AHC: US slavery ends without Civil War?

[saluto]

The experience of how the US ended slavery was very unique. The rest of the America’s were able to end the practice without Civil War largely through free womb laws.

Was the US relationship to slavery so unique that only mass violence and civil conflict could end it? Or is it possible to end the institution peacefully?

 

[The Uchronian]

Very interesting question, @saluto !

As hard as it may be to believe for some, slavery's expansion in the U.S. very nearly suffered a terminal blow in 1784 with the original drafting of the Northwest Ordinance, a certain part of which-insisted upon by Jefferson himself-would have provided for the halting of slavery's growth beyond the borders within which they already existed; slavery was, in fact, to be banned by 1800 in all new territories & states extant after the original 13. It is generally understood that only one additional vote was needed to make this provision law, and perhaps had one of the delegates from New Jersey not been ill at the time, it might well have; and then, perhaps only a couple of decades later slavery would have begun to end, period, even if not immediately so(I could see gradual emancipation taking some time to come into full effect, perhaps as long as a quarter century or so, possible-but I think it would have ultimately been achieved by not much later than 1850 ITTL, if not even a bit sooner).

That said, that's not to say that there wouldn't be conflict-there might well be some. Just that there probably wouldn't be anything quite like OTL's full-on Civil War(thankfully).

 

[Skallagrim]

If a civil war is prevented for one or two decades after the point where it erupted in ATL, it'll be so overly evident that the South cannot win that secession likely won't be attempted at all. At that point, you get a Union with an overwhelming free state majority, in a world where every other Western country has abolished slavery. Domestic and foreign pressure will slowly kill the institution of slavery, same as in other countries. It won't be easy, it won't happen without a lot of wrangling, it'll take the shape of gradual emancipation (think: "children of slaves that are born after 1 January 1890 or 1900 or so will be freedmen, and slavery will be abolished as of 1910 or 1920 or so"), and the end result will be that Southern blacks still get to be an exploited, minimally paid underclass... but slavery will end.

The ideas that some people have, that it would last forever, just ignore that such a thing would ostracise the USA, and that would just be too costly for all parties involved. Slave-owners relied on exports. They can't suffer a protracted embargo without going bankrupt.

 

[saluto]

If a civil war is prevented for one or two decades after the point where it erupted in ATL, it'll be so overly evident that the South cannot win that secession likely won't be attempted at all. At that point, you get a Union with an overwhelming free state majority, in a world where every other Western country has abolished slavery. Domestic and foreign pressure will slowly kill the institution of slavery, same as in other countries. It won't be easy, it won't happen without a lot of wrangling, it'll take the shape of gradual emancipation (think: "children of slaves that are born after 1 January 1890 or 1900 or so will be freedmen, and slavery will be abolished as of 1910 or 1920 or so"), and the end result will be that Southern blacks still get to be an exploited, minimally paid underclass... but slavery will end.

The ideas that some people have, that it would last forever, just ignore that such a thing would ostracise the USA, and that would just be too costly for all parties involved. Slave-owners relied on exports. They can't suffer a protracted embargo without going bankrupt.

That reminds me of what happened in Brazil. It wasn’t until 1888 that it was abolished, but economic changes and the international context forced its decline for decades.

 

[Skallagrim]

That reminds me of what happened in Brazil. It wasn’t until 1888 that it was abolished, but economic changes and the international context forced its decline for decades.

Much like that, yes. Key defferences would be that the USA is a federal union (and, lacking the Civil War, states' rights are not discredited!), and also has a very stable legal order-- which will actually work against abolishing slavery. The federal government can't just decree "and now we end slavery". It remains the prerogative of the states, so you either need to pressure the Southern bloc, or you need enough states on board to amend the Constitution. That last one is extremely tricky: there were 15 slave states in 1861, and you need the approval of three-fourths of all the states to ratify an amendment to the Constitution. That would require you to have 60 states, assuming all slave states will vote to retain slavery. There is the potential for three more slave states (New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma), but those won't get admitted until we're in the 20th century anyway, nor are they particularly into slavery. (Should it come to it, you could sway them to agree to entry as free states in exchange for some lucrative pork barrel, I think.)

Of the 15 slave states, you can probably sway the Upper South to vote against slavery as well, at least eventually. As it becomes clear that the whole world is turning against slavery, and again with the prospect of some interesting federal favouritism in exchange for turning against slavery, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland and Delaware can probably be persuaded to vote with the North. You'd have to offer them a lot, though. Think of subsidies to set up manufacturing and industry, to compensate for slavery ending, plus pre-arranged contracts contracts for said industry to provide a lot of whatever the federal government needs. That's still cheaper than some mass scheme of compensated manumission (which the Deep South would demand). Also, the co-operation of these Upper South states is based entirely on the sort of "gradual emancipation" scheme I suggested. They'd be far less likely to go along with immediate abolition!

Anyway, at that point, you have just ten states left in the "firmly pro-slavery" camp, which means you can get to the abolishing part as soon as the Union grows to 40 states. There being no West Virginia due to the lack of the Civil War, that means the 40th state is Montana-- admitted in 1889. I'd expect a Constitutional Amendment to ensure gradual emancipation to be passed in 1890. The Deep South will be furious, but its rage will be entirely impotent.

(There will be those who argue you'd be able to get Virginia to side with the North as well--especially since less-supportive-of-slavery West Virginia is not cut off from the rest of the state--and I'd agree with that, but the North won't waste resources on buying Virginian co-operation. It wouldn't make a difference, because the two states to enter the Union prior to Montana are the Dakotas... and they did so just a few days earlier! Spending lots of resources to curry favour with the Virginians, then, would be a very expensive way to abolish slavery four days earlier!)