Posted on 08/25/2017 10:16:25 AM PDT by SurfConservative
I’m not denying the existence of slavery in those areas, but the slaveholders wanted those territories to enter the Union for that exact purpose. Look at the Ostend Manifesto, which wanted the Union to first try to buy Cuba and then invade it if Spain refused, for the explicit purpose of adding another slave state. Look at the filibustering campaigns of William Walker as another example or George Fitzhugh’s defense of filibustering.
I agree that slavery didn’t start in the US and it didn’t end in 1865. Chattel slavery, that is, the trading of human beings as property, was first started on an industrial scale by Carthage- an ancient civilization in NORTH AFRICA that the historical revisionists try to claim is black (it was founded by the descendants of Phoenician/Lebanese settlers, so it probably wasn’t). Egypt practiced slavery of the Jews. The Barbary slave trade was far worse than anything in the United States and Islamic slavery is still practiced in Africa today.
in fact, even in the US, the Democrats have not shifted their tone on slavery. just look at how they want us to keep importing cheap labor to replace Americans. That cheap labor has no means of switching jobs (for instance, H-1b visas are forced to work in one job, meaning they accept one bad wage or be deported, meaning Americans competing for that position have ot accept and even worse wage). The Democrats are just like the slaveholders of the South- they want to bring in cheap foreign labor to supplant American labor for their own economic and political power.
The only way Southern industry was competitive with Northern industry was the extensive use of slaves in the manufacturing process. In 1861 Trededgar Iron Works in Richmond, was the largest manufacturing operation in the South. The company employed about 900 workers. Of that total, 450 of those workers were slaves. They were not only general labor, but were also mill wrights, pattern makers, molders and machinists. The same was true at the Confederate powder mill at Augusta GA and the Confederate Armory at Macon GA. Almost all manufacturing operations in the South employed some slave labor to keep the cost of production down.
Because this is what the founders wrote into the US Constitution in Article IV, Section 2.
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, But shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
That "in consequence of any law or regulation therein" is pretty all encompassing. It means that even if a state legislature abolishes slavery in that state, they still have to return slaves back to their masters.
Not only did the founders write it, but all the state legislatures agreed to it, binding their state to it's terms in perpetuum.
Now was Dred Scott attempting to escape slavery as a consequence of a law or regulation in another state?
Now rather than answer the other points you put forth, I'm going to let you think about what I told you, because based on what you have written, you seem unaware that that clause was part of the Constitution at the time.
I don’t agree.
It wasn’t, at least from the industrialization baron standpoint, that the North had the ability or desire to step on the South to prevent industrialization.
Much of that early industrialization of the South was being done by Yankees!
It wasn’t seen as competition (at this time, the real competitor was Europe, mostly Great Britain). Is was seen as expansion.
Economically, real progress could have been made across the country, all making the titans of early industry even richer.
But blast it all! That Yankee Eli Whitney just had to invent the cotton gin, which propelled an already dying slavery into new life.
Just research it. And common sense think about it based on the north and south economies. Slaves were not inexpensive. Machines could do more faster and parts could be replaced. People get old and weaker and sick and injured and still had to be taken care of. They were living investments that required sustenance and maintenance. Further the south economy was built on crops, what they often sold was raw product, not end goods. The mills, which were industrialized, were in the north. Industry was not in the south.
It was only a matter of time. At least what others have argued.
The so-called “Fire Eaters” of the South were the first advocates of secession in the early 1850s. They too violated the intent of the Constitution by seeking to reopen the transatlantic slave trade, which had been ended by the Founding Fathers.
Before the war most Alabama mill workers were white. The original piney woods folk. However, most proudly marched off to war. Slaves were used as replacements. After the war, they were kicked out and what whites remained took their old jobs back.
Alabama is a very interesting state, in that those places with rich, flat dark soul was about 90% black (10% white planters), while the foothills, ridges and deep valleys were 90 % white.
The planters controlled the state in 1860, and they owned almost all the slaves.
It wasn’t until after the war that the hillbilly/piney wood folk took control of the state government. And the boll weevil killed the remnants of the planter class circa 1890-1900.
Not the entire North, just the North Eastern power barons who owned the existing Industries. If the South had achieved independence, about 200 million per year of capitalization would have moved into the South, while that same 200 million per year would be subtracted from the North Eastern economy.
New York's position as the focal point of commerce would have been severely damaged.
But blast it all! That Yankee Eli Whitney just had to invent the cotton gin, which propelled an already dying slavery into new life.
This is true. Slavery was not very profitable until Whitney invented the cotton gin. Then it became highly lucrative.
