But here we are talking about slavery again, which I consider to be a complete dodge of the real issue of the war which was Northern domination and control of Southern economic output. Of course you do. Most people think your view is the complete dodge. It is. It was even a century and a half ago.
Remember, they didn't care about slavery when they passed the Corwin amendment.
It's been pointed out a thousand times that the Corwin Amendment didn't work because the slaveowners cared too much about slavery. Congress was willing to give them a guarantee but it wasn't enough for them.
But I reject the fallacy that because Northerners were willing to give slaveowners that guarantee they "didn't care" about slavery. They cared about keeping slavery out of the free states and territories. They cared about keeping the union together. You may "care" about things yet be willing to compromise and unwilling to give up everything to get your way.
There were large tariffs on British (and other European) imports specifically because they were a threat to the much more politically powerful Northern interests. If people had the choice, they would buy the cheaper European goods for things they needed instead of paying for the higher priced goods that were inflated due to protectionist policies.
You don't know that. European goods weren't necessarily better or cheaper. There were tariffs to develop American industry, to create jobs and to make the country stronger and less reliant on foreign manufacturers. Industry was very feeble at the beginning and couldn't have forced tariffs on the country.
They could have objected to slave owning by refusing to buy the product. They didn't.
They did, but you weren't paying attention. Lancashire cotton workers suffered terribly from cotton shortages, but they held meetings and circulated petitions and manifestos saying that they wouldn't work with slave cotton. That took guts. Politicians, diplomats, businessmen and colonial administrators weren't as visible but they recognized that trade with the slavers was unpopular and sought to get around it.
Now you may think people are really motivated by the milk of human kindness and that the British set up cotton plantations in Egypt and India out of concern for the poor slaves
Says the fellow who's always mentioning Charles Dickens. Like Dickens, Englishmen were capable of being horrible mercenary imperialists in some situations and also wanting to be or be considered loving humanitarians when it came to other matters.
You aren't going to beat slave labor with paid labor no matter how your currency values fluctuate. The only way Egyptian plantations could be made profitable was the forcible holding back of the Southern plantations.
The average Indian salary now is about $5000. The average Egyptian salary now is about $7000. People were even poorer back in the 1860s and survived on a lot less.
You sound almost gleeful thinking that slavery would always be cheaper and more profitable than free labor. But labor in many poorer countries wasn't that free. People were very poor and desperate for work. Landlords didn't need to feed and clothe them all year round -- only when they needed their work -- and they didn't have to invest large sums in buying workers. I'm not sure whether you'll be happy or disappointed to find out that slave labor wasn't always going to outcompete its competitors.
Union forces took control of Missouri before that. For that matter, they pretty much occupied Maryland to prevent it from going over to the South. Both of these events happened before and in the very early states of the war. The South was playing catchup when it attempted to go into Kentucky.
The Confederates definitely were trying break off slave territories in the US. They attacked Sumter and started the war because they recognized that Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee would join them if there was a war. Maryland and Missouri were still part of the US and the American government had the right to take steps to protect them. Kentucky was different. There had been an informal agreement to stay out and the Confederates broke the agreement. Big difference.
In the same manner you can set up your own Internet, social media platform, payment processing and banking centers.
Southerners did set up their own shipping enterprises. I have mentioned Charleston's Trenholm firm many times. There were others.
It is my understanding that Southern railroads were predominately paid for by private businesses, not government funding.
The tiniest bit of research would have paid off. Five or ten minutes would inform you that Southern states chartered and often financed railroads. The main North Carolina railroad was 75% state owned. Virginia bought about half the bonds of the states railroad companies and owned the original Blue Ridge Railroad outright. Alabama railroads benefited from federal land grants, like those in the West.
I don't know if Southern railroads got more state funding than Northern ones, but it seems likely, since Southerners weren't investing as much. There's no shame in government involvement: governments have always been involved with railroads because it's hard to acquire the right of way. But it is embarrassing to make claims that may not be true. Add to that the fact that slave labor largely built the railroads and that was quite a subsidy in itself.
Even with your "dumping" idea, this still results in a massive loss of money for the Northeastern manufacturers compared to what they would have made with British products kept out by high tariffs.
Doubtful. British products weren't necessarily better or cheaper or produced in such large quantities. Dumping worked at least in the short and medium run in many parts of the world. It's only sensible that more Northern goods would have made the rail trip down from Chicago than would have made the long transatlantic crossing. Neither would encourage Southern industry or lasting prosperity, though.
