What If US History Edition: Slavery

[Pharoh]

What if the Founders & Framers of the United States had truly confronted the issue of slavery in either '87 or '90? Would the Union have survived? Or would a civil war have broken out sixty years earlier than it did? Lastly, is the supposed preservation of the Union enough of a reason to forgive their abject failure in this matter?

[Red Dog]

Were the Articles of Confederation silent on slavery?

[Pharoh]

Originally Posted by Red Dog

Were the Articles of Confederation silent on slavery?

For the most part.

[Rockmjd23]

Originally Posted by Red Dog

Were the Articles of Confederation silent on slavery?

Yes, no mention of it. All such powers to regulate are given to individual states.

[Red Dog]

Then I don't think the southern states would have ratified the Constitution if there was a 13th amendment in it.

[classicman2]

Compromise on slavery became an impossibility once the abolitionists made a moral issue of the institution. We have a modern day equivalency - it's called abortion.

The framers of the Constitution did, in away, confront the issue of slavery - at least the slaves.

[classicman2]

Originally Posted by Red Dog

Then I don't think the southern states would have ratified the Constitution if there was a 13th amendment in it.

I know for certain the southern states would not have ratified the Constitution with the presence of the Thirteenth Amendment.

[Pharoh]

Originally Posted by Red Dog

Then I don't think the southern states would have ratified the Constitution if there was a 13th amendment in it.

I think it would have all been up to Virginia. Perhaps only South Carolina would have held out, particularly if George Washington spoke out on the issue. Besides, it would not have been a complete and immediate emancipation. Any such action during that time would have surely contained provisions to relocate the slave population out of the Colonies.

[Rockmjd23]

Originally Posted by Red Dog

Then I don't think the southern states would have ratified the Constitution if there was a 13th amendment in it.

Yeah definitely not. Nor would their delegates have signed the Declaration of Independence if Jefferson and Adams hadn't given up the anti-slavery parts.

[Pharoh]

Originally Posted by classicman2

Compromise on slavery became an impossibility once the abolitionists made a moral issue of the institution. We have a modern day equivalency - it's called abortion.

The framers of the Constitution did, in away, confront the issue of slavery - at least the slaves.

They confronted it by making it almost impossible to even discuss it. And even realist proponents of slavery made a moral issue out of it. It was not allowed to continue and flourish because of this.

[classicman2]

I assume most folks believe that John C. Calhoun was the principal proponent of the institution - I don't, but most people do. Calhoun's 'defense' was not a moral one. His defense was a Constitutional one - The Tenth Amendment. Calhoun was a pure Constitutionist.

[Pharoh]

Originally Posted by classicman2

I assume most folks believe that John C. Calhoun was the principal proponent of the institution - I don't, but most people do. Calhoun's 'defense' was not a moral one. His defense was a Constitutional one - The Tenth Amendment. Calhoun was a pure Constitutionist.

I don't care about that time. Once 1790 came and went, (thanks to Madison), the issue was dead, there no longer was any possibility for action. John Calhoun is almost irrelevant to the discussion, completely to this discussion.

My comments on the moral aspect were meant to demonstrate that most of those who accepted slavery, and who believed it should be maintained for financial and logistical reasonings, believe it to be a moral wrong and incongruous with the Declaration. Which itself points out a rather amusing hypocritical argument employed by the proslavery South.

[classicman2]

I fail to see what the author of this thread is attempting to ascertain.

There wouldn't have been a constitution if by confrontation you mean that it was confronted in 1789 as it was in 1856 - 1860. There wouldn't have been a union to preserve.

[Red Dog]

Originally Posted by classicman2

There wouldn't have been a constitution if by confrontation you mean that it was confronted in 1789 as it was in 1856 - 1860. There wouldn't have been a union to preserve.

Yeah, no offense, Pharoh, but I don't think it is a very thought-provoking What If question. I think it is pretty much a slam-dunk.

[Rockmjd23]

I guess the answer to "Would the Union have survived?" is that the Union wouldn't have been formed, but I'm not sure what the OP is aiming at either.

[OldDude]

Originally Posted by Rockmjd23

Yeah definitely not. Nor would their delegates have signed the Declaration of Independence if Jefferson and Adams hadn't given up the anti-slavery parts.

We'd still be singing "God Save the Queen" and bitching about the Tea Tax.

[JasonF]

Originally Posted by OldDude

We'd still be singing "God Save the Queen" and bitching about the Tea Tax.

Boy, can you even imagine a Politics Talk filled with threads bitching about a tax? It's inconceivable!

[OldDude]

My present taxation probably makes the Tea Tax look damn attractive.

[Pharoh]

Originally Posted by Red Dog

Yeah, no offense, Pharoh, but I don't think it is a very thought-provoking What If question. I think it is pretty much a slam-dunk.

No offense taken.




My point is the window of opportunity to confront slavery, confront it with a halt to new importations of slaves and a set timetable for the gradual emancipation of slaves along with the financial recourses necessary, was closed after 1790. It had to be confronted the way it was sixty years laters precisely because it was not confronted when it could have been. More to point, I maintain that the issue could have been dealt with, particularly in 1790 after the Constitution was ratified, and to a lesser degree back in 1787 in Philadelphia. There could have been a Union and it could have survived. Virginian leaders were eminently aware of the gross moral inconsistencies between slavery and their prized ideology of '76 could have been persuaded. They knew they were wrong and would not have wanted to have been on such a wrong side of history. Furhter, if Virginia went for a gradual emancipation plan, led by Washington and Madison, the deep south would have went with them. Something could have been done and with the Union still in place.

I realise and accept that it is conventional wisdom to say the only way for the Constitution to have been ratified and for the Union to have subsequently been kept together was for the slavery issue to have been ignored. It does not mean I have to go along fully with that wisdom, nor do I have to blindly accept the free pass given to the Founders/Framers, particularly those from the Old Dominion, whose excuse is always given that the preservation of the Union was more important. For men to have created a Republic unlike any other in the history of mankind, I think more was certainly possible.

[Pharoh]

Originally Posted by OldDude

We'd still be singing "God Save the Queen" and bitching about the Tea Tax.

Nah, the creation of an 'American' state was an inevitability.

[OldDude]

Originally Posted by Pharoh

Nah, the creation of an 'American' state was an inevitability.

We didn't win by very much. If a few "slave" colonies had stayed out, we could have lost. Victory at least would have been much more unlikely.

[Thor Simpson]

Originally Posted by classicman2

I know for certain the southern states would not have ratified the Constitution with the presence of the Thirteenth Amendment.

What if they reworded it as follows:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Being a descendent of the Dark Continent constitutes a crime punishable by enslavement.

Section 3. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

[Pharoh]

Originally Posted by OldDude

We didn't win by very much. If a few "slave" colonies had stayed out, we could have lost. Victory at least would have been much more unlikely.

I should have been more clear. An American nation was an inevitability even if the Revolution had never taken place. What that nation would have looked like, I can not say.

[classicman2]

Originally Posted by Pharoh

I should have been more clear. An American nation was an inevitability even if the Revolution had never taken place. What that nation would have looked like, I can not say.

I disagree.

[darkessenz]

Something that I always wondered about is: Why arent there more problems with north-south relations? In other places in the world, the South's sense of "separateness" could have caused plenty of terror like actions, especially after losing a civil war.

I guess I want to know how an idea of "1" America was saved, despite the significant cultural and economic differences between the north and the south.