Could slavery had ended without War?

nicholls

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I was reading an online forum and this question was asked by a poster and would like people's opinions:



Was the Civil War truly necessary to end chattel slavery? I don't think it was. Assuming for the sake of argument that that is indeed the case, the question arises: how could it have been ended peacefully? Ideally via Constitutional amendment. But it's extremely doubtful such an amendment would have passed. So what would have been the next-best solution? In my opinion (and this is subject to change if anyone has a better idea), the next-best solution would have been simply this: instead of wasting billions of dollars on a war that claims over half a million lives and utterly destroys countless cities and towns, use that money to purchase all slaves, transport them to the free states, and then immediately FREE them and give each of them the proverbial "forty acres and a mule."
 

Jim Klag

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I was reading an online forum and this question was asked by a poster and would like people's opinions:



Was the Civil War truly necessary to end chattel slavery? I don't think it was. Assuming for the sake of argument that that is indeed the case, the question arises: how could it have been ended peacefully? Ideally via Constitutional amendment. But it's extremely doubtful such an amendment would have passed. So what would have been the next-best solution? In my opinion (and this is subject to change if anyone has a better idea), the next-best solution would have been simply this: instead of wasting billions of dollars on a war that claims over half a million lives and utterly destroys countless cities and towns, use that money to purchase all slaves, transport them to the free states, and then immediately FREE them and give each of them the proverbial "forty acres and a mule."
I'm afraid your solution would never work. Those who wanted the slaves free didn't want the freed people as neighbors. That was the dilemma from the beginning. No man should be a slave, but we don't want them here. NIMBY in full force. If you include colonization in your scenario, it may have worked. But your whole idea requires advance hindsight on the part of those 19th century Americans. They could not know spending all that money was in lieu of a expensive, bloody war.
 

Jim Klag

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somehow other countries ended slavery with no war.
The countries who actually had slaves and were not just participating in the slave trade had absolute monarchs who didn't need to pay people back for their "property." England, the only democracy to do it outlawed the "slave trade" not slavery. And they never had slaves in their country - only in their Caribbean colonies.
 

O' Be Joyful

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My position upon this topic, in another unnamed forum as well as here, has always been that it would have required a massive federal army to force the slavers to accept the money in exchange for their enslaved chattel and some form of "freedom" within their respective realms.
 

Jim Klag

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My position upon this topic, in another unnamed forum as well as here, has always been that it would have required a massive federal army to force the slavers to accept the money in exchange for their enslaved chattel and some form of "freedom" within their respective realms.
At a time when the US Army was tiny and deployed far from the east coast, fighting Indians and Mormons.
 

jgoodguy

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In the land of what-ifs, anything is possible.
IMHO in 1861, the price of cotton crashes, overleveraged slave owners bail or are foreclosed on, the price of slaves plummets, Banks fail and slaves are freed because the banks cannot feed them. There is a grinding depression in the South and slave owner lost their political power. More States become Free States and at some point, sufficient Free States exist to force an amendment.
 

jgoodguy

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The countries who actually had slaves and were not just participating in the slave trade had absolute monarchs who didn't need to pay people back for their "property." England, the only democracy to do it outlawed the "slave trade" not slavery. And they never had slaves in their country - only in their Caribbean colonies.
When the colonial slave owners entered an economic depression, they lost political power. It is always follow the money.
 

jgoodguy

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Money is not the end-all. Slaveowners complete with other stakeholders. Sometimes they can suppress them, but opponents exist. It takes money to have political influence, buying politicians for example or just buying influence via media or the pulpit. These opponents can be more or religious opposition to slavery. They can be economic interests. For example in the South white workers competed with slaves for jobs. These white workers like to eat and have some luxuries, These white workers vote. Enough of them will win in marginal elections at least forcing limitations on slave labor. Then there is completion for capital for industrial machines. The more capital there is for industry, the less there is for buying slaves. Social changes where as slavery declines as a gateway into upper society, its attraction to the elites and the up and coming elites fades.

There is no good way to game this out, but many of the Free States were slave states. These factors stressed slavery into non-existence there.
 

Jim Klag

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Money is not the end-all. Slaveowners complete with other stakeholders. Sometimes they can suppress them, but opponents exist. It takes money to have political influence, buying politicians for example or just buying influence via media or the pulpit. These opponents can be more or religious opposition to slavery. They can be economic interests. For example in the South white workers competed with slaves for jobs. These white workers like to eat and have some luxuries, These white workers vote. Enough of them will win in marginal elections at least forcing limitations on slave labor. Then there is completion for capital for industrial machines. The more capital there is for industry, the less there is for buying slaves. Social changes where as slavery declines as a gateway into upper society, its attraction to the elites and the up and coming elites fades.

There is no good way to game this out, but many of the Free States were slave states. These factors stressed slavery into non-existence there.
You are right. Other than just good old attrition, slavery was not going away. And attrition is a slow process. Barring some massive economic upheaval that rendered slavery uneconomical, it would be a very long time.
 

jgoodguy

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You are right. Other than just good old attrition, slavery was not going away. And attrition is a slow process. Barring some massive economic upheaval that rendered slavery uneconomical, it would be a very long time.
Things can appear to be stable then get blown away in an unpredictable moment. The election of Donald Trump for example. Then decades of pent up pressure happens at once. Could the end of slavery be confidently predicted in 1850, 1855, or even 1860? It was iffy as late as 1862. If its end in real-time time cannot be predicted 10 years out then predictions in what if time are inherently unpredictable decades out IMHO.
 

jgoodguy

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A motive for the secessionists was that border states were tending to be less slaves. The fear was that the 'rot' of anti-slavery would be continuing inwards toward the core of slave states in the deep south.

