Posted on 10/31/2014 5:45:52 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Had they won, slavery would have been extended in time and possibly in space.
But you already knew that, didn’t you?
I honor the valor and integrity of the fighting men of the South. But, to paraphrase Grant, no men ever fought more valiantly for a worse cause.
Had they won, slavery would have been extended in time and possibly in space.
But you already knew that, didn’t you?
I honor the valor and integrity of the fighting men of the South. But, to paraphrase Grant, no men ever fought more valiantly for a worse cause.
Slavery was already dying out for various reasons, including the cotton gin, the increasing cost of feeding the slaves and the automatic cotton picker/combine, but you knew that already, didn’t you?
Affirmative action is already a de facto acceptance of white (and male) superiority; it is official government acknowledgment of both.
Slavery was not dying out. The price of slaves, as with any other commodity an excellent surrogate for what buyers anticipate future demand to be, reached its peak in 1860.
To address your specific claims:
Cotton gin. Exactly backwards. Slavery WAS (possibly) dying out till the gin gave it a new lease on life and made it wildly profitable. Up through 1800 most observers, including most slaveowners, expected the institution to gradually die as uneconomic.
Before the gin, most cotton varieties were too labor intensive to clean, making them economically unfeasible. Only the varieties grown in the sea islands were in demand. The gin opened up the entire south to production, which of course required slaves. Setting the country on the road to secession, war and emancipation.
To put these values into some perspective. Value of all slaves in 1860 was somewhere around $3.5B. The GDP of the entire nation was only $4.4B. Making the value of slaves about 80% of the GDP of the nation and of course an immensely greater percentage of souther GDP. In fact, value of slaves in the south would have greatly exceeded its GDP. In today’s terms, 80% of the 2013 national GDP would be about $13,440,000,000,000.
Cost of feeding slaves. Irrelevant except as a ratio to the production of a slave. Cornmeal in 1860 cost .02/pound. Salt pork cost .11. It takes about two pounds of food per day to feed a man. Let’s make it three, and figure average cost per pound for a slave at .07. That’s .21/day or $76.65/year. Which I suspect is way high, particularly since slaves on plantation often grew much of their own food.
I read recently it cost $32/year to feed, clothe and house a slave. No idea how accurate that is. The amount of money a plantation slave brought in per year varied directly with crop size and cotton price. Good year, wildly profitable. Bad year, not so much.
Compare this to the mean rental price of a slave in the Deep
South in 1860 of $196.50/year. With the renter of course providing room and board for the slave. IOW, if you owned 10 slaves in 1860, you could rent them all out for a net income that year of $1965, at a time when a highly skilled worker such as a blacksmith earned about $550 annually.
The first patent on a cotton picking machine was issued in 1933, a little late for it to have any impact on the fortunes of slavery.
But the most important bit of evidence that slavery in 1860 was believed to have a bright financial future was of course the price buyers were willing to pay, which was at its peak that year.
It should also be noted that slavery is not by any means always primarily an economic institution. It was in Islamic lands not primarily a wealth producing institution, for instance. There it was often at least as much a form of conspicuous consumption, a way of displaying your wealth to others. It of course served the same function to some extent in the American South, and might have continued to do so even had it become less profitable.
I just try to write as though I were in a room full of African Americans”
Oh.... Me Too, Me Too!
RIte Awn RIte Awn
Yo Im Out!!
Never has so much been given to so few and they have done so little.
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