My view is that a successful CSA is simply a trading partner. It does not matter where the cotton comes from as long as it comes. I cannot see an advanced industrial power like England being influenced by a backward agriculture country.
Yep. The south would need to sell cotton, but without a really strange twist, Europe wouldn't be a source or market for slaves. If the south could sell cotton to European mills, especially England, and keep maybe Cuba, Brazil and some of that area for trading excess slaves, they'd be good.
 
Europe wouldn't be a source or market for slaves.

I did not mean that Europe would become a source for slaves for the Confederacy. I am not sure if this means that Europe would have reentered the international slave trade or if this means that Europe would have sold off their own European citizens into slavery in a Confederate empire. If an independent Confederacy was wildly successful they may well have been willing to purchases the excess labor from Norway, Ireland, Germany and Russia to help fulfil a slave shortage in the Confederate empire, but the possibility of an independent Confederacy using Europeans as slaves to fill a possible future slave shortage is going off topic. The possibility of a Confederate empire at some point using Europeans as slaves would certainly make an interesting thread.
 
Let us assume that the Confederacy would have won their independence. The Confederacy viewed chattel slavery was a positive good and slavery as the key to a more civilized world. Was it too late to change the minds of Europeans on this?

I guess what I am asking is, could an independent Confederate nation do anything to convince Europeans that their view on chattel slavery was wrong or was is simply to late to change Europe's minds? If the Confederacy was wildly successful in expanding slavery would it have been possible to convince Europeans that chattel slavery was the proper condition for all the world's non white peoples? By 1860 it seems that in the minds of most European nations had turned against chattel slavery and I am trying to imagine what an independent Confederacy could have possible done to change the European's minds back to the view that chattel slavery was right. I am of the opinion that by 1950s the Confederacy would have been a very isolated defender of chattel slavery and that most European people would have still viewed chattel slavery as morally wrong long before the 1950s. Perhaps I miss understand the ability of the Confederacy to prove that chattel slavery was proper and convince the world of this view. Perhaps I over estimate the opposition of Europeans to world wide chattel slavery. Any thoughts?

I don't think slavery would have still been in existence in the south in the 1950s. Slavery would not have continued with the advance of the industrial revolution and the creation of new technology. The mechanization of agricultural would have made slavery uneconomical and resulted in its eventual demise. Furthermore, the spread of the Enlightenment philosophy of freedom would have decreased the support for the institution of slavery also.
 
I am unsure what slavery as a social good implies. In Southern thought of the time, slavery as a social good implies that slave labor replaces free labor worldwide. Which is not going to happen.

Accepting slave grown products does not imply, IMHO, acceptance of slavery as a social good.
 
I did not mean that Europe would become a source for slaves for the Confederacy. I am not sure if this means that Europe would have reentered the international slave trade or if this means that Europe would have sold off their own European citizens into slavery in a Confederate empire. If an independent Confederacy was wildly successful they may well have been willing to purchases the excess labor from Norway, Ireland, Germany and Russia to help fulfil a slave shortage in the Confederate empire, but the possibility of an independent Confederacy using Europeans as slaves to fill a possible future slave shortage is going off topic. The possibility of a Confederate empire at some point using Europeans as slaves would certainly make an interesting thread.

That it would. IMHO Confederate slavery as a social good implies the world replaces free with slave labor. It was a conflict of the ideologies of free and slave labor that powered the CSA as a haven for slave labor.
 
Once the Confedercy had proven that slave labor was superior to free labor, then Europe would have adapted the the superior economics provided by slavey. As Most Europeans already had excess labor I would assume the only logical step would be to enslave their own people and sell their excess laborers ad slaves to areas where a lobor shortages existed.
 
I don't think slavery would have still been in existence in the south in the 1950s. Slavery would not have continued with the advance of the industrial revolution and the creation of new technology. The mechanization of agricultural would have made slavery uneconomical and resulted in its eventual demise. Furthermore, the spread of the Enlightenment philosophy of freedom would have decreased the support for the institution of slavery also.

I agree with the latter, but not the former. Cotton was one of the most difficult and therefore last crops to be mechanized.

Mechanical engineering ingenuity found solutions for even more problematic crops—the worst of which was probably cotton. In the long history of cotton's cultivation, no one had come up with a better way to harvest this scraggly tenacious plant than the labor-intensive process of plucking it by hand. The cotton gin, invented in 1794 by Eli Whitney, mechanized the post-harvest process of extracting the cotton fibers from the seedpod, or boll, but no really successful efforts at mechanizing the picking of cotton occurred until the 1930s. In that decade, brothers John and Mack Rust of Texas demonstrated several different versions of a spindle picker, a device consisting of moistened rotating spindles that grabbed the cotton fibers from open bolls, leaving the rest of the plant intact; the fibers were then blown into hoppers. Spindle pickers produced cotton that was as clean as or cleaner than handpicked cotton; soon they replaced earlier stripper pickers, which stripped opened and unopened bolls alike, leaving a lot of trash in with the fibers. The Rust brothers' designs had one shortcoming: They couldn't be mass produced on an assembly line. Thus credit goes to International Harvester for developing the first commercially viable spindle picker in 1943, known affectionately as Old Red.
 
Once the Confedercy had proven that slave labor was superior to free labor, then Europe would have adapted the the superior economics provided by slavey. As Most Europeans already had excess labor I would assume the only logical step would be to enslave their own people and sell their excess laborers ad slaves to areas where a lobor shortages existed.

I see no way the CSA could have convinced any important European nations that slavery was a superior system of labor. It was only so with cotton, because of the difficulties of adapting mechanization to cotton. In the pre-1860 USA, the superiority of free labor in virtually all other crops and industries was well demonstrated. The same is probably true of the major Euro nations. Even Russia abandoned serfdom. That was the effect of industrialization. There's a reason a significant majority of European immigrants chose the North over the South. Europe wasn't fully democratized, but the 19th century was the age of revolution in Europe. The leading Euro powers still had to consider the feelings of the masses on issues that moved those masses. Slavery was one such issue. If British slave owner agriculturalists in the West Indies could not hold onto slavery in 1833 (I think it was), then certainly slavery was not going to be adopted in Great Britain itself. Abolition burns that bridge permanently.
 
Once the Confedercy had proven that slave labor was superior to free labor, then Europe would have adapted the the superior economics provided by slavey. As Most Europeans already had excess labor I would assume the only logical step would be to enslave their own people and sell their excess laborers ad slaves to areas where a lobor shortages existed.

Hard case to make. Love to see something other than naked assertion.
 
I see no way the CSA could have convinced any important European nations that slavery was a superior system of labor. It was only so with cotton, because of the difficulties of adapting mechanization to cotton. In the pre-1860 USA, the superiority of free labor in virtually all other crops and industries was well demonstrated. The same is probably true of the major Euro nations. Even Russia abandoned serfdom. That was the effect of industrialization. There's a reason a significant majority of European immigrants chose the North over the South. Europe wasn't fully democratized, but the 19th century was the age of revolution in Europe. The leading Euro powers still had to consider the feelings of the masses on issues that moved those masses. Slavery was one such issue. If British slave owner agriculturalists in the West Indies could not hold onto slavery in 1833 (I think it was), then certainly slavery was not going to be adopted in Great Britain itself. Abolition burns that bridge permanently.

Good points. Bringing slavery into being new, is going to be extraordinary difficult.
Against that difficulty is a minor military victory a world away from Europe. Does that victory make slave ideology appealing? I don't think so and certainly not immediately.
 
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