No Nat Turner Rebelion: Virginia outlaws slavery 1832

Johnrankins

What if Virginia outlaws slavery in 1832? I think this would greatly weaken slavery as I think it makes it likely Maryland and Deleware follow.
 

DuQuense

OK-- Virginia becomes a Free state in 1832, Probally a graduated emaicapation.
Maryland and Delaware follow several years later.
With Virginia a Free State, there is no longer the ability to Kidnap Free Blacks in Marysland, Delaware, and south Pennsylvania and escape to Virginia.
Starting in the 1840's the number of free blacks tobacco farmers in the Delmarva pennusula continue to rise.
[OTL stopped by the Kidnappings]
This gives us a large pool of moderatly well off blacks

OTOH this hastens the selling of the remaining Slaves in Virginia, Kentucky, & Tennessee, south into the remaining slave states.
This gives us a increase in the concentration of Blacks in the deep south. Some Southern States even become Majority Black.
[which will be interesting after slavery is abolished]
 

Johnrankins

DuQuense said:
OK-- Virginia becomes a Free state in 1832, Probally a graduated emaicapation.
Maryland and Delaware follow several years later.
With Virginia a Free State, there is no longer the ability to Kidnap Free Blacks in Marysland, Delaware, and south Pennsylvania and escape to Virginia.
Starting in the 1840's the number of free blacks tobacco farmers in the Delmarva pennusula continue to rise.
[OTL stopped by the Kidnappings]
This gives us a large pool of moderatly well off blacks

OTOH this hastens the selling of the remaining Slaves in Virginia, Kentucky, & Tennessee, south into the remaining slave states.
This gives us a increase in the concentration of Blacks in the deep south. Some Southern States even become Majority Black.
[which will be interesting after slavery is abolished]
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With a swing of 6 votes in the senate and quite a few more in the Representatives it well might take less time for slavery to be abolished so it might become difficult to have black majority states. This is particularly true if Kentucky and Tennessee become free states as well as you seem to be implying.
 

DuQuense

Slave holders in the soon to be free states, would sell there slaves farther south.
Decreasing the blacks in those, and increacing the % in the Southernern ones.
this woud be espesically true if the Slavery was abolished on a gradual basis.

This TL also would have no West Virginia, Unless the HillBillies found something else to Revolt about.
 

Matthais Corvinus

If you have a free Virginia in 1832 then the political history of the United States, not just in the long-term (probably no civil war) but in the short time, would be very much changed. If Virginia has opened the door on abolishing slavery, then you may see all of the border states mentioned (Delaware, Maryland) but also Kentucky, Missouri, maybe even Tennessee and North Carolina, states where the economy doesn't rely on slavery, go over to manumission.

This would throw American history totally off. With the slow freeing of slaves, leaving that power with the states and slavery not really becoming a federal issue, the Democrat-Whig divide as the two national parties probably endures. With the end of slavery in the border states, then there is not the push to continue the territorial expansion of slavery, because the "Slave Power" has been broken. This could end up extending the life of slavery. With no Civil War the peculiar institution continues in the Deep South states, where it is economically viable. There would also be no Civil War/ Reconstruction legacy of government imposed equality, so the idea of Civil Rights will have to find a different way to gain legal traction.

Maybe the OTL Abolitionists, robbed of most of the fire that anti-slavery had OTL, become something more along the lines of the Progressives, and we see the end of slavery with a national manumission bill in the last quarter of the 19th century.

I actually think that one interesting knock-on effect would be that without the legacy of the Civil War, the labor unrest that took place in OTL Gilded Age would be much more militant, perhaps with the rise of strong Socialist Party. With a long legacy of competing with free blacks for jobs, there may be the chance that labor solidarity may be seen in the United States.
 

stevep

Johnrankins said:
Virginia was the key state of the South. If the Civil War happens anyways with Virginia being a Union state the Confederacy is in deep trouble.
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JR

While there are points raised in other parts of the thread about how the change may remove the civil war altogether are you sure that if things still went as historically Virginia and some of the other border states wouldn't join the south anyway. Thought I remembered reading that Virginia and a couple of other border states only joined the breakaway after Lincoln and the north insisted that force would be used to prevent them leaving. I.e. that they joined the Confederacy to defend the right of states to leave of their free will rather than be forced to remain within the Union. As such the fact that Virginia was still technically a slave state was not really revel event to its decision.

Steve
 

Johnrankins

stevep said:
JR

While there are points raised in other parts of the thread about how the change may remove the civil war altogether are you sure that if things still went as historically Virginia and some of the other border states wouldn't join the south anyway. Thought I remembered reading that Virginia and a couple of other border states only joined the breakaway after Lincoln and the north insisted that force would be used to prevent them leaving. I.e. that they joined the Confederacy to defend the right of states to leave of their free will rather than be forced to remain within the Union. As such the fact that Virginia was still technically a slave state was not really revel event to its decision.

