The civil war income tax was eventually found to be in violation of the constitution, and at the state level a spoils-system civil service was not equipped to administer such a tax in a manner that was not highly arbitrary. Laws that make it possible should be available in game, but not easy to enact and at a political cost.
Breaking the Slave Power
- Thread starter grommile
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The Janissary system was abolished about a decade before game start, though you are correct that the Arabic slave trade was the big boogeyman of European colonizers in Africa (the Atlantic slave trade wasn’t really a thing anymore by the time of the scramble for Africa).
I think the latter is modeled in game though, judging by the Slavery Dev diary.
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True, I do think the option to reopen Atlantic slave trade should be an option. You did have people even here doing illegally until civil war ended. Some parts of our country did not care to enforce it. Basically if you could get passed the British your good. If not “on you”. If someone who has slavery has big enough navy to challenge British why not? It could start war or navy one against nations who opposed it.
But on other hand let’s say your US who leans towards south. You might actually have African allies ironically because they might sell slaves to you and you don’t care or have ability to expand there directly.
Liberians who are originally American freemen and former slaves ended up enslaving locals under system similar to the south. The justification being their time in Americas “civilized” them and this is only “retribution” for selling their “ancestors” or great grandparents in first place. Messed up history there.
How would the game slavery system replicate that? The US helps Liberia expand as well to keep this type of relationship and dynamic strong.
Although you might honestly depopulate Africa so much it’s easier for Europeans to colonize but by that point you probably don’t care or got labor you need.
The south did have plans to eventually end slavery. Mostly through expansion. The upper south was just starting trend. Industrialization(mostly mechanization, infrastructure, rural factories, limited heavy industries in cities, raw resource extraction, and diversification of economy) and more white immigration along with high birth rates.
After this sell the surplus slaves to frontier and less developed parts of country. This also helps create more open and cheat land for white settlers to grow more.
This is one reason some in the south want all of Mexico, Central America, and Caribbean. Maybe some of South America(European owned parts) and the pacific. It is a place to “scatter” slave population and regulate their growth while encouraging white population to gradually outnumber them everyone as much as possible to minimize their “threat” of revolt or issues when they are eventually emancipated. Which probably transitions into indebted and tenant labor before actual full emancipation.
Worse comes to worse and success revolt happens they can isolate it especially if it’s an island like Haiti or small area.
The Upper South would fight that tooth and nail. Keeping the price of slaves high was key to the maintenance of the plantation system there.
The Founding Generation thought that way, certainly. See Jefferson’s argument that the Missouri Compromise would make the elimination of slavery easier. By the time the game start rolls around though even the Upper South had come around to seeing slavery as a permanent fixture of the Southern way of life.
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That’s going being interesting part of the game. Influencing internal politics. Maybe that changes depending who wins out or you support. Especially if you add a bunch of new slave states. Might piss off the north a lot but I will be honest they are least likely to rebel. The south overreacts at times more so. Also only New England might secede and New York at most(maybe not even city but rest of state or decides to be a border state like Kentucky or Missouri in our world). The Midwest would not care enough to secede over slavery. Same with New Jersey.
Looking at Victoria 2 you could pretty much make every state west of the Mississippi River plus Wisconsin and Michigan slave states. The only issue you don’t have no where near enough slaves to reproduce numbers needed to do that domestically in game or real life. Breeding slaves domestically takes times and money.
So what does that mean? You need to find way to get new slaves quick or the whole point of making it slave state does nothing.
Also what if US takes Canada especially western parts and all of North America making all it slave states.
You could not have the same type of slavery in every state or region. Additionally even during colonial era immigrant cheap, indebted, or indentured European labor was sometimes if not usually more practical economically in northern US and Canada then slavery.
Also I have no idea how African slaves would do health wise in Minnesota or Alaska during winter.