Giving the producers higher prices is simply taking that money out of the pockets of Americans who need the products. Are these Americans of lesser value than those other Americans?
It's creating jobs for Americans. In any case this wasn't the major issue it's made out to be. Americans didn't have much trouble balancing the wishes of producers and consumers. What happened in the 1850s and 1860s was that wealthy cotton and slave interests seized on passing complaints to try to tear the nation apart and get a country of their own.
There is much scholarship now focusing on the complex economic relations in antebellum America. North and South were closely linked and there were few heroes among the big economic actors. There was a very bizarre situation in which wealthy Southerners glorified in their cotton wealth, but also complained about poverty and complained that Northerners were moving head (at the South's expense) and leaving the South behind. It was a strange notion and obviously not a very rational one. You seem to have taken every complaint of the slaveowners at face value and found them justified. That's a pity. You could learn a lot if you didn't just parrot long discredited theories.
Of course you do. Most people think your view is the complete dodge. Most people are taught "Slavery! Slavery! Slavery!" all their lives and never bother to look at the bigger picture. You see all the Covid 19 Maskholes running around saying "Listen to the government!"
Same phenomena.
It's been pointed out a thousand times that the Corwin Amendment didn't work because the slaveowners cared too much about slavery.
It hasn't been pointed out to me. That assertion doesn't even make sense. You are telling me that a Constitutional amendment which protects slavery forever was rejected because "the slaveowners cared too much about slavery"?
Silly claim on the face of it.
Congress was willing to give them a guarantee but it wasn't enough for them.
Because they cared too much about it? Here's another theory. They wanted something else. What was that something else? How about a 60% increase in profitability for their exports? (By cutting out the North and DC's tariffs.) How about an even bigger increase in their purchasing power because European products would no longer be marked up so high to prop up the connected Northern manufacturers?
They get huge benefits by getting out from under Washington's thumb. As for slavery, DC wasn't giving them anything they didn't already have.
But I reject the fallacy that because Northerners were willing to give slaveowners that guarantee they "didn't care" about slavery.
They certainly didn't care about the slaves. Guess who would bear the brunt of that Amendment? The slaves would. F**ing them over to maintain Financial control of the South indicates their concern was financial control, not the well being of the slaves.
They cared about keeping slavery out of the free states and territories.
Because they had been told that over and over again, but an actual examination of the reality demonstrates there never would have been any significant slave presence in the territories.
Also, there has been further clarification on this matter through quotes posted by others. It would appear that the biggest objection to slaves in the territories was because of the desire to keep black people out of the territories and to reserve it for white people only.
Their other concern was to make certain the South never got enough allies to override their rigged laws that funneled money into their own pockets.
Thus the fake "Slaves in the Territories" bullsh*t.
They cared about keeping the union together.
They cared about keeping a profitable Northern Thumb on the Southern export trade.
You don't know that. European goods weren't necessarily better or cheaper.
I've read it many times over the years, and if European goods were more expensive or of inferior quality, then why were protectionist tariffs needed to protect the domestic (Northern) industries from them? Hmmmm?
There were tariffs to develop American industry, to create jobs and to make the country stronger and less reliant on foreign manufacturers.
This is the claim, and it would not be so objectionable if it were true, but the reality was that these tariffs tended to favor Northern profits and had the effect of stuffing Southern produced money into Northern controlling pockets.
They did, but you weren't paying attention. Lancashire cotton workers suffered terribly from cotton shortages, but they held meetings and circulated petitions and manifestos saying that they wouldn't work with slave cotton.
And did they make this announcement after the blockade when they had nothing to lose, or before the blockade when it would actually have cost them something?
I'm guessing it was an empty gesture because they knew they weren't getting any more "slave cotton" anyway. If not, they would have shortly been destroyed by their competition that continued taking the "slave cotton" at the much cheaper price.
Hell, we're still taking slave labor products from China right now as opposed to refusing them.
Englishmen were capable of being horrible mercenary imperialists in some situations and also wanting to be or be considered loving humanitarians when it came to other matters.
Even the horrible mercenary imperialists wanted to be considered to be loving humanitarians. They wouldn't change, but they wanted other people to see them as good people even when they were not.
The average Indian salary now is about $5000. The average Egyptian salary now is about $7000. People were even poorer back in the 1860s and survived on a lot less.
