Posted on 07/19/2017 4:34:02 PM PDT by Ciaphas Cain
Ciaphas Cain: "Left to their own devices, the South would have abandoned slavery in a decade.
Yes, from a production perspective it was a can't-lose.
But the Christian world was abandoning slavery fast and the southern states were really the last holdout. "
SteveH: "I wonder, how was slavery uneconomical?
Was the South as a whole (which included slavery in 1861) uneconomical in 1861?
It seems to me in retrospect that the South was doomed by the industrial might of the North (I might be wrong, this is just a naiive impression)."
So let's start here: the first important point everybody needs to understand is that the following statements are both true:
And the light of wisdom will begin to shine in your minds when you understand that #1 above is true because of #2.
The reason: extreme profitability and prosperity brought by the rapid growth of cotton production in the Deep South drove slave prices to record highs during the 1850s.
This made slavery unprofitable for many slave-holders in Border States like Maryland & Delaware.
One result was that by 1860 half of Maryland's African-Americans were already freed-men.
However, by 1860 throughout most of the South, discussion of abolition was strictly forbidden.
Virginia had last openly discussed it in 1830 and decided "no abolition", so even Maryland by 1860 did not openly discuss it.
Slave-holders would have none of it, regardless of how small a minority they became.
As to whether the Confederacy may have, at some future time absent Civil War, abolished slavery on their own, the answer must be: certainly not so long as economic conditions and the leadership of 1861 remained in place.
In that regard we might note that Jefferson Davis died at the end of 1889, Jubal Early founder of the Lost Cause died in 1894, and none would have permitted their Confederacy to abolish slavery voluntarily.
For one thing, slavery was enshrined in the Confederate Constitution, so even a majority of states could not alone abolish it.
One more point: people who claim "oh, slavery was being abolished worldwide, so Confederates would feel moral pressure for emancipation too," well, slavery is still here!
And an economically & militarily powerful Confederacy devoted to protecting slavery could have turned the tide of anti-slavery in much of the third & second worlds.
Sir, I don't blame you personally for such vomit, I blame the American education system which obviously fed you a crock of excrement instead of real history.
Did you not learn that President Jackson was a Southerner, not a Northerner?
Did they never tell you that Jackson was a slave-owner?
Did you never know that Southern Democrat politicians ruled in Washington DC from at least 1800 until secession in 1861?
So this had nothing to do with North vs. South and everything to do with President Jackson's & Senator Calhoun's original support for the new tariffs of 1828.
And 60% of New Englanders also opposed the new tariffs, so again, it had nothing to do with North vs. South.
But it's not your fault, FRiend, it's just public education in America at its worst.
I do not yet understand this point that you made:
“...extreme profitability and prosperity brought by the rapid growth of cotton production in the Deep South drove slave prices to record highs during the 1850s.
This made slavery unprofitable for many slave-holders in Border States like Maryland & Delaware.”
I am wondering why does the second follow from the first?
Also here is an article alleging that 36% of Confederate soldiers owned slaves or came from slaveowning families:
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/08/small-truth-papering-over-a-big-lie/61136/
(I checked the slaveowner maps and it seems to show a great disparity between different regions of the south.) (I am not sure about the veracity of the article.)
You know that cotton in 1860 only grew in the Deep & Upper South -- the states of the Confederacy -- not in Border States like Maryland or Delaware?
So the 1850s booming economy in cotton states drove up the demand for slaves there, and hence prices.
High prices for slaves made slavery unprofitable in Border States which didn't grow cotton or some equally profitable commodity.
I mentioned, in Maryland by 1860 half of African-Americans had already been voluntarily freed.
In Delaware the number was 90% -- slavery was dying in those states at the same time it was never more vital in the Deep Cotton South.
So: high prices in the Deep South made slavery unprofitable in Border States -- does that make sense?
Depends on where in the South they came from.
Many regions of the Confederacy had few to no slaves and troops from there would be unlikely to come from slave owning families.
Western Virginia, Eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, Northern Alabama & Arkansas all had fewer slaves than other regions.
By contrast, in Deep South states like South Carolina & Mississippi nearly half of families owned slaves and so soldiers from those states were nearly all related to family members who owned slaves.
But more to the point: almost without exception senior Confederate leaders & officers were slave-holders and considered protecting slavery a primary objective.
Sine qua non - without which not.
Slavery was the engine that fueled and drove economic prosperity in the antebellum south. Without slavery there would not have been the peculiar economic prosperity that slavers were so anxious to preserve and exploit, and without the product of that prosperity there would have been no rebellion.
And make no doubt about it - it was the slavocracy that drove the rebellion and subsequent war.
That movie could have been good and was unwatchable.
I think this is a concept that could work if you can just cut out the endless desire to “send a message” about modern life. Just follow it logically.