I find prediction very difficult and personally like the long view, but predictions are iffy for me at least.
 

Matt McKeon

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I was reading an online forum and this question was asked by a poster and would like people's opinions:



Was the Civil War truly necessary to end chattel slavery? I don't think it was. Assuming for the sake of argument that that is indeed the case, the question arises: how could it have been ended peacefully? Ideally via Constitutional amendment. But it's extremely doubtful such an amendment would have passed. So what would have been the next-best solution? In my opinion (and this is subject to change if anyone has a better idea), the next-best solution would have been simply this: instead of wasting billions of dollars on a war that claims over half a million lives and utterly destroys countless cities and towns, use that money to purchase all slaves, transport them to the free states, and then immediately FREE them and give each of them the proverbial "forty acres and a mule."
This isn't serious.

The reason there wasn't a peaceful end to slavery, is when the Republicans in 1860 began some baby steps to eventually end slavery, the slave states blew up, seceded and started the Civil War. That's what happened historically. The slave states would not, and did not, give up their slaves. The story of antebellum America is the story of slavery spreading, and its defense in the face of criticism becoming more shrill and extreme. As early as 1850, proslavery people were threatening, touch a hair on slavery's head and we will secede.
 

5fish

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Here is how Cuba ended slavery in it nation... They had many of the same issues after the slaves was freed as the slave in the Old South had with racism... If you read the link and you we see..


Under the terms of the Pact of Zanjón, which ended the The Ten Year War in 1878, slaves who fought on either side of the war were set free, but those who did not fight had to endure almost another decade of slavery.

Two years later the Spanish Cortes approved an abolition law (1880) that provided for an eight-year period of patronato (tutelage) for all slaves liberated according to the law. This only amounted to indentured servitude, as slaves were required to spend those 8 years working for their masters at no charge.

On October 7 1886, slavery was finally abolished in Cuba by a royal decree that also made the patronato illegal.

The end of legal slavery, however, did not bring racial harmony to Cuba, and Spanish "thinkers" continued to warn against the potential "evils" of a racially mixed society.
 

5fish

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This is a good link that shows when the Caribbean islands abolish slavery...


In short, as can be observed in the map, the geographical spread of abolition was not achieved uniformly across the Caribbean. Neither was the process of abolition itself similar everywhere. Indeed, the official dates retained for this cartographic exercise do not always reflect the complexity of the process of abolition across the Caribbean.
 

jgoodguy

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This isn't serious.

The reason there wasn't a peaceful end to slavery, is when the Republicans in 1860 began some baby steps to eventually end slavery, the slave states blew up, seceded and started the Civil War. That's what happened historically. The slave states would not, and did not, give up their slaves. The story of antebellum America is the story of slavery spreading, and its defense in the face of criticism becoming more shrill and extreme. As early as 1850, proslavery people were threatening, touch a hair on slavery's head and we will secede.
I agree that the most likely event was what happened. Even my what if, depends on the Southern slave owners passively accepting the inevitable. That is not a given.
 

jgoodguy

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Here is how Cuba ended slavery in it nation... They had many of the same issues after the slaves was freed as the slave in the Old South had with racism... If you read the link and you we see..


Under the terms of the Pact of Zanjón, which ended the The Ten Year War in 1878, slaves who fought on either side of the war were set free, but those who did not fight had to endure almost another decade of slavery.

Two years later the Spanish Cortes approved an abolition law (1880) that provided for an eight-year period of patronato (tutelage) for all slaves liberated according to the law. This only amounted to indentured servitude, as slaves were required to spend those 8 years working for their masters at no charge.

On October 7 1886, slavery was finally abolished in Cuba by a royal decree that also made the patronato illegal.

The end of legal slavery, however, did not bring racial harmony to Cuba, and Spanish "thinkers" continued to warn against the potential "evils" of a racially mixed society.
They also had a civil war.
 

Matt McKeon

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I mean, if you accept deep contingency, if leaders made different and better decisions at various points American slavery could have ended with less violence.

However the OP is just SCV talking points. The free states were too cheap, and they were the real racists, blah, blah, blah.
 

5fish

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They also had a civil war.
True... I think world pressure world have forced us into ending slavery but it would have been a system of servitude which would have ended in freedom for the slave and some type of cash payment to slave owners likely up to or equal to 5 percent of of our nation GDP if the British is the model used.

The British did the servitude thing like Cuba plus paid the Slave owners...

Snip...

The Act had its third reading in the House of Commons on 26 July 1833, three days before William Wilberforce died.[19] It received the Royal Assent a month later, on 28 August, and came into force the following year, on 1 August 1834. In practical terms, only slaves below the age of six were freed in the colonies. Former slaves over the age of six were redesignated as "apprentices", and their servitude was abolished in two stages: the first set of apprenticeships came to an end on 1 August 1838, while the final apprenticeships were scheduled to cease on 1 August 1840. The Act specifically excluded "the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company, or to the Island of Ceylon, or to the Island of Saint Helena." The exceptions were eliminated in 1843.[20]

Snip...

The Act provided for payments to slave-owners. The amount of money to be spent on the payments was set at "the Sum of Twenty Million Pounds Sterling".[21] Under the terms of the Act, the British government raised £20 million[22] to pay out for the loss of the slaves as business assets to the registered owners of the freed slaves. In 1833, £20 million amounted to 40% of the Treasury's annual income[23] or approximately 5% of British GDP at the time.[24

Snip... They have the list of slave owners that received the money...
 
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