Let Them Leave

Townhall.com ^ | October 11, 2017 | John Stossel

[x]

Plantation slavery was actually impossible in the western territories, so it was never any threat that there would be any significant amount of slavery in those new states, but if they entered as a "slave" state, they would vote with the Southern coalition, and the North Eastern power block could not allow that to happen.

The debate about expansion of slavery was really a debate about who would control congress. Who controlled congress controlled the power and money of the United States.

It was always about power and control.

You are like a junior varsity Soviet propagandist, putting "freedom" and "slavery" in quotes, and then claiming that "freedom" is only about wealth and power for the capitalists.

If it was impossible to build a slave economy in the territories (it wasn't), then why should protecting slave interests in Congress outweigh building a free economy for free people that makes use of the available climate and resources?

I suspect that if slavery were legal in the West, slaveowners would find plenty of uses for slaves. You know they would. But if slavery were impossible in those lands, why should the slaveowner's desire for wealth and power prevail over other interests?

You might say it was about self-preservation for the slavers, but at the time, free farmers and workmen and shopkeepers had their own interest in self-preservation -- in living in territories that weren't dominated by rich slaveowners and their followers.

[x]

You haven't read enough. If you look at the history of abolition, you will notice that most Northern states used the process of "Gradual abolition of slavery." What this allowed them to do was to take their slaves into other states and sell them.

That's what they did. Some let them go, but most recouped their investment by selling them down South.

It would be really surprising if that didn't happen, but how common was it?

Do you have any facts and figures about how many slaves were sold South from Northern states after emancipation?

Bear in mind that the African-American percentage of the population was declining because of increasing immigration from Europe.

[Elsie]

bump

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "If you look at the history of abolition, you will notice that most Northern states used the process of "Gradual abolition of slavery."
What this allowed them to do was to take their slaves into other states and sell them.
That's what they did.
Some let them go, but most recouped their investment by selling them down South."

x: "Do you have any facts and figures about how many slaves were sold South from Northern states after emancipation?
Bear in mind that the African-American percentage of the population was declining because of increasing immigration from Europe."

Here are two pieces of data which could help this conversation:

1. Slave populations by state, 1790 to 1860

2. Freed-black populations by state, 1790 to 1860.

What they show is, from 1790 to 1860:

1. Southern slave populations increased from 650,000 to 4 million = 615%.

2. Outside the South slave populations fell from 42,000 to 64 (includes far west) = 99.9%.

3. Southern freed-black populations increased from 32,000 to 250,000 = 780%.

4. Northern (& Western) freed-black populations increased from 27,000 to 225,000 = 833%.

There's no data saying how many Northern slave-holders sold their slaves down South, but what the data does show is that while Northern slaves declined 99.9% Northern freed-blacks increased over 800%.

So, I'd say that along with so much else from DiogenesLamp, his claim here is roughly 99.9% bogus.

[jmacusa]

Diogenes Lamp. The Eternal Self Contradiction.

[DiogenesLamp]

What, do you think the abolitionists, many of which were Republican Congressmen in Washington, would have set on their thumbs and let the Union keep slaves?

There is literally not a D@mn thing they could have done about it. I've ran the math.

It takes 3/4ths of a majority of states to pass a constitutional amendment. If the 11 states that became the confederacy voted as a block, you would have to have 33 other states to override their veto. That couldn't have happened until 1895 when Utah became the 45th state. (West Virginia wouldn't have been a state if the 11 confederate states had remained in the union.)

If the 5 slave states that remained in the Union during the Civil War voted with the 11 states that became the confederacy, it would require a Union with 66 states in it to override the veto of this coalition of slave states.

So how would the abolitionists do anything about slavery? It was mathematically impossible.

There were a lot of people who were doing what they were doing because of slavery.

There were a few. Most were doing what they were doing because they were drafted and forced into a confrontation with Confederate guns against their will. Irish were grabbed right off the boat and drafted into the Union army.

For an organization that sought to stop involuntary servitude, they sure engaged in a lot of involuntary servitude.

The worst riots in US history were the New York riots of 1863. They were rioting against being forced to join the army to fight people with whom they had no quarrel, all because Abe Lincoln's government demanded it.

They resented the fact that rich people could get out of the draft by paying $300.00, which was a sum none of them could hope to produce. Funny how the wealthy and powerful men of New York weren't required to fight for the cause that benefited them the most.

Since a slave at that time in history cost about $1,000.00, the rioters chanted that "Our lives are worth less than a slave!" A Northern man's freedom could be bought for $300.00, but a slave's could be bought for a $1,000.00.

Yes, there were people who volunteered to "free the slaves", but for the most part these were "kooks". Liberals not unlike our modern "LGBT" or Abortion advocates. The majority of men of the north did not give a sh*t about the slaves, and really didn't want to fight at all. Many of them realized they were being forced to their deaths, and they did not want to do it.

You should read some of the letters written by Union soldiers just before "Cold Harbor." They sewed their names into their clothes so that their bodies could be identified after they died.

