Dead Parrott
First Sergeant
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2019
a What If thought experiment:
Same timeline, same election, same result, same hostile rhetoric ... but at the South Carolina convention, amid the screaming, level heads prevail, and SC declares it will FIGHT these horrid abolitionists ... through the courts, and the law, and the Constitution.
Bear with me, for the sake of the hypothetical. (We know what actually happened).
Lincoln and the Republicans are still vilified. Southern leadership still realizes they have lost control of the government - and given demographics, they will not recover it for ages. The Southern leadership, with so much invested in slavery (monetarily and culturally), still see the immediate threat to its expansion imperiled, and the long-term threat to its survival through both 1). territories becoming Free States, and 2.) international civilized opinion accelerating its anti-slavery trend.
The slave-owning states of the South have lost control of the US government, but they are far from politically powerless. The SCOTUS recently handed them an amazing victory. It might do so again (the composition of that court had not changed dramatically). The slave-owning states can still influence (if not control) the course of politics nationally, and can control it locally.
Yes, the unresolved issue of slavery had now reached a critical inflection point in US history. But in this timeline, cooler heads realize the immense death and destruction a war would bring, and recognize that many Southerners still hold allegiance to the US. Leadership in the slave-holding states decides to fight in the courts, and with compromise proposals. At best (?), perhaps they win the types of compromises offered to prevent war. At worst, they have a hand in the (very) gradual and compensated elimination of slavery. In other words, they still have a say in the destiny of their Peculiar Institution.
What If SC, leading the slave-holding states, declared a hard and unified political and legal fight, instead of armed rebellion?
Same timeline, same election, same result, same hostile rhetoric ... but at the South Carolina convention, amid the screaming, level heads prevail, and SC declares it will FIGHT these horrid abolitionists ... through the courts, and the law, and the Constitution.
Bear with me, for the sake of the hypothetical. (We know what actually happened).
Lincoln and the Republicans are still vilified. Southern leadership still realizes they have lost control of the government - and given demographics, they will not recover it for ages. The Southern leadership, with so much invested in slavery (monetarily and culturally), still see the immediate threat to its expansion imperiled, and the long-term threat to its survival through both 1). territories becoming Free States, and 2.) international civilized opinion accelerating its anti-slavery trend.
The slave-owning states of the South have lost control of the US government, but they are far from politically powerless. The SCOTUS recently handed them an amazing victory. It might do so again (the composition of that court had not changed dramatically). The slave-owning states can still influence (if not control) the course of politics nationally, and can control it locally.
Yes, the unresolved issue of slavery had now reached a critical inflection point in US history. But in this timeline, cooler heads realize the immense death and destruction a war would bring, and recognize that many Southerners still hold allegiance to the US. Leadership in the slave-holding states decides to fight in the courts, and with compromise proposals. At best (?), perhaps they win the types of compromises offered to prevent war. At worst, they have a hand in the (very) gradual and compensated elimination of slavery. In other words, they still have a say in the destiny of their Peculiar Institution.
What If SC, leading the slave-holding states, declared a hard and unified political and legal fight, instead of armed rebellion?