AHC: No "Lost Cause", (and no civil war)

[Indigo]

So this AHC is especially inspired by recent discussions over the civil war and a surviving Confederacy. The challenge is as follows, with a POD after 1776:

1)Rather than having a "lost cause" mythology(i.e., glorification of the antebellum south) start in the 1870s and last on into the 20th century, have:

-universal American revulsion and disgust at slavery as earlier as 1900.

-the perspective of slaves or former slaves being a key part of popular history of the 1800s South.

-Robert E. Lee and other men of the planter class widely despised, with their flaws magnified, and their skills actually underrepresented.

2)This has to be done in a TL where no southern states have ever seceded. Not just S.C., not a brief deep south republic, no southern breakaway for however short a time.

Is this possible? I'd like thoughts on this.

 

[Myth]

Britain wins the Revolution. Slavery eventually abolished throughout the Empire. At some point, the States begin a slow process of detachment from the Mother Country like Canada or Australia.

 

[Indigo]

And the strong distaste for slavery in North America in this case comes from where? (I'm not going to let you off on a technicality you realize)

 

[danwild6]

Avoiding the civil war isn't too hard. Zachary Taylor surviving might be a good start. While a personal owner of slaves he was a die-hard unionist. Butterfly away the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scot decision and a lot of the tension that led to the the civil war drops away.

Making slavery despised by the vast majority of white southerners isn't as far fetched as it seems either. Most southerners couldn't afford to own slaves and in fact put them at a serious disadvantage when competing with slaveholders.

 

[Myth]

And the strong distaste for slavery in North America in this case comes from where? (I'm not going to let you off on a technicality you realize)

In a "no revolution" scenario? My guess would be --

Anglophilia combined with much heavier migration back and forth from the mother country, closer connections between the two countries' media (including antislavery campaigners in England), and the fact that abolition would have come in the 1830s or 40s rather than later, allowing the new norms time to sink in by 1900.

Moreover, the Planter class wouldn't have run things nearly as firmly in the South, so one would expect the poorer Southern farmers -- OTL a major pro-slavery element -- not to back the Planters to the hilt.

The Empire might even provide an extra outlet for frustrated Southern aristocrats who want the Good Olde Days back. Lots of oppressive estates to set up in Africa and Asia before those places, too, eventually roll back the worst excesses of 17th/18th century style European colonialism.

 

[Orville_third]

Three steps, though pre-1900.
1. Robert Louis Dabney is shot and killed while fighting with "Stonewall" Jackson's forces. Not only does this butterfly away a major writer in support of the "Lost Cause" and other reactionary causes of the mid-to-late 1800's, but you also deprive the Theonomic Reconstructionists of a major influence, thus weakening the US Religious Right.
2. Nathan Bedford Forrest is punished for Fort Pillow.
3. Johnson is impeached.

 

[B-29_Bomber]

So this AHC is especially inspired by recent discussions over the civil war and a surviving Confederacy. The challenge is as follows, with a POD after 1776:

1)Rather than having a "lost cause" mythology(i.e., glorification of the antebellum south) start in the 1870s and last on into the 20th century, have:

-universal American revulsion and disgust at slavery as earlier as 1900.

-the perspective of slaves or former slaves being a key part of popular history of the 1800s South.

-Robert E. Lee and other men of the planter class widely despised, with their flaws magnified, and their skills actually underrepresented.

2)This has to be done in a TL where no southern states have ever seceded. Not just S.C., not a brief deep south republic, no southern breakaway for however short a time.

Is this possible? I'd like thoughts on this.

Robert E. Lee is not a bad guy, though. Indeed, he was no particular fan of slavery. He also, though a supporter of secession in general, he didn't necessarily support the Confederacy. He went South for Virginia's sake, not for the Confederate cause.

Have Lee be captured by the Union at some point and he might just turn coat on the Confederacy, scoring the Union a pretty major propaganda victory.


@Orville: Johnson WAS impeached.