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Actually, slavery had been outlawed in all of the northern states decades before the Civil War, so it didn't exist in the northern states even before the Emancipation Proclamation. .
i thought that to but new jersey had slaves as late as 1865, lincoln deal was just to outlaw slave in state that oppose the union.
That does not seem possible. The Confederacy would have been the only western culture nation that retained the institution and eventually moral pressure in the form of trade sanctions would have left it isolated and in economic trouble.
In addition, pressure would have arisen to end the institution because it would have been a constant source of potential renewal of war between the sections. No longer politically associated with the South, the US border states would have become havens for all runaway slaves, the South would have demanded their return, that demand would have been refused..and...?
In the absence of emancipation for either of the above reasons, there also may well have been a slave revolt, or a series of slave revolts, which would have received clandestine assistance from abolitionist minded northerners.
Finally, the Confederate government was set up so that the matter of slavery would have been up to each state, emancipation would have to be a state by state matter, the central government would not have had any authority to liberate slaves. Emancipation would have probably first taken place in the border states where slavery was less needed, and then spread until only a few states in the lower cotton growing south retained slavery. That would have massively amped up the pressure to liberate them as well.
There may have been a few raids by militant abolitionists like John Brown, but I think the South would have survived that. However, the South would not have survived the Russian Revolution and militant communism. Arming the slaves and southern abolitionists would have established a communist government in the South, with the old plantations being run as collectives. This has been hashed out for the last 19 years in soc.history.what-if. soc.history.what-if FAQ (April 2006)
From my understanding Carpetbaggers were able to buy plantation land for pennies on the acre that were no longer viable without their slaves. I would definitely need to see sources of outright theft of land by private Northerners.
It would be fun to watch them issue passports or citizenship papers for their whole population, particularly if the USA no longer told them if residents were US citizens. I suppose there would be a grace period of perhaps 5 years to allow any US citizens to relocate to the USA, and after that their citizenship would be revoked. We could hire Oklahoma to guard the border, which they would sort of like. Texans who swam the Mississippi to get to America would give a whole new meaning to the term, "*******."
It would make a great sitcom starring Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy.
Certainly many would move north, but also a great number of unappreciated conservatives from the north may want to become citizens of Dixie. The liberal barrier state of New Mexico separates the conservative states of Arizona and Texas. There might be a great migration from Arizona to Texas, leaving the remains of Arizona to the same fate as California. Sheriff Joe might become the new director of the deep south prison system. I'm sure he could find a way to make the prison system productive and self sustaining, relieving the tax payer of that burden. I would hope the new Dixie government could do some things to promote peace and tranquility, such as outlawing sub-woofers in cars or something useful like that.
=ovcatto;34429468]Yeah, Texans thought that too, they were wrong.
I think that the language of the Ordinance of Admission that was passed by the People of Texas makes it pretty clear that the People of Texas dissolved the Republic of Texas and submitted itself as a state of the United States without any special privileges including the right of secession which is not provided for by the Constitution. I also point out the numerous times the document uses the term, the People, and not the Republic of Texas because the Constitution is not a compact between the states and the national government but rather a compact between the various people of the United States.
As usual, ovcatto, your hatred of the South and Southern history preceeds you. First of all, Texas DID have the right to divide into FIVE states. The nuance in the language that some have suggested is only four, is based upon the wording of the annexation agreement that Texas is only permitted to divide itself into four ADDITIONAL states (operative term here).
Anyway, your "people" commentary is only reflective of your own political ideology, nothing else. Even a cursory reading of the "Federalist Papers" indicates that the "people" translated into the people working their will thru the legislative process of the sovereign states...which were recognized as such by the Treaty of Paris after winning our independence from England (after the colonies seceded). To wit:
*************** His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.
*****************
A state meant exactly what the document says; an independent entity and the only different in the "State" of England or France was that the colonies voluntarily delegated certain powers to a federal authority which had certain aforehand agreed upon and limited powers. That is all it was.
The notion (historical revision, really), that the said states would have entered into it knowing ahead of time they could never get out of it (after just "seceding" from England) borders on the ridiculous and completely silly.
=ovcatto;34438452]Real easy. The South could have argued the right to secede through the federal courts (but I deeply suspect that wasn't going to go anywhere), they could have proposed a constitutional amendment, or they could have issued a call for a constitutional convention and then the nation could have voted to keep or dismantle the union. Frankly, I have a sneaking suspicion that at the time most of the north would have said goodbye and good riddance.