I mean, there are plenty of black people in Minnesota today. The bigger problem is that there aren’t the climactic conditions to allow for plantation economies. If you make slavery legal in the Upper Midwest, it will probably only be small scale slaveholding which will avoid the need to import large quantities of slaves.
I’ll give you possible interesting event that could take place in game. In need of labor the slave states in west make laws allowing Chinese immigrants to sell themselves into slavery. You can do this with Japanese too but government protest more so and possibly threaten wars when they feel strong enough or be hostile. This could also be expand to Pacific Islanders, Koreans, southeast Asians in general.
This could also lead to establishment of caste system like Latin America with different “requirements” and “guidelines” for different groups which is what some places did in era
Chinese debt peonage was a real thing, though the US tried to suppress it prior to just outright banning all immigration from China in the 1880s. Whether this kind of coolie labor will be modeled by slavery in Victoria 3 (or even modeled at all) is an open question.
Either seems like it be easy to mod in from what we know
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Outside of cotton and sugarcane, slavery was becoming increasingly ornamental. Even the use of slaves in tobacco cultivation was in decline as it did not adapt well to a gang system.
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Not entirely ornamental: plantation owners in Virginia made a ton of money selling slaves into the Cotton Belt. This is why they opposed the international slave trade. If Minnesota slave holders want to get in on that source of profits, they would oppose reopening up the Middle Passage as well (though again I think it’s more likely they adopt a style of slavery like Missouri’s).
This is why I hope they eventually include slave markets and a price for slaves eventually. It’s hard to capture these dynamics without it.
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Y'all are thinkin' about this backwards. To kill slavery, you need to support it. Employ slaves as much as possible and in the worst conditions, lower wages for free laborers and rule the people like a king.
Then the proletariat will end the landowners' power for you.
Then the proletariat will end the landowners' power for you.
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Precedent? CK3 burned me badly. Arguably CK2 could have, but I got it only in 2017 when lots of DLC were already released, expensive game though but fun.
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There's the "Everything we know" Reddit post from May 2021 which details a gaming journalist's preview of Victoria 3 in its then-current state. Most of the mechanics teased since then – warfare was notably absent from the post – have remained consistent in their descriptions from there to much-later DDs, hinting that the game was already mostly feature-complete by then. It therefore makes sense to assume that no major changes are on the way anymore.
Whether or not something should or should not be added, that's of course more of a question of opinion, but we know fairly well how slavery works now and in all probability will also work upon release thanks to the DD about it.
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It was what separated the upper and lower south, and led many, RE Lee included, to underestimate its brutality.
Rigid racial slavery of south was. If not for international pressure and policing on part of Europeans and western world it would stay more profitable in its “classical” or less “racist” forms(you allow more actual social mobility).Outside of cotton and sugarcane, slavery was becoming increasingly ornamental. Even the use of slaves in tobacco cultivation was in decline as it did not adapt well to a gang system.
This helps keep up the divide and conquer tactic. Like “house” slaves “field” slaves not always getting along or liking each other.
Additionally, reopening or continuing the Atlantic slave trade creates a “Tower of Babel” language/cultural division between slaves. It keeps the ethnic, language, and religious divisions stronger among slaves making it harder for them to organize then second, third, or fourth generation local slaves. Important to preventing slave revolts as well as keeping price of slaves down.
The “Golden Circle” and pro slavery organizations in South likely did tend the above or at least some in it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_the_Golden_Circle
Also this can’t be emphasized enough and could easily tie to international trade mechanic but geography aka distance is important to labor. Look at areas that use African slaves. They are more tropical to sub tropical(they survive better then most whites especially from Isles or Northern Europe) and two they are closer to those areas while the north is closer to Europe then Africa so “importing” indentured labor from Isles or cheap labor immigrant labor from Europe is more ideal and practical.
Slaves do need a price tag added to them for game because while of course it’s dehumanizing they did treat them like livestock which I am guessing is “goods/products” in game even if living thing.
