Posted on 03/31/2010 3:04:35 PM PDT by 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.....
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
It's morally wrong for a third party to pay a ransom to secure another's freedom?
Dude, you've just invalidated the moral basis of Christianity. I'm afraid I'll have to disagree with you on that one!
It wasn't only Southerners who thought the Federal government was overreaching. The Fugitive Slave Act and the Dred Scott decision are both good examples of how the South used Federal law to their advantage, over the objections of Northen States. The political lines were also less rigidly geographical in the decade leading up to the Civil War, with pro-banking Whigs generally pitted against anti-banking Democrats and various factions filling in the gaps.
Come on Jim, that's exactly what the South was doing. The North was fighting against freedom and for domination by the federal government. Today's problems can be directly traced to Lincoln's actions. I think Paul is kook but Lincoln was no different than 0bama.
EXACTLY RIGHT!!!
It’s about timew somebody called a spade a spade. I am so tired of the lie that the ACW was to do with ending slavery. Nothing could be further from the truth; and in fact Lincoln did not sign the “Emancipation” until January 1, 1863... the ACW began April 12, 1861. On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as 16th President of the United States of America. So from the date of his becoming President, until the date he signed the Emancipation, almost two years had passed, and the Civil War had raged for almost a year and a half.
Lincoln’s Emancipation was not for reason of ending slavery... It was a strategic move to incorporate slaves into the Northern Army and wreak havoc behind the Confederate lines. The North was getting its dictatorial ass whooped in just about every battle, as it rightly should have.
Lincoln should be remembered for only one thing: the abbrogation and abolition of the US Constitution... Licoln was the AUTHOR of federal tyranny, not the great harbinger of justice.
I am not talking theology, but how men govern their affairs.
Men were not meant to be ruled, but to be free. That is inherent in our founding philosophy and documents that it is our GOD given right to be free. You may think that God bequeathed slavery to you, but that is your own misconception. We were endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights, among them to be free.
A man who claims to be King is not Jesus. Our founding was decidedly anti-aristocracy. “No King but Jesus” was a common revolutionary slogan. Jesus was the Son of God, but he was also the son of a carpenter and learned a skill, he was not by that measure an aristocrat, nor did he claim his power was because of some hereditary allotment from God, Jesus IS God.
Epic fail on the theology front.
You are one confused individual. Freedom is bequeathed to us by God, God means for us to be free. Our founding recognizes our God given right to be free, not our God given slavery.
Yasuba proved this; Fogel and Engerman proved this; we already have preliminary evidence from a massive study of NO slave prices from data sources that no one has seen that confirm this.
Again, you might find one or two---you can still find economists who think that FDR didn't spend enough, and you certainly know the "on the other hand" comment about RR and economists---but the vast majority (see the discussion in Atack and Passell, "New Economic View of American History") does not support your view.
The notion that you can sell off a scarce good---no matter what that good's function---and NOT drive up prices on all remaining similar goods defies economic logic. But when those goods are inherently imbued with power/oppression, then it isn't even close. Slave labor was very marginally profitable over free labor, unprofitable compared to manufacturing, but tremendously profitable as a source of power, especially when subsidized by the state. And even Weiss's paper does not take into account the hidden value of government subsidies to slavery when determining profitability.
Well, for two-thirds of their population anyway.
No I don’t see the difference. My argument is based upon years of study. It is a well-founded argument. You called it absurd. Therefore, you are calling my studies and my knowledge on the issue absurd, which is an insult. Try to weasel out of it if you want, but it was an insult.
You miss the point that it could not have worked out economically.
What would have happened with the paid-for slaves? Would they have moved to the North (very likely to get away from the ‘evil South’). This would have glutted the labor market and driven wages down even further. The North would have benefited because they would have seen massive profits with the depressed wages caused by the glut of laborers. They would also have benefited by driving their Southern competitors into insolvency. I don’t see this as much more moral than slavery itself. In fact, as I said, I see the Northern system as a form of slavery, just without the chains. Is it a freeway if you have to pay to drive on it? Were the Northern workers “free” if it was virtually impossible to make any change in their lives?