[DiogenesLamp]

I suspect that if slavery were legal in the West, slaveowners would find plenty of uses for slaves. You know they would. But if slavery were impossible in those lands, why should the slaveowner's desire for wealth and power prevail over other interests?

I didn't say slavery was impossible in those lands, I said Plantation Farming was impossible in those lands, and at the time it was the only large scale profit making industry that could use large numbers of slaves.

You might say it was about self-preservation for the slavers, but at the time, free farmers and workmen and shopkeepers had their own interest in self-preservation -- in living in territories that weren't dominated by rich slaveowners and their followers.

Exactly. Most people opposed to slavery in the North were concerned about it's economic impact against them. They were not concerned about the well being or freedom of the slaves. They saw it as a threat to their ability to earn wages for their labor, and for that reason they hated it.

I don't blame them. I would have hated it for that reason too. I like to think I would have also hated it because it is wrong, but I think my view of that during that era would depend upon where I grew up.

[DiogenesLamp]

It would be really surprising if that didn't happen, but how common was it?

I would suspect it was virtually universal. Slaves cost about $1,000.00 in 1860, but around 1810, they were probably half that. Still, what man would walk away from something with about a $50,000.00 value? (in today's dollars)

I find it hard to believe that very many people would just kiss the money good bye.

Do you have any facts and figures about how many slaves were sold South from Northern states after emancipation?

I could probably find some, but I don't think the Government was keeping a list, and I don't think anyone else was either. I'm sure documents were produced at the time, but they would be in thousands of personal archives and many of them would have been destroyed over time.

I think the point I made about walking away from money is a good proxy for what actually happened. I do know some families emancipated their slaves because they had came to see them as part of their families, and so they did the right thing, but I know of some families that did the exact opposite and tried to reclaim someone as a slave.

Bear in mind that the African-American percentage of the population was declining because of increasing immigration from Europe.

And they wanted jobs.

[x]

As I said, some Northern slaveowners probably sold slaves South when gradual emancipation was introduced. The question is how many? Large slave owners might be able to get rid of some slaves before they were freed, but slaveowners who had some kind of farm or business would have to get labor somehow and it might have been cheaper for them to just rely on slaves for as long as they could, rather than take their chances in the free labor market.

Gradual emancipation often meant that slaves would remain enslaved for life and slave children born after a certain date would receive their freedom after they reached the age of 21 or 25 or 28 and had served some kind of "apprenticeship." I suspect many stayed with the farms and families they'd started out with as poorly paid or unpaid servants, as something like slaves whose freedom was that at least they couldn't be sold off. That was the life they'd known.

It wasn't wholly benign. Some slaves were converted to "indentured servants" with very long periods of indenture. Ex-slaves or free Blacks could become something close to slaves again due to debt or fraudulent contracts or long apprenticeships. Some ran off.

Many slaves probably were legitimately freed. Some probably were sold off. I don't deny that at all. But the figures BroJoe came up with suggest that selling slaves South may not have been as widespread as we've come to assume.

[x]

Funny thing, we still have laws restricting shipping between US ports to ships that are in some way "American." That's what this latest argument over the Jones Act is about.

But it doesn't benefit New York City -- or not much. In fact, most of our busiest ports today are South of the Mason-Dixon line. Why is that?

Well, there's air conditioning. Diseases like malaria, yellow fever, and cholera have largely been conquered. The country's centers of population have moved south and west. Labor is cheaper in the South.

There's a wide net of railroads and superhighways. Refrigerated transport. Corn and wheat and soybeans in the Middle West. A massive processed foods industry.

The Panama Canal. Container ships. The automobile and appliance industries. Rich consumers around the world. The rise of Asia. Asian cars and electronics.

How much of that was there in 1860? There was cotton. There was corn and wheat and cattle. But the nearest and biggest and most profitable markets were in the Eastern cities.

The surplus could be shipped overseas after the bulk of production made its way east, rather than sent south first where the domestic market was so much smaller.

There were railroads, but the network was so much thicker in the North than in the South. Refrigerator cars were still a decade or more in the future and would make more sense shipping to Eastern cities.

There was cheap labor, but most of it was enslaved and free workers didn't relish competing with slaves (or the weather, or the epidemics), so there were workforce problems in the South.

So there you have it. King Cotton. But most of the other factors that made for a shift in commerce really weren't there yet.

And notice: in our real world example, New York wasn't screaming and moaning about competition from Southern ports. New York investors had a hand in developing them.

Of course today's talk about post-industrial "information economies" wasn't around when those port cities were growing, but back then, New York had a lot of confidence in its industrial, financial, and commercial future and wasn't that worried about competition.

[Chickensoup]

No there would be less representatives because there would be less population.

[Jim Noble]

If California seceded, the PLA Navy would be in San Diego Bay within six months and Hawaii would secede next.

[rbg81]

I think the entire West Coast (sans Alaska) would secede.

[Little Ray]

We have 435 seats in the House of Representatives. The seats are allocated to states according to census, and districts created. Each state gets at least two.
But ALL the seats are allocated. California’s seats would be reallocated in the next census, if not sooner.

[Publius]

Each state gets at least two.

Each state gets as least one.