For example, importing new African slaves and local American ones as well to Texas, Mexico, Caribbean, or Central America is much more practical and affordable then sending them to Alaska or Minnesota or North Dakota where more likely die in winter.
Most black Americans don’t leave south in mass until world war 1 and immigration limits created a demand for labor in north but lack of immigrants so they looked towards cheap labor both white and black Americans from south.
Important the Great Migration of Black Americans have been in full reversal since the 80s and 90s. Most are leaving New York, Detroit, Chicago, and even California for Atlanta, Texas, Florida, or the Carolinas now ironically. Most white migrate labor from south already did this decade or two before black Americans did because the “taboo” of moving to place like “Mississippi” has not change in public consciousness of black Americans until very recently. Whites who left south only left for economic reasons. Many would later come back.
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I really hope pops immediately revolt if you simply refuse to develop their portion of the country so as to make the civil war easier.
Trying to gimp the South in 1836 should result in a SUBSTANTIALLY more dangerous rebellion than in 1860, because the power gap was a lot smaller at this point. A pro-Northern player's strategy should be to either:
Trying to gimp the South in 1836 should result in a SUBSTANTIALLY more dangerous rebellion than in 1860, because the power gap was a lot smaller at this point. A pro-Northern player's strategy should be to either:
A) Placate the South by developing plantations while relying on faster Northern expansion and rising support for abolition by an increasingly bourgeois society to create a power gap that eventually makes victory inevitable, as in OTL
B) Wean the South off slavery by investing in relatively less efficient industry (to the consternation of landowners) so it can be abolished peacefully. This should annoy everyone and cost a ton of money, but ultimately be less expensive than killing half a million pops in a civil war.
Meanwhile, a pro-Southern player shouldn't be allowed to gimp the North while extensively developing the South for two decades either; this should result in a total erosion of support from Yankee pops and a coup from northern industrialists.- 4
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They really should allow more then one primary culture even if rare.
The “Dixie” pops before civil war and especially early republic are often bigger more influential political bloc until north sees mass industrialization leading into civil war.
At independence and before industrialization Virginia often held more importance to the nation then New York or New England. That’s even where most presidents and many founders come from.
A peaceful solution to slavery should also include keeping slave and free state balance for time to keep south happy and north not too pissed because they are honestly least likely of two to rebel. The radical republicans and serious anti-slavery people are minority even there.
If solved peacefully both Dixie and Yankee pops stay primary cultures especially in states that become their “homeland”.
Whoever loses in event of civil war either it be north succession or south could see other get dropped to “accepted culture” or in radical routes like radical reconstruction see them lose even that too.
For Dixie culture and dominated US let’s say in event where north secedes you see New England and maybe New York secede into “American Union” or “American Federation”(don’t like “Free States of America” name sounds dumb). New York also has option to be border state during war like Kentucky. New England would likely be core of revolt. The issues during War of 1812 shows this. New York and Pennsylvania would be in Kentucky or Maryland situation in conflict. New York City would break away from rest of state West Virginia style if they leave to join rebellion with New England. They had riot over draft in real life civil war.
New Jersey like Midwest also would not care enough to leave union over slavery alone(it would take more then that to convince them).
So let’s say however this goes down the US(south dominated now) wins the alternative civil war. The northeast becomes Deep South parallel in this situation. The Midwest and rest of country start assimilating fast into now “primacy culture” of “Dixie” while now “accepted Yankee” culture is not restricted to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and New England while rest of country is “southernized”
Before civil war slave states that don’t border free states should be nearly all Dixie pops not counting slaves while free state is all Yankee pops unless it borders a slave state.
States that have “border state” modifiers could have 50 50 splits between Dixie and Yankee pops roughly to replicate the divide.
Although political leaning might be better alternative to above. All slave states are nearly all Dixies but pops who are against slavery can more easily convert to Yankee pops in some states. So Kentucky is still all “Dixie” for convenience but some especially in mountains don’t support slavery or at least overly support plantation slaver class