You are too quick to believe that politicians you agree with are straight shooters. Here is Robert Toombs lecturing Bostonians about slavery for a very long time. Here he is in 1865 on the question of arming Black troops. He rejected the idea, even if it could have saved the 10% tariff.
In my opinion, the worst calamity that could befall us would be to gain our independence by the valor of our slaves, instead of our own… The day the army of Virginia allows a negro regiment to enter their lines as soldiers, they will be degraded, ruined, and disgraced. But if you put our negroes and white men into the army together, you must and will put them on an equality; they must be under the same code, the same pay, allowances and clothing… Therefore, it is a surrender of the entire slavery question.
And of course, the stirring words of his farewell to the US Senate:
You Abolitionists are right when you say that there are thousands and tens of thousands of men in Georgia, and all over the South, who do not own slaves. A very large portion of the people of Georgia own none of them. In the mountains, there are comparatively but few of them; but no part of our people are more loyal to their race and country than our bold and brave mountain population: and every flash of the electric wires brings me cheering news from our mountain tops and our valleys, that these sons of Georgia are excelled by none of their countrymen in loyalty to the rights, the honor, and the glory of the Commonwealth. They say, and well say: This is our question; we want no negro equality, no negro citizenship; we want no mongrel race to degrade our own; and as one man they would meet you upon the border with the sword in one hand and the torch in the other.
Toombs did admit that some day his state might decide to abolish slavery, but he certainly wasn't going to lead the way or support it at the time. In any event, it's clear that slavery was very much on his mind, whether or not he chose to devote one of his speeches to it.
The South was not paying the overwhelming majority of the tariff, and there's no indication that per capita government spending was greater in the North than in the South. There was a protectionist component to the tariff that did benefit Northerners who went into industry. Southern industrialists and Southern hemp and sugar cane growers also benefited. Secessionists could rail against US import duties. Their plan was to tax cotton exports. Something that the US constitution wouldn't allow.
Slave miners were an important factor in the economies of Ancient Rome and Spain's New World Empire, but I will admit that some of the problems slavery might have in industry also would be faced in modern mining.
No, I've not forgotten these instances. It wasn't so much that Southerners feared a slave revolt.....at least not the vast majority who didn't own any slaves. It was that they could see there were Northern terrorists who would do all they could to incite slave revolts.....AND far more damaging to internal relations....they could see that many more Northerners were willing to finance these terrorists and murderers like John Brown AND the state governments in Northern states just winked at it. For example, when John Brown and his terrorists raided Harper's Ferry, they had Sharps rifles. These were brand new and quite expensive. Everybody immediately knew he had financial backing from others. When several of those others came out publicly, several Northern states did not arrest them or charge them with committing any crime.
Remember what the US was like after 9/11? Had we found any country a state sponsor of the terrorist attack, we would have issued a formal declaration of war. Had we found wealthy people in other countries publicly sponsored that terrorist attack and those countries did nothing but instead provided safe haven for them it would at the very least have utterly wrecked our relations with those countries if not caused the US to start trying to overthrow the governments of those countries. That would have been seen as an extremely hostile act.
That's exactly how Southerners viewed the Northern states after Harpers Ferry. It wasn't so much the fear of slave revolts as some Northerners were actively trying to get them killed and Northern states provided them sanctuary from which they could sponsor future attacks. This was no longer a matter of mere political disagreement. These were actual enemies.
You are too quick to believe that politicians you agree with are straight shooters. Here is Robert Toombs lecturing Bostonians about slavery for a very long time. Here he is in 1865 on the question of arming Black troops. He rejected the idea, even if it could have saved the 10% tariff.
Au Contraire. I don't assume any politicians are beneath being self serving and many though not all of them hypocritical. I will point out however that there is another side to the standard narrative that is now presented in the public schools and on TV.....that there obviously were major concerns about other issues especially THE standard issue people usually fight about which is money.
Toombs did admit that some day his state might decide to abolish slavery, but he certainly wasn't going to lead the way or support it at the time. In any event, it's clear that slavery was very much on his mind, whether or not he chose to devote one of his speeches to it.
I have never denied racism was prevalent. That was true of the vast majority of White people in the North, the South, and all around the world at that time. Was concern over that real? Of course it was. Slavery was AN issue. It just wasn't THE issue. As I've outlined there were 3 main issues. Economics/the Tariff and federal expenditures, The nature of the relationship between the federal government and the states and slavery. All 3 were linked. Most prominent Southerners felt that Northern lobbyists and business interests were out to line their own pockets at the South's expense. They wanted to expand the power of the federal government and reduce the power of the states to do that. And they used the slavery issue to keep Midwesterners on side whose interests otherwise did not align with those of Northeastern industrialists.
The South was not paying the overwhelming majority of the tariff, and there's no indication that per capita government spending was greater in the North than in the South.
This is simply false on both counts. Tax expert Charles Adams has laid it out and numerous Northern newspapers at the time in arguing for a war to prevent the Southern states from seceding made it quite clear that the South was a cash cow that was in effect paying huge amounts of tribute to the North every year. I've posted the articles here many times before as you well know.
There was a protectionist component to the tariff that did benefit Northerners who went into industry. Southern industrialists and Southern hemp and sugar cane growers also benefited. Secessionists could rail against US import duties. Their plan was to tax cotton exports. Something that the US constitution wouldn't allow.
Yes there were some sweeteners thrown in to try to log roll.....to pick off one or two Senators from Southern states so as to get the Morrill Tariff passed. Remember when Obama gave Nebraska a complete exemption from Obamacare to get a Nebraska senator to vote for it? This is standard fare in politics. The vast vast majority of the benefit from any high tariff would go to Northern industrialists. The vast majority of the costs would be borne by Southern exporter/importers.
Slave miners were an important factor in the economies of Ancient Rome and Spain's New World Empire, but I will admit that some of the problems slavery might have in industry also would be faced in modern mining.
When you have a flood of POWs coming in - like Rome did - they aren't worth much and you don't care very much as the slaveowner if they die in the mines or wherever. Many did and being sent to the mines was considered to be a death sentence in ancient Rome. Its vastly different when slaves are limited in number and quite expensive as they were in the US in the mid 19th century. As the slave owner you really don't want your valuable slaves to die. That's why indentured servants rather than slaves were put to work in the most dangerous jobs. Their value was much less to the owners of their contracts since they were only indentured for a limited time. Mining was just not an economically productive use to put slaves to. Had it been, they would have been used much more for that purpose throughout Latin/Central America which was doing a good bit of mining.