gandalftb:
"Slavery would have always ended." If you take even a minute to consider that sentence, you'll realize it's fatuous because slavery comes in many forms, some of which flourish today.
The specific form of "chattel slavery" practiced in 1860 may indeed have ended sometime, but the more likely reason is it would just morph into something slightly different, perhaps slightly less obnoxious.
However, the bottom line is there was no serious abolition movement in the South in 1860 and a Confederacy formed in large part to protect slavery was unlikely to tolerate a vigorous abolition movement.
Further, the Confederate constitution would work to prevent any state-by-state abolition movement and constitutional amendment could only happen over the objections of seven original Deep South states.
Now some posters have tried to imagine how the Union might abolish slavery by amendment in, say, 1902 against Deep South objections, but nobody has yet proposed how the Confederacy itself could do so.
For all practical purposes, that would be impossible.
Finally, it's always taken military power to defeat slavery, even when that was only threatened, as the Brits & French did in their colonies in the 19th century.
Another form of slavery was defeated in Eastern Europe in 1945 and a third more metaphorical form was defeated by the combined economic, military & moral authorities of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II.
Still other forms exist today in hiding wherever law enforcement is too weak to prevent them.
Key point: Delaware was the least enslaved of all slave-states and yet refused until 1902 to voluntarily ratify the 13th amendment.
So it's just fatuous to suggest that slavery would somehow magically disappear in other states where slaves were nearly half the population and nearly half of white families "owned" at least one slave.
gandalftb: "In SC, 1/3 owned 2/3."
That number is wrong, but South Carolina & Mississippi were the two highest percentages of slaves & slave-holders.
In both states, the numbers were roughly half of each.
Nearly half were slaves and almost half of families owned slaves.
One practical effect was that Confederate soldiers from those states were highly unlikely to be not closely related to slaveholders -- if not their own family, then their uncles, cousins, in-laws, etc., owned slaves.
gandalftb: "That 2/3, when freed would have become full citizens.
Congress would have seen to that, too many future voters and political power to ignore."
Absolutely not the Confederate congress!
There is no way Deep South representatives would tolerate even emancipation, much less full citizenship for their slaves, especially since they were already counted 3/5 for representation purposes.
Suggestions otherwise are pure anti-historical fantasies.
gandalftb: "As full citizens, the 2/3, former slaves would have the right to buy guns, compete for jobs, earn money, spend at businesses they liked, elect the next sheriff, governor, mayor, representatives, etc.
Those choices certainly would be highly objectionable to the minority white population with guns."
But "whites with guns" were never a minority in any US state, ever.
So Southern whites with guns were only defeated in their Jim Crow, black codes & KKK-type enforces by the 20th century Federal government.
gandalftb: "It is reasonable that the 1/3 white ruling class knew full well what abolition meant at the time.
There would have been war, unavoidable."
And now you fantasize about civil war within the Confederacy???.
Come on FRiend, shut it off -- your brain is working overtime to produce Imagineering even a Disney would blush at.
You have no clue what you're talking about, so please, STFU.
gandalftb: "The Confederacy would never make more than modest and early gains until the economic might of the Federal government destroyed the resistance and won."
The Confederacy could well have won a war against the Union if Lincoln had been satisfied with generals like McClellan, Burnside or Hooker and if Lincoln had not been determined to see it through to Unconditional Surrender.
gandalftb: "None of todays discussion can change those central ideas."
As I read them, your "central ideas" are complete nonsense, from beginning to end, so what exactly do you think you're posting here?
gandalftb: “Slavery would have always ended.”
If you take even a minute to consider that sentence, you'll realize it's fatuous because slavery comes in many forms, some of which flourish today.
The specific form of “chattel slavery” practiced in 1860 may indeed have ended sometime, but the more likely reason is it would just morph into something slightly different, perhaps slightly less obnoxious.
However, the bottom line is there was no serious abolition movement in the South in 1860 and a Confederacy formed in large part to protect slavery was unlikely to tolerate a vigorous abolition movement.
Further, the Confederate constitution would work to prevent any state-by-state abolition movement and constitutional amendment could only happen over the objections of seven original Deep South states.
