How long would slavery have lasted without the civil war?

[keh10]

This thread sparked my interest regarding slavery and the civil war. So, how long do you think it would have taken for free market forces to abolish slavery peacefully? Obviously by the early 1900's machinery was making crop harvesting far more productive and slavery certainly would no longer be economical by that point, but without the Civil War, how soon do you think slavery could have been effectively abolished?

 

[Galileo Galilei]

Considering that Jim Crow laws lasted until the 1960s, and Aparteid in South Africa lasted until the 1990s, I'd say slavery would have lasted until around 1900 or so. It lasted in Brazil until 1889.

 

[jdmyprez_deo_vindice]

It would have only been a matter of time before slavery was pushed out in favor of more economical means. Some state governments were already seeing this which is why Virginia had already made it illegal to import new slaves into the region.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

America was a hotbed of invention at the time-Cotton gin, architecture, etc. It is likely that industrialization would have come sooner and eliminate slavery due to its sheer impracticality. JMHO

 

[klamath]

A good question to ask as well would be is how long would it have taken for the brits to have granted us independence without a war?

 

[jdmyprez_deo_vindice]

A good question to ask as well would be is how long would it have taken for the brits to have granted us independence without a war?

There is a very big difference between the two. The British would never let us go because we were a source of revenue, products and a means of having an expanded empire. Slavery existed because it made economic sense. Nobody would have continued paying for slaves and their upkeep once they had access to more modern farm machinery.

 

[robert68]

This thread sparked my interest regarding slavery and the civil war. So, how long do you think it would have taken for free market forces to abolish slavery peacefully? Obviously by the early 1900's machinery was making crop harvesting far more productive and slavery certainly would no longer be economical by that point, but without the Civil War, how soon do you think slavery could have been effectively abolished?

IMO, not long. In addition to the need for the South to industrialize to compete, the Underground Railroad would have become a river, instead of a trickle, without the constitutional protection of slave ownership. Also, Russia ended ownership of serfs in the 1860’s.

 

[sratiug]

If the South had been allowed to peacefully secede, would the Union have ever freed their own slaves? Would they have sent them all to Lincoln's Liberia if they were ever freed?

 

[nate895]

It probably would have eventually ended peacefully, considering slavery did so everywhere else. Anything beyond that is simply engaging in an entirely illogical hypothesis contrary to fact.

 

[jazzloversinc]

<----wonders why we never hear anyone in europe whining about slavery in 2010 because they had more than we did..and wonders when people will understand Lincoln's Illegal War was not about slavery.

 

[klamath]

There is a very big difference between the two. The British would never let us go because we were a source of revenue, products and a means of having an expanded empire. Slavery existed because it made economic sense. Nobody would have continued paying for slaves and their upkeep once they had access to more modern farm machinery.

The british gave up most of their empire peacefully because economically it was dragging them down, so eventially they would have let us go peacefully.
For the very same reasons you are siting for slaverys demise.

 

[KCIndy]

It probably would have eventually ended peacefully, considering slavery did so everywhere else. Anything beyond that is simply engaging in an entirely illogical hypothesis contrary to fact.

Couldn't have said it better. With a few exceptions in the Middle East and, ironically, Africa, virtually all nations ended slavery before 1900.

Timeline from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline

 

[low preference guy]

The british gave up most of their empire peacefully because economically it was dragging them down, so eventially they would have let us go peacefully.
For the very same reasons you are siting for slavery demise.

The objection to Lincoln's War isn't that he freed slaves. It's that he used slave labor to free slaves.

Union soldiers were drafted. Many men did not want to die, so they opposed joining the Union army. Yet they were forced into it against their will, so they were slaves.

Is it justified to trade the freedom and life of one man to gain the freedom of another? Of course not, so the Civil War was not justified.

 

[KCIndy]

As an aside, and not to derail the thread, has anyone read Guns of the South and/or How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove? Both are novels of alternate history in which the South wins the Civil War and what he viewed as the likely social and political consequences to follow. They're both well worth the read.

 

[klamath]

The objection to Lincoln's War isn't that he freed slaves. It's that he used slave labor to free slaves.

Union soldiers were drafted. Many men did not want to die, so they opposed joining the Union army. Yet they were forced into it against their will, so they were slaves.

Is it justified to trade the freedom and life of one man to gain the freedom of another? Of course not, so the Civil War was not justified.

And a hell of a lot of southern homesteaders that wanted nothing to do with the war were drafted into the southern army. If they deserted to get the crops in for there families they were shot.

 

[nate895]

As an aside, and not to derail the thread, has anyone read Guns of the South and/or How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove? Both are novels of alternate history in which the South wins the Civil War and what he viewed as the likely social and political consequences to follow. They're both well worth the read.

Guns of the South was next on my fictional reading list. There is a lot on my non-fiction reading list that is getting in the way, however.

 

[Standing Like A Rock]

You are forgetting that the Civil war did not end slavery. In Union states, slavery was still legal since the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in states that were in "open rebellion" against the Union. Yes, slavery ended shortly after the war, but the war did not end it. In fact, General Grant still owned slaves after the end of the war.

 

[YumYum]

Slavery did not make economical sense. An indentured servant always works harder than a slave. A slave has to be fed and cared for, a paid worker doesn't. The Southern slave-owners looked at slavery as a status symbol, not as an economic necessity. What is more economical, to lease a hard working plow horse or to own and take care of a prized race horse that never wins any races?

When southerners made comments such as "In the south, we know how to control our niggers," and "you have to know how to handle niggers so they don't get too uppity", this demonstrates the absolute contempt and hatred they had for those poor souls. Slavery was steeped in racism fueled by a religious superiority of self-righteous indignation.

I think the end of slavery would have taken as long as it took South Africa to end apartheid. It would have ended either before WWII (slavery in the Depression would have taken jobs away from people out of work), or after WWII, in the 1950's, due to serious ass international boycotts against the slave states. Those Southern slave-owners were bullheads.