Posted on 12/27/2023 11:47:50 PM PST by Jonty30
Bkmk
Jefferson kept his slaves because he didn’t actually own the, the bank did. He was in debt all his life.
fl8r
You have to ask why people thought enslaving other people was bad?
in all fairness, you gave names of future players in the game, not the major seasoned players of the times... just sayin..
In 1848, the U.N. abolished slavery worldwide.
Scuzie?
You are fantasizing. Slavery was always a bone of contention in the United States prior to the Civil War, and moribund, regardless. It would have ended in a generation or two without the War. Certainly those who opposed slavery most fervently clearly did so on moral or ethical grounds. In fact, most Northerners knew that ending slavery would be a net economic loss to themselves: the price of tobacco, cotton, and other crops would increase. (John Calhoun’s Nephew, one of many anti-slave Southerners, pointed out that the Northern Hay crop was economically more valuable than Southern Cotton, and that cheap slave labor suppressed poor white wages in the South.)
Economic benefits from abolition would flow almost solely to former slaves. The cost of the Civil War was enormous for both sides in terms of blood and treasure. The war is romanticized today, in some quarters, but it was Hell for those who experienced it.
We’d welcome another conservative state.
Alberta is beautiful.
The south seceded after the 1860 election because it realized that it had become a permanent political minority under the constitution. The south would be powerless to prevent the north from dictating all aspects of its way of life. Slavery, tariffs, et. al., were all secondary issues to states rights.
Particularly of note is this excerpt from one of the early reviewers:
"The book does have more than its share of opinion, but the pure facts about the number of people jailed without a hearing, who never got a trial, and never received any kind of due process of law because of the direct orders of Lincoln was astounding. The additional facts about the number of congressmen detained, the election tampering (if one can call being jailed election tampering), and other unconstitutional actions were also new and disturbing to me. Opinions about why Lincoln issued these orders can abound, but the facts alone condemn President Lincoln as a man and as the leader of a "free nation."
Sound familiar?
But if it had been ended and former slaves enlisted on the Union side didn’t Lincoln also speculate that would have ended the war, or prevented it entirely ? They wouldn’t have been in a position to support and maintain the operation of the Confederate army for one thing.
In the slave-owning states, it was possible for middling folk to set themselves up as "lords and ladies" so to speak. A sort of gentry class that they never otherwise would have attained had they not had slaves to do all the domestic and farm chores for them.
For them, the ending of slavery would mean that they would lose that status and become mere employers at best. In fact, most of them would need to reduce "staff" significantly and take on much of the actual work themselves. The ladies would have to get off their couches and spend time in the kitchens. The gentleman would need to get off their front porch rockers, roll up their sleeves, and get their hands dirty for field and barn chores.
People don't like to talk about this aspect but the prospects of losing their status as "masters" and thus getting moved down the social ladder accordingly horrified many of them.
The civil war was about states rights not slavery as most people would like to believe it was.
Lincoln stated explicitly that the war was about holding the Union together.
The North was not prepared to go to war in order to end slavery when on the very eve of war the US Congress and incoming president were in the process of making it unconstitutional to abolish slavery.
Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.
I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.
Yours,
A. Lincoln.
State’s Rights!
State’s Rights!
The South had the ability to increase its representation in the House by increasing its slave numbers. The slaves couldn’t vote, but their owners and all other Southerners profited from these people in chains.
Basically, all slave states acted like California has in growing census headcount from illegals to get House seats, but, unlike California, they could actually force slave to work for little in return, and crime was limited, because slaves were directly accountable to owners.
“Why was the North so intent on ending slavery...”
Because Northern industralists assumed that one day the slaves would be put to work in factories and they, being unable to compete with slave wages, would be put out of business.
The same outcome has resulted here in the United States when all the manufacturing was sent to China and other foreign countries with low wages. It has put American manufacturing out of business.
Being put out of business back then it was a concern; today it is the goal.
Short answer, no.
As you examine economic conditions, and bank failures (particularly in the south) from 1800 to 1860....the cotton market (utterly dependent on marginal intelligence manpower in agriculture)...was putting pressure on the national structure.
Add to the problems...new states (non-slave in nature) were being added, with more Senators and more House representation for non-slave states. Even without Lincoln in 1860 (assuming Douglass had won)...the south’s ‘system’ would have fallen apart in the 1860s.
I would add to it...a reading of ‘Field of Blood’ by Joanne Freeman (2018, 480 pages) lays out a great deal of the political trend and why the two parties could not find a solution to avoid the Civil War. Strongly recommend the book but it’s a good bit of history never mentioned in HS or college.
According to one of my ancestors that was born immediately after the war, one reason the North had to stop the South from seceding was because the South had the best ocean ports for trade (at that period in time). If they seceded, most of the North, at the time, was landlocked.
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