Posted on 12/30/2013 5:18:21 PM PST by dontreadthis
Might be true. So what? Were the northerners any more racist than the southerners?
Those who valuate such assets do so with various objectives in mind, thus, subjectively. That was part of the perfect storm formula forte mortgage meltdown, i.e., inflated appraisals based upon inflated price targets to accommodate down payment assistance programs with FHA loans for no-cash-to-close purchases by uncreditworthy minorities, a program implemented under Clinton.
Your author cited is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post, Samuel H. Williamson, Co-Founder and President, MeasuringWorth , and in this issue credits Democratic Presidents with the most economic growth:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-h-williamson/presidents-economic-growth_b_1959778.html
So, I suppose in your citing Williamson that you are in favor of Democratic Presidents? Or will you concede these valuations are purely subjective?
He would ask us to believe that the vast acreage under plantations, homes, live stock, bank accounts, and other assets were equal to the value of the number of slaves??? According to US Census estimates, Blacks comprised 36% of the population in the South in 1860:
http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0056/twps0056.html
While that is a substantial portion, their relative market value would be governed by supply. Like the “sweat shop” labor force of the North, supplied by boat after boat of immigrants, that supply of slaves was relatively endless.
Williamson is clearly slanting his valuations toward the agenda of his market.
The agenda of his market is reparations.
What did Williamson use as the valuations for real property values? The property tax rolls of that day? How accurate are those rolls today? Extremely undervalued. I would buy real property all day long based on those valuations!
Buying minority votes with a credit card on the future.
The 49ers were a rambunctious bunch. They did not take well to competition from Chinese or Chileans, and would have reacted even more poorly to competition from black slaves.
While I agree slavery is a considerably more versatile institution than its southern incarnation, southerners largely didn’t seem aware of it. They mostly seemed to want to grow stuff using slaves and sell it. They made little effort to use slaves in manufacturing and mining, etc.
Something in the southern psyche seemed to reject what was involved in commerce, manufacturing, etc. They seemed to think plantation slavery was somehow more dignified and noble. A very odd POV, to my mind, and in some ways a carryover from English aristocracy and the classical world, where “trade” was despised.
It could STILL be said as most remain “on the plantation” controlled by Democrats.
“They would have been an agricultural state in a world ruled by the Industrial Revolution”
Instead, they became States ruled by an extreme left-wing liberal North.
Where do you get that idea?
The United States (under the Articles of Confederation) borrowed a lot of money during the Revolution to pay for the war. So did each of the states.
After the War, the southern states started paying off their debts, with 83% paid off, with exception of SC. Most of the middle and New England states did not pay down their debt much.
When the first government under the Constitution came into office, Hamilton, with the support of Washington, proposed that the USA pay off all outstanding federal and state debts at face value to the present holders.
This caused much uproar, as states that had already paid much or all of their debt felt abused, as did those individuals who had sold debt instruments to speculators for pennies on the dollar.
But it eventually passed, partly because of a bargain whereby the national capital was sited in the South.
http://www.sparknotes.com/history/american/statebuilding/section9.rhtml
I suppose the value of most anything is 'subjective'. As to the aggregate value of slaves in 1860, the market based on the price of slaves at auction at that point in time was in excess of $3 Billion. That was more than the value of all the railroad stock in the entire United States at the time and higher than the entire value of the New York Stock Exchange.
If you don't like the $3 billion figure,here's another site that puts the total value of slaves in 1860 at $5+ Billion.
If you don't like my references, then supply your own to refute them.
So, I suppose in your citing Williamson that you are in favor of Democratic Presidents?
Stop the damn ad hominem attacks. That is a very left wing Democrat tactic. I have been a solid conservative probably longer than you have been alive. But I like my history just like my whiskey --- straight.
I have to disagree with you there Sherman. In the Upper South, slaves were used in industry to a great extent. The largest iron works in the South, The Tredgar Works in Richmond was mostly slave labor and had been since before the Civil War when the owners used slaves after the white workers struck for higher wages.
Fredrick Douglass, before he escaped from slavery worked as a caulker in the Baltimore shipyards. Most of the coal mined in western Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee in those days was via slave labor.
