What if Jefferson Davis freed the slaves before attacking Fort Sumter?

[maximus92]

Reading the the thread about Abe Lincoln, I thought I'd take a different twist on things. What if Jefferson Davis freed the slaves before attacking Fort Sumter?

I believe this would've taken a lot of wind out of Lincoln's sail. Slavery wasn't brought to the forefront until five days after the Battle of Antietam in 1862, a self proclaimed Union victory used as a stepping stone for the Emancipation Proclamation. I believe this would've draw Britain and France into supplying the Confederates with arms and supplies and ultimately manpower, dispite Russian threats.

Some may ask, would there still even be a war? And I say YES!!! Slavery wasn't the heart of the matter. Less than 5% of the southern population were slave owners. There was still the issue of the State's sovereignty, the State's right to govern themselves which the Federal Government was infringing on. Had the South won, states wouldn't have the restrictions they do today. There would be no affirmative action. No quotas as to how many minorities a state has to hire Equal Oppurtunity would be defined by the State not the Federal Government. Minimum Wage would be determined by the state. Essentially everything the Fed. Gov. forces the state to do today would ultimatly be left up to the state, as it should be.

[Juvenal]

Could Jeff Davis actually do that? The Confederacy had a Congress and a Senate (not sure exactly when they were established), and they would surely have voted down such a proposition.

Don't forget that the Confederacy had been formed expressly in order to protect the right of the Slave States to continue their "peculiar institution". Secession was their response to the defeat of the Democratic Party in the 1860 election, in order to protect themselves from further limitations on slavery that the Republican government might attempt to enact into law.

Had Davis made such a proclamation then he would either have been immediately deposed, or the Southern States would simply have withdrawn from the Confederacy.

[Tiberios]

Yeah I don't see that happening. As Juvenal said, he would probably have been removed or many of the Southern states would have withdrawn from the Confederacy.

[maximus92]

Bad wording on my part, it's like giving Abraham Lincoln full credit of freeing the slaves, when it actually took an act of congress. I understand what the "history" books have taught us and such. But being that this is a hypothetical forum, let's just say for argument's sake that the Confederate Congress had the foresight to see that the US Congress was going to use slavery as second stepping stone for winning the war, first being preservation of the Union.

Slave owners only making up a small portion of the population, legally freed slaves already residing in the South, your main populace fighting for their individual rights who couldn't afford to purchase a slave, much less feed him or her, when he can barley feed his own family. Seems like compelling arguments to sway a congress to free the slaves. Let's say that happens, what happens next? Where does Lincoln's motivation come from?

[Juvenal]

The Confederacy was created in order to provide a means to preserve the institution of slavery. It doesn't matter that most Southern whites couldn't actually afford to be slave owners. The fact is that the Southern economy was dependent on slavery for producing its main cash crops.

Turkeys wouldn't vote for Christmas, and Jeff Davis would not have been able to abolish slavery without a long and painful reorganisation of Southern society, profoundly changing land-usage and ownership. As it happened, this reorganisation did come, during the Reconstruction, and was even more painful than it needed to be, thanks to northern exploitation (see Carpetbaggers).

States' Rights may have been the cause for which non-slave-owning poor Southerners fought, but it wasn't the reason for the war. The secession happened because the Democrats lost the election, leaving the South without their veto over future changes in the law. This would have led to an inexorably further loss of influence by the policy of only incorporating new free states. The tariffs which were already reducing profits on Southern exports would likely have been increased further with the South now locked out of government completely.

[conon394]

Slave owners only making up a small portion of the population

Yet they represented more or less the wealthy, influential political class almost entirely - also don't forget there where many who leased slaves, and the slavery was very ingrained in southern culture.

[Okuto]

The confederates themselves were all in a way self interested anyhow(hardly care about state that wasn't their own), national unity was always a bit of a problem....I can imagine if Davis did this, many of the reb states would leave or fight it tooth and nail.

As Longstreet said "We should of freed the slaves, then bomb Fort sumter"

[Orko]

Abe himself feared to free the slaves until 1865 because he was afraid that some slave states loyal to the US would join the confederacy.
So there is no way that the confederate president would do such a thing.