For one thing, it wasn't necessary; the Constitution did not give any authority for the federal government to use force to coerce any state into a Union it no longer wanted to be part of. No reason to take it to a federal court, because things like this go much beyond 9 men ruling.
And besides, what if the SCOTUS had ruled the Southern states had no right to secede? Think that would have stopped it? But more importantly, what if SCOTUS had said, yes, go ahead you have every right? Would that have stopped Lincoln and his minions from still using military force to coerce them...as they needed the South's tax money? (and that was all it was about anyway...)
In some ways, all this backs up a goodly portion of what you say...and yes, most northerners did oppose the war and wanted to say, ok, big deal, you Southerners, hit the road! But Lincoln chose to invade a people who had done the north no wrong to begin with...
It would have been nice if they had all done it that way put away their anger and let the courts decide . Here is a question though if the south was allowed to secede would slavery still be legal there today?
Here is a good question in return. If it had not been for the northern slave trade, would slavery have ever existed in the South to begin with. Read this link (and sub-links) when you get a chance!
The attempt to force blame for all America's ills onto the South led the Northern leadership to extreme twists of logic. Abolitionist leaders in New England noted the "degraded" condition of the local black communities. Yet the common abolitionist explanation of this had nothing to do with northerners, black or white. Instead, they blamed it on the continuance of slavery in the South. "The toleration of slavery in the South," Garrison editorialized, "is the chief cause of the unfortunate situation of free colored persons in the North.
This argument, embraced almost universally by New England abolitionists, made good sense as part of a strategy to heap blame for everything wrong with American society on southern slavery, but it also had the advantage, to northern ears, of conveniently shifting accountability for a locally specific situation away from the indigenous institution from which it had evolved."
Even after slavery was outlawed in the North, ships out of New England continued to carry thousands of Africans to the American South. Some 156,000 slaves were brought to the United States in the period 1801-08, almost all of them on ships that sailed from New England ports that had recently outlawed slavery. Rhode Island slavers alone imported an average of 6,400 Africans annually into the U.S. in the years 1805 and 1806. The financial base of New England's antebellum manufacturing boom was money it had made in shipping. And that shipping money was largely acquired directly or indirectly from slavery, whether by importing Africans to the Americas, transporting slave-grown cotton to England, or hauling Pennsylvania wheat and Rhode Island rum to the slave-labor colonies of the Caribbean.
Northerners profited from slavery in many ways, right up to the eve of the Civil War. The decline of slavery in the upper South is well documented, as is the sale of slaves from Virginia and Maryland to the cotton plantations of the Deep South. But someone had to get them there, and the U.S. coastal trade was firmly in Northern hands. William Lloyd Garrison made his first mark as an anti-slavery man by printing attacks on New England merchants who shipped slaves from Baltimore to New Orleans.
That does not seem possible. The Confederacy would have been the only western culture nation that retained the institution and eventually moral pressure in the form of trade sanctions would have left it isolated and in economic trouble.
In addition, pressure would have arisen to end the institution because it would have been a constant source of potential renewal of war between the sections. No longer politically associated with the South, the US border states would have become havens for all runaway slaves, the South would have demanded their return, that demand would have been refused..and...?
In the absence of emancipation for either of the above reasons, there also may well have been a slave revolt, or a series of slave revolts, which would have received clandestine assistance from abolitionist minded northerners.
Finally, the Confederate government was set up so that the matter of slavery would have been up to each state, emancipation would have to be a state by state matter, the central government would not have had any authority to liberate slaves. Emancipation would have probably first taken place in the border states where slavery was less needed, and then spread until only a few states in the lower cotton growing south retained slavery. That would have massively amped up the pressure to liberate them as well.
That makes a lot of sense. I wonder when public pressure would finally have forced the south to free the slaves , if it would have happened before the turn of the last century or sometime after? I only with slavery were gone in the rest of the world . Currently some countries still have slaves.
i thought that to but new jersey had slaves as late as 1865, lincoln deal was just to outlaw slave in state that oppose the union.
Slavery was never big nor an important part of the economy in NJ. The slave trade there was banned in 1804 and it was the last northern state to do so. What the law meant is that anyone who was a slave in 1803 became an "indentured servant for life." Anyone born to an "indentured servant" after that was free. By the time 1865 rolled around there were 16 slaves left in NJ compared to the free black population of 30,000.
There were no more slaves in PA after 1847. In NY it was 1829. In MA it was 1783.
Lincoln only offered to keep slavery legal in the border states as a concession to keep them from seceding - this meant Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri.
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Texans who swam the Mississippi to get to America would give a whole new meaning to the term, "*******." 
