Replies

The Corwin Amendment represents the fact that the Northern Congress and President did *NOT* go to war over slavery. They went to war over money, and nothing else.

I understand this point of view. I have a different one, and it does not deny the role of economics in this matter. I will just list some bullets that sum up my thoughts.

The South's dependence on slave labor in a mostly agrarian society made it's economy vulnerable to the industrial North.
Corwin Amendment was never trusted by to the South, and would never have been ratified under any conditions owing mostly to not providing for the spread of slavery.
Slavery and its spread were vital to the economic interests of the South, and Lincoln's comments on the Constitutionality of slavery in the territories were non committal.
I would never deny that the South fought for states rights, but I believe slavery and it's economic importance was the lunch pin of that fight.

I understand this point of view. I have a different one, and it does not deny the role of economics in this matter. I will just list some bullets that sum up my thoughts.

Fair enough. If you don't mind, I will offer a different perspective on your observations.

The South's dependence on slave labor in a mostly agrarian society made it's economy vulnerable to the industrial North.

Are you suggesting the North's industrial economy would hurt the South in some way? I think that after secession, they would have simply continued purchasing Northern goods as they always did, but the goods would be lower priced and have to compete with European goods on an equal footing.

The South was producing 700 million per year in goods, 500 million of which went to the North, and 200 million of which went to Europe. What would have happened to them, (barring a war) was that they would keep an additional 50 million dollars of their trade with Europe (instead of going into Washington DC's coffers) and probably a hundred million or so in their trade with the North.

The additional capitalization of the South would have caused more industries to move into it in pursuit of that additional money the South would have to spend. (And I have read newspaper accounts form the era indicating this was happening in January of 1861, before the war.)

Corwin Amendment was never trusted by to the South, and would never have been ratified under any conditions owing mostly to not providing for the spread of slavery.

I have come to realize that the assertion that slavery was going to spread was just a propaganda ploy to rile people up and to scare them into voting in the interests of the North rather than the South.

And what convinced me of this was looking at a modern map of Cotton production in the states.

Everything west of Texas can only be grown as a result of modern irrigation systems which wouldn't exist for at least 40 more years. You couldn't grow cotton in the territories. Indeed, according to the wikipedia entry for "New Mexico Territory", during the period from 1800 to the civil war, there were not but a dozen slaves in the entire territory when it stretched from Texas to California.

So no expansion. Wasn't going to happen.

Slavery and its spread were vital to the economic interests of the South, and Lincoln's comments on the Constitutionality of slavery in the territories were non committal.

Slavery couldn't spread. It was pretty much bottled up in the areas where it already existed, and would find scant purchase anywhere else.

I would never deny that the South fought for states rights, but I believe slavery and it's economic importance was the lunch pin of that fight.

If you said it was the money produced by the slaves, I would agree with you, but the fight wasn't actually over whether they would continue being slaves, the Corwin Amendment shows the Union was just fine with keeping them in slavery, the fight was over who was going to get that money they produced.

The South wanted to keep it, and the North said "No way! Either we get it, or we f*** you up!"

The North did f*** them up, and ever since we've been taught they did it for just and moral reasons, because they certainly don't want people to say they only did it for the money.

But they did it for the money. :)

Corwin Amendment was never trusted by to the South, and would never have been ratified under any conditions owing mostly to not providing for the spread of slavery.

Huh? What do you mean "was never trusted"? Trust wasn't required. All they needed to do was indicate this would satisfy their concerns and wait while Lincoln got it ratified in more Northern states. Then when enough had ratified it they could have come back in, ratified it themselves and that would have been that. Trust was not required - only ratification.

As to the second part, the spread of slavery - if that had been so important to them, then why did they adopt a solution - secession - by which they gave up any claim to the Western territories of the US and thus any chance of spreading slavery? Clearly spreading slavery for its own sake is not what was important to them (even if the climate out West were suitable for cotton and tobacco growing which its not). What they really needed were votes in the Senate to prevent even more exploitative economic legislation. As soon as they were out, they no longer needed votes in the Senate.

Slavery and its spread were vital to the economic interests of the South, and Lincoln's comments on the Constitutionality of slavery in the territories were non committal.

the spread of slavery was only vital to the economic interests in the South if it translated into more votes in the Senate. In any case, the climate was not remotely suitable to cotton or tobacco growing out West.

I would never deny that the South fought for states rights, but I believe slavery and it's economic importance was the lunch pin of that fight.

They could have protected slavery effectively forever by simply agreeing to the Corwin Amendment. There was no significant support for abolition in the US anyway. Abolitionists could not get more than single digit percentages of the vote anywhere. Slavery simply was not threatened in the US.