Less than Zero? Now *that* I would like to see.
You sound almost gleeful thinking that slavery would always be cheaper and more profitable than free labor.
Realistic. The very notion that paid labor will be cheaper than unpaid labor seems nonsensical when it applies to simple things like cotton cultivation and harvesting.
But labor in many poorer countries wasn't that free. People were very poor and desperate for work.
A worse situation than slavery? So why then would anyone support a worse situation than slavery? It seems as if it makes slavery the lesser of the two evils.
I'm not sure whether you'll be happy or disappointed to find out that slave labor wasn't always going to outcompete its competitors.
I cannot wrap my head around such an idea. Telling me that paying people to produce a product results in a cheaper price than not paying people to produce a product just seems insane to me.
The Confederates definitely were trying break off slave territories in the US. They attacked Sumter and started the war because they recognized that Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee would join them if there was a war.
Well this claim has certainly been repeated over and over and over by people trying to justify an Army invading them, but I see little evidence for it beyond the "sprinkle a little blood" comment by someone or other.
Maryland and Missouri were still part of the US and the American government had the right to take steps to protect them.
They had no more right to tell them they can't leave than they had a right to tell the Southern states they can't leave.
The Declaration of Independence says they can leave, and nothing in the US Constitution says they cannot. The assertion that they cannot leave is bullsh*t made up by people who didn't want them to leave and is not supported by any significant evidence.
Kentucky was different. There had been an informal agreement to stay out and the Confederates broke the agreement.
There had been an informal agreement to keep men and munitions out of Fort Pickens and the Union broke that agreement. Since that is how one side played the game, the other side would not be far behind.
Southerners did set up their own shipping enterprises. I have mentioned Charleston's Trenholm firm many times. There were others.
There was shipbuilding in Charleston in 1807 because "the Horizon" was built there, but as Robert Rhett pointed out in his address from South Carolina, Southern shipbuilding had virtually disappeared, and now the trade was carried on almost exclusively by the same powerful companies in the North.
Their coastal packets (controlled in the North) were profitable partially because of federal subsidies to carry the mail.
The main North Carolina railroad was 75% state owned.
You make no mention of federal dollars. How many railroads in the North were built with federal money?
Doubtful. British products weren't necessarily better or cheaper or produced in such large quantities.
That's not the point with your "dumping" claim. Why would people "dump" products when they can command higher prices because of federally imposed tariffs on the competition?
If they have to "dump" products into the Southern markets, this means they are forgoing the higher profits they would have otherwise gotten through the protectionist policies.
Again, it equates to a large loss of money to these Northern manufacturers.
It's only sensible that more Northern goods would have made the rail trip down from Chicago than would have made the long transatlantic crossing.
Oh. That's why we buy stuff from Chicago instead of China. Clearly Chicago has a trade advantage over China, and nobody buys anything from China because of their high transport costs.
In reality, people will buy whichever is cheaper, and the Chicago products would have been forced to be cheaper because of the loss of the artificial price supports from the tariffs.
So again, losing the tariffs cost Northern manufacturers big bucks and it made the European goods much more competitive.
What happened in the 1850s and 1860s was that wealthy cotton and slave interests seized on passing complaints to try to tear the nation apart and get a country of their own.
If they were happy, why would they want a country of their own? You discount the money pipeline from Southern pockets to Northern pockets and you go out of your way to believe it's about morality and not money.
No, it's really about money.
There was a very bizarre situation in which wealthy Southerners glorified in their cotton wealth, but also complained about poverty and complained that Northerners were moving head (at the South's expense) and leaving the South behind.
Bigger populations tend to do that if useful work for their people can be found.
You seem to have taken every complaint of the slaveowners at face value and found them justified.
Hardly. I had never heard of their economic complaints until long after I had noticed there was something very wrong with how much they exported and how much came back into Northern pockets.
It was after I noticed this thing which didn't make any sense that I later ran across Robert Rhett's economic complaints, and later still before I ever saw subsequent examples of Southerners complaining about the economic losses they had from being part of the USA.
That's a pity. You could learn a lot if you didn't just parrot long discredited theories.
That's funny, I was thinking the same thing about you.
You keep repeating the discredited theory of "expansion of slavery", and "War was about Slavery", and "They only offered permanent slavery to preserve the Union."
You have your own share of theories that don't make any sense.