Now some posters have tried to imagine how the Union might abolish slavery by amendment in, say, 1902 against Deep South objections, but nobody has yet proposed how the Confederacy itself could do so.
For all practical purposes, that would be impossible.
Finally, it's always taken military power to defeat slavery, even when that was only threatened, as the Brits & French did in their colonies in the 19th century.
Another form of slavery was defeated in Eastern Europe in 1945 and a third more metaphorical form was defeated by the combined economic, military & moral authorities of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II.
Still other forms exist today in hiding wherever law enforcement is too weak to prevent them.
Key point: Delaware was the least enslaved of all slave-states and yet refused until 1902 to voluntarily ratify the 13th amendment.
So it's just fatuous to suggest that slavery would somehow magically disappear in other states where slaves were nearly half the population and nearly half of white families “owned” at least one slave.
gandalftb: “In SC, 1/3 owned 2/3.”
That number is wrong, but South Carolina & Mississippi were the two highest percentages of slaves & slave-holders.
In both states, the numbers were roughly half of each.
Nearly half were slaves and almost half of families owned slaves.
One practical effect was that Confederate soldiers from those states were highly unlikely to be not closely related to slaveholders — if not their own family, then their uncles, cousins, in-laws, etc., owned slaves.
gandalftb: “That 2/3, when freed would have become full citizens.
Congress would have seen to that, too many future voters and political power to ignore.”
Absolutely not the Confederate congress!
There is no way Deep South representatives would tolerate even emancipation, much less full citizenship for their slaves, especially since they were already counted 3/5 for representation purposes.
Suggestions otherwise are pure anti-historical fantasies.
gandalftb: “As full citizens, the 2/3, former slaves would have the right to buy guns, compete for jobs, earn money, spend at businesses they liked, elect the next sheriff, governor, mayor, representatives, etc.
Those choices certainly would be highly objectionable to the minority white population with guns.”
But “whites with guns” were never a minority in any US state, ever.
So Southern whites with guns were only defeated in their Jim Crow, black codes & KKK-type enforces by the 20th century Federal government.
gandalftb: “It is reasonable that the 1/3 white ruling class knew full well what abolition meant at the time.
There would have been war, unavoidable.”
And now you fantasize about civil war within the Confederacy???.
Come on FRiend, shut it off — your brain is working overtime to produce Imagineering even a Disney would blush at.
You have no clue what you're talking about, so please, STFU.
gandalftb: “The Confederacy would never make more than modest and early gains until the economic might of the Federal government destroyed the resistance and won.”
The Confederacy could well have won a war against the Union if Lincoln had been satisfied with generals like McClellan, Burnside or Hooker and if Lincoln had not been determined to see it through to Unconditional Surrender.
gandalftb: “None of todays discussion can change those central ideas.”
As I read them, your “central ideas” are complete nonsense, from beginning to end, so what exactly do you think you're posting here?
DiogenesLamp #588: “I don't know why those confederates were getting upset.
It was just a bunch of supply ships setting up at the entrance to Charleston harbor.”
implied </sarcasm>
Bull Snipe #606: “Davis ordered Beauregard to reduce the fort by force if necessary before the resupply mission arrived.”
DiognenesLamp #608: “reasonable man would believe that when the President sends 8 Ships, at least half of them armed warships, it means he is going to use those ships.
One does not ordinarily pull out a gun and threaten someone unless they mean to do something.
What were those warships going to do?
What were the Confederates led to believe they were going to do?
All that is irrelevant, and DiogenesLamp well knows why.
The fact is that Davis had long since ordered Beauregard & Bragg to take Forts Sumter & Pickens, by force if necessary.
Davis’ orders were not contingent on Lincoln's resupply mission, but only on the Confederate generals’ preparations to use force.
Naturally, Davis preferred the forts surrender without a fight, but he was prepared to fight & win if necessary.
All of which renders who-fired-what-shots-when irrelevant.
The fact is Confederates intended to seize Federal properties wherever possible and outgoing President Buchanan had announced in early February that Sumter & Pickens would be defended & not surrendered under any circumstances.
Lincoln at first had second thoughts, but eventually decided Buchanan was right and so ordered resupply missions.