The industries didn't own the slaves, they rented them from their masters on the condition that the company bought insurance policies on the slaves 'just in case' they were killed on the job.
You, sir, watch your language and do NOT quote liberal agenda sources again on this discussion board. You bring suspicion on yourself that way and have no one else to blame.
Watch my language? Is that your best reply???
Lame, dude. Very lame. Are you 'offended'. Just like ad hominem attacks, that's very left wing too.
You need to man up and get your game on.
If you want to see it that way, go ahead.
What I'm curious about is: why slavery? Why couldn't the evil southerners understand that hiring migrant labor at subsistence wages for planting and harvest seasons was not only morally superior, but more economical? Could part of the reason been that there were no institutions to lend cash money to pay such labor?
As to the the fear of slave rebellions--some of these received material support from the Northern abolitionist and the Federal government did little or nothing to punish the responsible parties. That point was about safety from outsider promoted mayhem, though slaves were both justification and agency.
Here's what I think: the root of the Civil War wasn't slavery but property. I hate to put it in such terms but in fact slaves were bought by their owners and maintained by their owners' expense. Owner's livelihoods were dependent on their slave's labor. Slaves had been recognized as property since the founding of the country. Then, after industrial production had gained solid footing and removed an increasing portion of the country from agriculture, they insist that Southerns dismantle a generations-old system and that they surrender their property and means of subsistence.
Around 1862 I think,after the emancipation proclamation, Lincoln proposed compensated manumission within the loyal slave-holding states. The proposal was defeated but a similar one passed for DC. Too bad such a solution, along with a large-scale system for paying freedmen for their labor, was never seriously proposed before the war.
Slavery was in no immediate danger in 1860. The Dems still controlled both houses of Congress and the entire Supreme Court. Most Americans believed, as did the Founding Fathers, that slavery would eventually die out. Slave-owners could see public opinion turning against the institution. Secession, rebellion, and war seemed so far-fetched early in 1860 and yet it happened within a few months.
You are correct, and I am aware of these anomalies.
I say anomalies because that's exactly what they were in the South. The men who owned and ran these factories and mines were not of the southern elite, and were well outside the norm of the "southern way of life."
While slavery could be, and indeed was to some extent, used in mining and manufacturing, doing so, with occasional exceptions such as J. Davis' remark, was well outside the southern ethos and ideal. Moving into mining and manufacturing wasn't a viable option in the minds of the southern planters, who tightly controlled southern politics and culture. Why, doing so would make them no better than money-grubbing Yankees! (This leaves aside, of course, the discussion of whether slave labor is truly viable in direct competition with free labor in such considerably more complex operations.)
My point, though it was perhaps not well stated, was that the southern decision-makers didn't see it as an option. In their minds, their only option was continued expansion into new lands, and the only lands viable for such expansion and the continuance of "the southern way of life" were in Latin America. Which they absolutely, positively had no hope of taking over without the full support of the rest of the Union.
I recently stopped by a ante-bellum mansion in Sarasota that is preserved as a museum. Was a sugar plantation before the War. An unsuccessful one.
Don't remember all the figures, but was struck by the disproportion between the value of the slaves versus the mansion, land, mill, etc.
He had something like 100+ slaves, and they were valued at around 3x the value of everything else. The exact valuation is clear because the plantation went under and everything was auctioned off in the bankruptcy proceedings.
And that's the relevant point about the South in 1860. The people who completely dominated the South culturally, politically and ideologically were the planters, especially those of the Deep South.
And their capital was far more than 48% invested in slaves.
No “DUDE” keep reading if it is not too much for you. After the “and” is another response, “do NOT quote liberal agenda sources again on this discussion board.” I you quote them you must agree with them.
Please re-read my response. I was speaking of land values then, asking what source was this liberal author using to valuate the property, tax rolls? THEN, I questioned that using current tax roll valuations as a point of reference.
I say “liberal author” because I pointed out where he was published and the conclusions he reached in other articles.
Appear to have misunderstood. My apologies.
While evidence from a source with which you generally disagree should be accepted only with caution, it should not be automatically disqualified as invalid, either. That’s a logical fallacy, the inverse of Appeal to Authority. The truth is the truth, no matter who says it.
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