Would they have remained in the South? If so, they would have drawn much higher wages, thus bankrupting the South.
20 years ago I would have agreed with you. But since that time I have spent a lot of time undoing the brainwashing of mainstream, government-run education. And I know much more now than I did then. I even had to undergo the painful admission that what I had believed was wrong.
Ron Paul’s idea is in fact absurd. And it is absurd on many levels, some of which I have outlined. The South would never have gone for it. State sovereignty was a pivotal issue. And this idea would have led to ruin economically.
Does that make Lincoln a bad man? Here's a quote from a letter from a about 40 years before Lincoln. I'd like you to tell me what your opinion of the author is:
"Amidst this prospect of evil, I am glad to see one good effect. It has brought the necessity of some plan of general emancipation & deportation more home to the minds of our people than it has ever been before. Insomuch, that our Governor has ventured to propose one to the legislature. This will probably not be acted on at this time. Nor would it be effectual; for while it proposes to devote to that object one third of the revenue of the State, it would not reach one tenth of the annual increase. My proposition would be that the holders should give up all born after a certain day, past, present, or to come, that these should be placed under the guardianship of the State, and sent at a proper age to S. Domingo. There they are willing to recieve them, & the shortness of the passage brings the deportation within the possible means of taxation aided by charitable contributions."
So...bad as Lincoln? Vile racist? What?
Well that certainly explains your post.
Which contention on your part (cite your evidentiary sources, please) doesn't account for why Compensated Emancipation was succesful in every other country where it was tried.
Here's why it was successful: once slave-holders were paid a market rate of compensation for their slaves, they took the money and shut up about it. Which means that you can argue all you want about the alleged "power-vs-profit" aspect of slavery in theory; but in practice, slave-holders were content to take the money.
If the government announced a plan that that they were buying every privately owned fiream in the country at market prices, and you had to sell all your firearms to them at fair value, but you could never purchase another gun ever again, would you willingly accept the offer?
And the confederacy jumped on the bandwagon shortly thereafter.
Most likely. That's where the greatest need for Labor would have existed; and, following Compensated Emancipation, the greatest amount of free cash seeking labor.
If so, they would have drawn much higher wages, thus bankrupting the South.
Sorry, but that's not an economically-sensible claim.
Where labor costs are freely-negotiated and dynamic (i.e., not stratified by Union-backed wage laws, etc.), labor supply and demand will meet at the equilibrium, market-clearing price. This price will be lower than a price which would cause any sort of general bankruptcy; because if labor costs are high enough to cause a business to go into bankruptcy, the workers will lose their jobs and have to look for employment in businesses which do NOT pay bankruptcy-inducing high wages (since those will be the businesses still in operation and able to offer employment). If bankruptcy destroys jobs, that puts extra labor on the market, resulting in a drop in labor prices to a level which can be profitably sustained.
Since I don't think that you're an idiot, then you already know that this is basic free-market-capitalist labor economics. And it works.
So why did Jeff Davis start it?
And at the time, the U.S. government (dominated by southern politicians, it should be noted) was relatively small and could not afford to buy all 4 million slaves recorded in the 1860 census.
At an average cost of about $1,500 (in current dollars) each, the federal government would have had to pay out about $6 billion (which it did not have) to the planters and other slaveholders. Imagine the politics involved in making such a suggestion at the time
Paul's a kook and historical ignoramous!
'nuff said.
It should be noted that $6 billion was 100 times the total federal budget at the time. That would be the equivilent of $2.6 quadrillion today. Anyone want to take that debt load on?
And they, in turn, are talking to you. Doesn't seem quite fair to me.
Ats guverment skool edyookashion at werk fer u.
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