Davis used Lincoln's mission as his excuse to start war, but the fact is once Buchanan announced in February the forts would be defended and Davis decided they must be taken, war was coming, period.
Sure, Lost Causers like to argue that magically property changed ownership when a new government took over, but there's no law anywhere in the world which says such a thing, it's just another LC fantasy.
Bottom line on the Doubleday/Fox/Lincoln resupply mission: it was intended for Union warships to remain offshore and resupply Fort Sumter in small boats, under cover of darkness and/or fog.
It was a good plan with every chance of success but required Maj. Anderson to hold out another couple of days, until Beauregard's ammunition ran out and conditions at sea were just right.
Had Lincoln's resupply mission proved successful, events may well have played out differently, impossible to say now.
jeffersondem: “There would have been no War of Northern Aggression if President Lincoln had not invaded the South.”
The War of Confederate Aggression began with Confederate seizures of dozens of Federal properties — forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc. — threats against Federal officials, firings on Union ships, military assault on Fort Sumter and a formal declaration of war against the United States, May 6, 1861.
Please see this post for a summary.
In the war’s first 12 month 52 battles in 13 states or territories were fought, of which 30 battles happened in six Union states or territories — more than half.
It was not until well into the war that its focus clearly shifted to the Confederacy.
But it is the political DNA of Democrats to accuse Republicans of their own wrong-doings, and that's all we're seeing here from Jeffersondem.
By the way, if we look at the 2nd year battles, we can set a precise date of when the war’s focus shifted from the Union to the Confederacy — it was May 8, 1862 at Stonewall Jackson's Battle of McDowell, in Virginia, that we first see and equal number of battles in the Confederacy as the Union = 30 battles in each.
But there were still enough battles outside the Confederacy that by the beginning of the war’s third year (April 1863) 1/3 of all battles were in Union states = 49 Union of 145 total.
Even in the war’s third year, from April 1863 to April 1864, there were battles in 10 Union states & territories and 11 Confederate states, so that by April 1864 63 total battles were in Union states, or 26% of the 241 cumulative battles.
If you ask, when was the last battle between Confederate & Union forces in a Union state, well, in October 1864 there were eight such battles in Kansas & Missouri, ending in the Second Battle of Newtonia, October 28, 1864, a Union victory.
According to this source all told, the Confederate War of Aggression was fought 384 major battles over 18 Union states & territories and, oh yes, in 11 Confederate states.
But Jefferson Davis’ War focused first in Union regions and did not predominently shift to the Confederacy until after May of 1862.
Those that know of a pending attack have a duty to say something, which did happen in post #534: "Right now Brother Joe is preparing a Castro-strength smoke barrage that will obscure this debate space for days."
“it (slavery) would just morph into something slightly different”
How does owning other people morph? They are either owned property or they are not.
Please offer your ideas on what “slightly less obnoxious” means, gandalftb said, grinning ear to ear.
Agreed, abolition wasn’t going to happen in the South. Abolition was a minority view in most of the North where there was a widespread white supremacy notion.
There were in fact 67 Constitutional amendments offered, only Corwin was passed and ratified by 5 states.
Good analysis of slavery and secession:
The US Constitution and Secession by Dwight T. Pitcaithley:
https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2626-7.html
Pitcaithley examines the many secession conventions, sermons, editorials and breaks down the various reasons for secession offered in the 67 different amendments.
He poses that the South’s primary concerns were: the expansion of slavery into the western territories and the return of fugitive slaves.
Rather than quibble over rough numbers:
http://www.civil-war.net/pages/1860_census.html
In SC, 43% owned 57% to be precise. My point was that any society changing that 57% to 0% will see war.
“There is no way Deep South representatives would tolerate even emancipation, much less full citizenship for their slaves” Exactly my point, thank you.
“But “whites with guns” were never a minority in any US state, ever.” Read the US census, 1860. SC=43% white, MI=45% white...... OK, less than 50% = minority.
“And now you fantasize about civil war within the Confederacy???.” What do you call the many slave rebellions? Imagineering?
It would have gotten much worse, there were many John Browns getting started, ready to arm the slaves.