Ron Paul: Why didn’t the north just buy the south’s slaves and free them that way? (Insults Lincoln)

Hot Air ^ | 3-31-10 | Hot Air.com Staff

[TitansAFC]

Ron Paul: Why didn’t the north just buy the south’s slaves and free them that way?

Getting down to the last two questions here…. Most people consider Abe Lincoln to be one of our greatest presidents, if not the greatest president we’ve ever had. Would you agree with that sentiment and why or why not?

No, I don’t think he was one of our greatest presidents. I mean, he was determined to fight a bloody civil war, which many have argued could have been avoided. For 1/100 the cost of the war, plus 600 thousand lives, enough money would have been available to buy up all the slaves and free them. So, I don’t see that is a good part of our history.....

[BnBlFlag]

Ron Paul on Lincoln - I agree 100%!

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Because once you established that a black person was a person and not property ANYWHERE, it threatened slavery EVERYWHERE, and that was not tolerable in the South.

And it took the election of an anti-slavery Republican to finally get the slave states to secede, which they did virtually overnight--even though they'd had decades to do it over those blasted tariffs.

[La Enchiladita]

And where would the north have got that money, pray tell? Wow... so much for smaller government.

Good one!! Inconsistency, thy name is Ron Paul.

[savedbygrace]

For such a highly educated man, he sure hasn’t figured this thing out.

Listen, the South needed the slaves to try to keep the cost of production down so they could try to compete with the northern factories.

I would guess few of the slaves would really have been for sale.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

I think it has more to do with the South trying to sell cotton to Europe, cotton the North needed for their industry ... it was about money for the big guys ... and the little guys ended up dead.

Along with failing to develop things like industry, and shipping, and infrastructure, the south had also failed to develop anything like a financial sector. What that meant practically was that the southern planters sold very little cotton directly to Europe. Instead it went to New York brokers who had fronted them the money they needed. Those brokers sold to anyone who met their price. Northern mills could buy as much as they needed at the going rate, and didn't have to pay for the transatlantic shipping.

[FenwickBabbitt]

Actually, if Lincoln had gotten his way and the slaves had been returned to Africa, the South would have taken a financial hit, but it likely would not have been disastrous. One of the reasons that immigrants went to the North in so many numbers was not necessarily just because of rapid industrialization, as you say. A major reason why they did not come to the South is because blacks and poor whites already worked in almost all of the unskilled jobs available there. If the blacks were no longer there, there is no reason to think that European immigrants wouldn’t have come to the South to get the newly available jobs. After all, many Irish immigrants did come to the South before the war, and many of them worked in jobs considered too dangerous for slaves (slaves were too expensive to use in life threatening jobs). The Confederacy after all was able to field an Irish regiment and one of the South’s most important generals was an Irishman (Patrick Cleburne).

Beyond this, the Republicans of the day were strong supporters of spreading “wage labor.” They wanted the South to copy the North and industrialize, hence the reason why so many Southerners complained that the North merely wanted to replace slavery with “wage slavery.” If blacks had been repatriated, the South may have industrialized more rapidly. Let me remind you that the few areas of the South that did industrialized early on, such as New Orleans and Birmingham, did receive sizable numbers of Italian immigrants. Besides, many young Southern whites left the South after the war and in the early 20th century in order to look for work elsewhere. If there were more jobs available in the South, more would have stayed there.

At any rate, I’m not sure whether Lincoln wanted repatriation to Africa to be forced or merely encouraged and facilitated. Perhaps some slaves would have been allowed to stay in the South and work for wages. I don’t know. At any rate, this scenario probably wouldn’t have been nearly as damaging to the South as a hugely destructive Civil War fought mainly on southern territory.

[GloriaJane]

Oh, I don’t know. LOL! Look around you. Millions of Mexicans are here illegally, not only working in fields right out in the open, but as carpenters, brick layers, you name it.

And I think it would have been a little bit harder back then for the Government to have a worker go jump on ole Slue, ride around all over your county to each farm or plantation to ask for ownership papers. And how you going to prove they weren’t real papers?

Shoot, the Government revenuers couldn’t even catch half the whiskey runners, or find and shut down even half the stills. And that was years later when they had cars and a lot more gov employees. The only thing that stopped them was the end of prohibition. Just saying.

[ExSoldier]

No, you're not stupid but I'm looking at it from the point of a social studies teacher with 20+ years of experience. Doing it the way suggested would have left the institution of slavery in place and accepted. That is something that can never be condoned in any society and have that society remain intact for the long term. So think again.

[ExSoldier]

The Civil War was never about slavery anyway, at least not directly. It was pure economics and culture.

[Shooter 2.5]

States Rights to do just what exactly? Oh, yeah, chain people up, whip them and use them as slaves.

[kalee]

Can you provide some documentation for that assertion please?

[Favor Center]

“Ron Paul is a kook.”

That is pretty much exactly what the British did when they ended slavery.

[central_va]

Good one!! Inconsistency, thy name is Ron Paul.

If you had asked the same question about buying the slaves and ending the war that way to the Yankees crawling back from Maryes Heights on December 13, 1862, during the Battle of Fredericksburg, I wonder what kind of answer you would have got?

[newfreep]

I guess I should have added “/s” to insure the obvious sarcasm would be understood.

[LexBaird]

Rather than buying the slaves, the north should have offered discount pricing on mechanized farming equipment to southern farmers. This would have killed off slavery faster than anything else.

Now that's an innovative solution. And thanks for the link.

Except for the fact that such mechanized farm equipment didn't exist. The first viable mechanical cotton harvester wasn't made until 1943. Also, the cotton gin was mechanical farm equipment that actually made slavery more profitable.

[Second Amendment First]

From wiki: In 1850, Taylure and Paige made the first attempt to develop a mechanical cotton picker with the intent on replacing manual labor. Mechanical cotton pickers had no further inventions until the founder of Price Campbell Cotton Picker Corporation created one in 1889. Very little progress was made from then until 1924, when the Price-Campbell patents were purchased by International Harvester. Many experimental machines that were greatly improved from Price-Campbell's inventions were brought out during the period from 1924 until 1939. The idea of mechanical cotton picking began to be practical in 1943, when International Harvester produced the first dozen of their successful commercial cotton pickers. Although there were many attempts to invent successful cotton pickers, their use was not made practical until the 1950s, and even then, it was not immediately implemented on most farms.

If there had been some common ground found between north and south, it should have been developing the needs of both for prosperity, rather than mutual destruction.

[Sergio]

Thank you very much. Also see post 160, it seems that my proposed solutions would have been a partial one at best. It’s possible that it could have at least gotten the ball rolling with regards to ending slavery.

[Popman]

Gee, how does one call themselves a Paulbot and not slit their wrists for being so easliy beguiled by this kook.

[central_va]

States Rights to do just what exactly? Oh, yeah, chain people up, whip them and use them as slaves.

I get whipped every April 15th. We are ALL SLAVES NOW!

Thanks to the Illinois Butcher ™ "Over 600,000 served"

[Mark was here]

Didn’t the North also put some taxes / restrictions on cotton going to Europe? It is my understanding they did.