Bill:  you raise a good point -- and one that might be answerable to a
point in the public records of the Confederacy.  I wasn't thinking of
free blacks migrating to the US in that scenario, but of escaped slaves.  
What sorts of laws did the various states or the CSA government consider
or pass regarding their existing free black populations?  (Anyone know
this one?)  I tend to agree that free blacks would have been more
subversive of the Confederate movement than accomodating of it: i.e.
seeking to expand their rights under the new regime -- strike that, I
will say they WERE subversive of the Confederacy.

David Kiracofe


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [log in to unmask]
Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2002 14:48:37 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: changing mores and changing the constitution

In a message dated 2/7/2002 2:12:28 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
[log in to unmask] writes:


> Since we started off on the subject of what would happen if the south
> seceded "peacefully," let me ponder on that a moment.  I understand that
> changes in circumstances would lead to changing mores -- but how long
> would that take?  The immediate circumstance of refugee African-Americans
> coming into the US would create social and economic tensions that would
> have to be resolved.  Would state governments undertake this? would the
> federal government?  The constitutional point becomes all the more
> germane -- was there support for extending full citizenship to a
> burgeoning black population that would emerge?  
> 

A further and perhaps more interesting question is what would have happened 
to the thousands of free blacks in the Southern states. They had rights to a 
limited degree under state law, but clearly not full citizenship. Why would 
we assume that they would have fled rather than remain in place and fight for 
the expansion of their rights? Why might we not also assume that over a 
period of time weapons would have been smuggled South to encourage a guerilla 
war by both free and slave populations? Given that Arkansas, North Carolina, 
Tennessee, and Virginia might not have joined the secessionist movement 
absent movement by Lincoln against the other southern states, why would we 
even believe that the remainder of the Confederacy might not simply have 
collapsed for a variety of internal and external factors from rebellion in 
Florida to war between Mexico and Texas to a further secession by Louisiana 
and some cities such as Mobile?

Bill Russell

Bill Russell



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