Steve
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Hardly, as NONE of the FREE states did that. If slavery had nothing to do with it Wisconsin and Pennsylvania would have had the same chance of doing so. Much as Southerners want to get around it their ancestors died to try to preserve slavery.
 

Nytram01

As I said before in another thread about Virginia not having slavery in the 1860's the Deep South wouldn't care what Virginia did. If you actually look into the main moments of crisis between Northern and Southern states in the 1800's the main instigator, the leader of the South's oposition to the north, was South Carolina. Virginia had a lot of sway with the Upper-South but the leader of the Deep-South was South Carolina.
 

Johnrankins

Nytram01 said:
As I said before in another thread about Virginia not having slavery in the 1860's the Deep South wouldn't care what Virginia did. If you actually look into the main moments of crisis between Northern and Southern states in the 1800's the main instigator, the leader of the South's oposition to the north, was South Carolina. Virginia had a lot of sway with the Upper-South but the leader of the Deep-South was South Carolina.
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True, the people of South Carolina were beyond obnoxious. Still if Virginia, Maryland and Deleware go it is harder for South Carolina to be heard.
 

USGrant

If Virginia goes as early as 1832, the entire Southern bloc is weakened, which means there will less polarization. South Carolina will probably still eat fire, but most likely not secede. The Mexican crisis will certainly play out differently.
 

Nytram01

Johnrankins said:
True, the people of South Carolina were beyond obnoxious. Still if Virginia, Maryland and Deleware go it is harder for South Carolina to be heard.
Click to expand...

Well that's true to a cirtain extent. Just as there was a divide along the Mason-Dixon line between north and south there was a divide between Upper-South and Deep-South.

The Upper-South before the ACW consisted of Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and sometimes Deleware.

The Deep-South before the ACW consisted of South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Texas threw it's lot in with the Deep-South in the ACW but wasn't actually a Deep-South State before that.

These...cliques tended to stick with each other. Again I will argue that the Upper-South and the Deep-South would have mainly the same ideologies in TTL as each other, with the exception of Slavery, so they may still agree with each other on cirtain points.
 

Matthais Corvinus

Without slavery in the Upper South the Deep South would be able to look at a map and realize how deeply screwed they would be by seceding. With the Upper South the Confederacy has a chance. Without it, I don't think the thought ever really crosses their mind that leaving the Union is an option. The strong Unionist sentiments that were seen in the Upper South states would be even stronger if slavery were eliminated. States' rights may still be important, but in the context of actual states' rights, not in the context of trying to find a political fig-leaf for slavery.
 

Johnrankins

Nytram01 said:
Well that's true to a cirtain extent. Just as there was a divide along the Mason-Dixon line between north and south there was a divide between Upper-South and Deep-South.

The Upper-South before the ACW consisted of Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and sometimes Deleware.

The Deep-South before the ACW consisted of South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Texas threw it's lot in with the Deep-South in the ACW but wasn't actually a Deep-South State before that.

These...cliques tended to stick with each other. Again I will argue that the Upper-South and the Deep-South would have mainly the same ideologies in TTL as each other, with the exception of Slavery, so they may still agree with each other on cirtain points.
Click to expand...


The banning of slavery would change the Upper South greatly. It would probably industrialize sooner and have immigration from Europe. As Europeans would no longer have to compete with slave labor some of them would go south. With more immigrants from Europe and probably up north the Upper South would evolve into becoming more the Lower North then the Upper South.
 

Johnrankins

Matthais Corvinus said:
Without slavery in the Upper South the Deep South would be able to look at a map and realize how deeply screwed they would be by seceding. With the Upper South the Confederacy has a chance. Without it, I don't think the thought ever really crosses their mind that leaving the Union is an option. The strong Unionist sentiments that were seen in the Upper South states would be even stronger if slavery were eliminated. States' rights may still be important, but in the context of actual states' rights, not in the context of trying to find a political fig-leaf for slavery.
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I think it would be quite possible for them to repeal slavery as well. After all the slaves of the Deep South would have a lot less distance to go if they run away from their masters.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Johnrankins said:
I think it would be quite possible for them to repeal slavery as well. After all the slaves of the Deep South would have a lot less distance to go if they run away from their masters.
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Not necessarily. The northern states were really not interested in enforcing the Fugitive Slave Acts, and lots of abolitionists helped ex-slaves move north. I don't imagine that the newly ex-slave Upper South would be so friendly to escaping slaves.
 
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