I do not recognize any of my statements or positions in what you have said here. I have no animus for Northern businessmen provided they were honest, but those Crony Capitalists that Jiggered the laws to favor their interests were not honest businessmen. They were the monopolists of which Adam Smith warned us about, and they had snuck into power through money and influence.
They are the same forces with which we futilely contend today, and from the same region as they were in 1860. New York runs the media, and through it they mostly determines the composition of the Congress and the Presidency. Seven years ago they used their power to elect another race obsessed liberal lawyer from Illinois. Same as then. He also rules (as much as he can get away with) by "executive orders."
What's surprising isn't that Northern Whites weren't willing to sacrifice everything to free the slaves. No, what's surprising is that they showed such concern as they did about slavery -- that they weren't simply willing to benefit from business with slaveowners or unite behind the banner of White supremacy. Why they didn't is a result of a variety of factors that certainly go far beyond greed and envy.
We already covered this. What has now become the Unionized-North (as in Workers Unions) objected to slavery mostly on free-labor/wages issues. They saw it as a threat to their own labor and wages. (Same then as now.) Most of them did not care about Slaves, so long as they stayed out of their state. The North was extremely racist and intolerant of blacks. They *hated* them, probably more so than did Southern whites.
You can, for example feel or oppose what's going on in Darfur or South Sudan or wherever without wanting to move there or welcome Darfurians or South Sudanese here. And you don't have to have an economic motive to condemn abuses there. Isn't human feeling enough?
When I was younger, I thought we should do everything we could to end human suffering. Nowadays I realize that much of human suffering is the consequence of their own behavior and beliefs, and therefore the problem cannot be solved within their existing culture.
At this point, I see the same sort of dysfunction creeping into our own culture, and now I think the interests of my own family should come before much concern for others who live far away. I feel for them, but now we have our own problems.
You can feel that Chinese prison labor gives Chinese industrialists an unfair advantage and still find something morally condemnable buying prison-made products.
And this is closer to the Average Opinion of Northern men of that time period. The Globalists didn't mind though, so long as they are/were making profits off of this slave labor.
Businesses used slave labor. That meant they didn't have to pay decent wages to free labor. So free workers tended to avoid the South. Slaves didn't benefit from their own work as much as free workers would have, so they didn't put in the extra effort.
Okay, this speaks to the point. I follow you here.
Why did antebellum New York boom while Charleston and New Orleans lag behind? Are you going to say it was the Warehouse Act? Nonsense. New York grew because it was actually manufacturing things people actually wanted, while pre-Civil War Charleston and New Orleans weren't.
Well that, and the fact that multi-billions of dollars worth of capital had just evaporated, much of the infrastructure was wrecked, and people were not only having to figure out how to feed themselves, but the newly freed slaves also had to eat, and could now compete with laborers in the South.
New York had a very big head start with all that capital that had funneled through it thanks to the luck of geography and those jiggered laws. Their infrastructure and labor force was intact.
Are you seriously asking why a war torn city didn't fare as well after the war as one that had hardly been touched? (Except for that Draft riot thing, of course.)
You admit that. It was hard for Southern cities to match Northern ones in size before air conditioning. It wasn't just the heat. Yellow fever epidemics persisted in the Southern states down to the end of the 19th century. Even if a city wasn't directly effected, epidemics elsewhere in the South discouraged investment.
Of course I admit it. It is self evident. Before Air Conditioning, the South never had the potential to grow as populous as New York, and therefore would never have attained the level of infrastructure present in New York.
So why do you go on about how tariff differentials could have made Charleston competitive with New York City?
Because trade equations must balance. The way things were situated in 1860, the South was producing 3/4ths the value of all US exports. A huge chunk of that money was ending up in the US Treasury, and in the economy of New York.
Take that lost capital and return it to the people from whence it came, and the money would have created both development and it would attract more population.
Never as much of Either as New York, but substantially more than they would have otherwise had. Also, perchance the Southerners would be investing their new extra capital in New York businesses in the manner that New York businesses were previously investing in Southern commodities.
It would have likely ended up being the same sort of Globalist Power broker elites, they would just be mostly in Charleston rather than New York.
We probably wouldn't be better off, except for one thing. The "Right to leave" would have been established.
:)
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Well that, and the fact that multi-billions of dollars worth of capital had just evaporated, much of the infrastructure was wrecked, and people were not only having to figure out how to feed themselves, but the newly freed slaves also had to eat, and could now compete with laborers in the South.
New York had a very big head start with all that capital that had funneled through it thanks to the luck of geography and those jiggered laws. Their infrastructure and labor force was intact.
Are you seriously asking why a war torn city didn't fare as well after the war as one that had hardly been touched? (Except for that Draft riot thing, of course.)
Can you read, Diogenes? Do you see the words "antebellum" and "pre-Civil War"? That means I am talking about the years before the Civil War. Even then, New York outstripped Charleston and New Orleans in economic growth. Are you really so hung up on the victim thing that it's affected your cognitive abilities? Or is this just you changing the debate again when you realize that you don't have a viable argument?