The two show-runners actually do basically do that in GOT to some degree. There isn’t a lot of meta-messaging in there.
I’ll certainly watch an episode or two, but HBO series but have been hit or miss at best lately.
The Deep South would have had a nearly insatiable desire for slaves well into the 20th century. The upper south would have lost the economic need for them much sooner, but the single most valuable commodity in the south was a slave. The Upper South made more money selling slaves south than it did doing anything else. That’s really the great question of a Neverneverland Confederacy. How long would the Upper South have been a slave breeding ground before some social/economic forces stepped in?
The North didn’t go to war to end slavery. It went to war to preserve the Union and won. The South went to war to preserve slavery and lost everything.
If the South had won the war would it have ended slavery?
The only thing ‘’economic’’ about the CW was that the South went to war to preserve an economic system based on the use of salve labor, period.
Joe you know your subject sir.
Check the actual numbers. None of the Confederates made this argument in 1860-61, because it was not the case. The port of New York alone paid almost two thirds of the total tariff revenue.
SteveH quoting article: "For 72 years, Northern special interest groups used these protective tariffs to exploit the South for their own benefit.
Finally in 1861, the oppression of those import duties started the Civil War."
Total nonsense because, for one, from the time of Jefferson's win in 1801 until secession in 1861 Southern Jeffersonian & Jacksonian Democrats ruled in Washington, DC almost continuously.
In that 60 years there was a non-Democrat President with non-Democrat majorities in Congress only two years (1841-2).
In 46 of those years (77% of the time) Democrats ruled in both houses and the presidency.
And 100% of the time, Southern Democrats ruled the Democrats.
So nothing important happened, or lasted, in Washington without Southern Democrats' support.
So reasonable tariffs were never "imposed by the North", but rather were always agreed-to by significant numbers of Southerners.
And when Congress did briefly raise tariffs to unreasonable rates (i.e., in 1828), Southern Democrats later took the lead in getting them reduced back to more reasonable levels.
And who significantly opposed Southern Democrats in reducing tariffs, in 1830 for example?
Other Southern Democrats such as President Andrew Jackson.
As for 1861, the new Morrill tariff could not have passed without the secession of Southern Democrats, and was not mentioned as a "reason for secession" by any of the first seven states to leave.
SteveH quoting article: "Because manufactured goods were not produced in the South, they had to either be imported or shipped down from the North."
It's simply not true that the South had no industries of their own, they did have some, and on a global scale would be considered somewhat industrialized for the time.
It is true the North had much more manufacturing, and so wealthy Southerners could chose to purchase their own local products, or Northern manufactured goods, or foreign imports.
But everyone agreed that reasonable tariffs of foreign imports were the best way to pay for Federal government, especially our military.
The only issue was: how high were tariffs still considered "reasonable".
Naturally, Southerners wanted lower tariffs, for one thing because their purchases of foreign imports helped pay for foreign purchases of Southern cotton.
So the Southern "way of life" depended on reasonable tariffs such as those of the 1850s.
SteveH quoting article: "Much of the tariff revenue collected from Southern consumers was used to build railroads and canals in the North.
Between 1830 and 1850, 30,000 miles of track was laid.
At its best, these tracks benefited the North."
More nonsense because, in fact, during the 1850 over 35% of all new rail line miles built in the US were built in the South.
Joe, a hypothetical here: If the South had won the war do you think they would have ended slavery? For myself I don’t certainly don’t think so.
I am sure they will delve deeply into the subject of master - slave sex.
Certainly not while the Fire Eater generation of 1861 was still in charge, and that could have been another 30 or 40 years.
After that, there was a key roadblock to prevent any possible change of heart on slavery by Confederates, namely, the Confederate Constitution, which made slavery mandatory in every Confederate state.
Amending the Confederate Constitution meant that just three states could prevent abolition.
So, in what year would all but two Confederate States vote to abolish slavery?
1890?
1930?
1948?
1964?
2016?
Remember, there would be no reason for the Confederacy to join in either World War, meaning allied victories less likely and so notions of racial superiority not nearly as discredited as we know them.
It would be a much different world.
Oh without a doubt the Confederacy would not have joined in WW1 or 2. More then likely they would have made deals with either the Kaiser or Hitler.
Well how do General! “Master-slave sex’’? Why Lordy you little rascal haven’t you a dirty mind!
Don't confuse economics with politics. Many Southerners were anti-slavery on a moral basis, but owned slaves for economic reasons. Those economic reasons were ultimately doomed by increasing mechanization.
"If" the Republicans had campaigned to free the slaves and re-imburse the owners monetarily, the Civil War probably would not have happened. But they did not...they simply wanted to issue an edict.
The result of their NOT doing so was probably more expensive to the country than re-imbursement would.
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