Actually the citizens and or legislatures of a slave state could vote to outlaw slavery in that state. The Supreme Court recognized that as a right reserved for the state. The Federal Government could not interfere with those decisions. This is one reason Lincoln took no direct action against MO, KY, MD, or DE. to end slavery in their states. He badgered them, cajoled them, even tried forms of bribery to get them to outlaw slavery. Only MO and MD would outlaw slavery before the end of the Civil War. KY and DE would not end slavery until the 13th Amendment was ratified.
current marijuana situation is a very good analogy for the illogic of Dred Scott
you cannot take marijuana from a state that’s legal into a state that it’s illegal in and expect the state that it’s illegal in to respect your rights to own that property
you cannot even cross border between two legal marijuana states with marijuana legally as federal law intervene
https://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/can-you-transport-cannabis-between-two-legal-states
soil, not soul!
I have seen it argued that their economy was doomed because Europe developed other sources for Cotton. The problem with this thinking is that Europe developed these alternative sources of cotton precisely because there was a US Civil War, and it badly disrupted their normal source of Cotton which was the South.
In the absence of the Civil War, slave produced cotton might still have been a profitable system for another 40 years or so. The increased capitalization the South would realize from selling it's product directly to Europe and avoiding the high taxes and middle man fees it was paying through New York, would have allowed the South to invest in more and more diverse industries in their own communities.
The South used to have it's own ship building industry. Those boarded up factories could have commenced building ships again, and the South could have carried it's own cargo.
200 Million taken out of the New York economy and transferred to the Charleston or Norfolk economy would have massively increased the capital available for industrial development.
It's not so easy for me to see that the cotton economy was doomed in the short run. Perhaps in the long run it was, but in 40 more years, it is quite likely the South would have diversified as the wealthy look for alternatives in which to invest.
The argument that someone else wanted to violate it (tu quoque) does not justify the first person who was violating it.
All the territories and future states could not have slavery.
You also assume Congress would not have made state boundaries and number of states different than what we have today to deal with an amendment vote sooner.
In any case it gets off my point that secession to keep slaves was one of the worst reasons one could pick to attempt secession. At least if it was a better moral reason even opponents could perhaps sympathize and maybe even have a lot of supporters for a good reason to secede. Enslaving other people does not allow that option.
“the Democrats have not shifted their tone on slavery. just look at how they want us to keep importing cheap labor to replace Americans.”
All well and good. But where were the Southerners going to find all of the skilled mill wrights, pattern makers, machinists, jig & fixture men? To work at a skilled trade in a southern factory meant you could be replaced by a slave at any time. Ask the 450 men that use to work at Tredegar, replaced by slaves to lower production cost. With all the money that was made by the Southern Economy why could they only manage one large iron works in the entire south. Maybe this is one of the reasons that manufacturing, other than textiles, was very slow in developing in the South. Every ton of pig iron, every ton of iron ore, every ton of anthracite coal came from the North. Every drop of oil that lubricated a machine came from the Yankee whaling fleet or Pennsylvania oil fields. While the South was a bountiful agricultural are it was poor in resources necessary for heavy duty manufacturing. Like Japan, all of the manufacturing resources came to the South from somewhere else. You mentioned ship building in the South. While various species of ship building wood were readily available in the South, most of the iron fittings, steam engines, and propellers came from Northern manufacturers. Tredegar manufactured a few steam engines for the U.S. Navy, but never cast a propeller for a ship, nor did they manufacture iron castings for paddle wheelers.
Even with a tremendous amount of capital, the South lacked the skilled labor force and the raw materials to develop a serious manufacturing threat to the North. Forth years later, after the discovery of oil in Texas,iron in Alabama,
and bituminous coal for coking, the South would be in a much better position then they would have been in the late 1860s or 70 to launch a heavy manufacturing economy.
You’re right that tariffs were a major factor in the lead-up to the civil war but I doubt that any southern soldier marched away to war chanting, “Lower tariffs.” States’ rights and the defense of their home states was the motivating factor for most Rebels. It was also one of the south’s greatest weaknesses as the states in the new nation bickered constantly about how much they were obligated to support the central government.
Objectively? LOL!
I don't have to agree with something to recognize that it is correct according to the laws of that time period.
But agreeing with it is just icing on the cake for you.
Not only was the failure to enforce the reprehensible Fugitive Slave Act a valid stand for states’ rights, the Confederate constitution prohibited its states from making their own laws regarding slavery and so showed less respect for states rights than did the US Constitution.
And I do think that the southern states had the right to secede.
I also believe that the slaves, free men and women in the eyes of God, had the right to overthrow their self-styled "owners", by force if necessary, and I would have supported that.
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