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To: Vietnam Vet From New Mexico
Slave owners, particularly large slave owners, would oppose it as long as slavery was more profitable. Advances in technology would have changed that. It already made slavery uneconomical in the North, and it soon would have in the South.

Doubtful. Cotton farming was labor intensive and harvesting it properly was difficult to mechanize. The first commercially successful mechanical cotton harvester wasn't introduced until the 1930's. And a large percentage of the slaves were domestic help. What mechanization would replace the cooks, maids, butlers, grooms, gardeners, and so forth?

The North held, or would soon hold solid majorities in Congress so they could have overridden objections from the South. I believe at one time Lincoln was thinking of issuing bonds to compensate loyal slave owners, which would have spread the cost out over decades.

The problem with a compensated emancipation system is that the slave owners would have to agree to be compensated. There was no interest on the part of Southern slave owners in ending the institution, through compensated means or otherwise.

211 posted on 01/31/2007 3:59:26 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: Non-Sequitur
What mechanization would replace the cooks, maids, butlers, grooms, gardeners, and so forth?

A paycheck. These jobs here are why I don't understand your belief that slavery was a benefit to all white southernor's. Slavery deprived poor whites of these menial jobs, along with bricklayer,carpenter and other jobs that slaves did. This is why I have no belief that the average soldier fought to perpetuate slavery. Your one car in the family aiding all in the family doesn't apply here. Sorry, I know I have drifted off the subject and on to one from threads gone by.
212 posted on 01/31/2007 7:01:48 AM PST by smug (Tanstaafl)
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To: Non-Sequitur
The problem with a compensated emancipation system is that the slave owners would have to agree to be compensated.

For this reason and financing is why the idea was to be implemented over 40 or 50 years. Some would have agreed right away, over time like most things most would have gotten on board. This would have solved other problems that Reconstruction caused. My Grandfather who was born in 1888, and kindled my interest in the WBTS claimed that Reconstruction was far more devastating to the south than the war was.
213 posted on 01/31/2007 7:16:47 AM PST by smug (Tanstaafl)
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