Posted on 08/12/2020 2:31:56 PM PDT by Jonty30
as did white Northerners.
He won.
I think that is a key point that always needs to be emphasized.
If you are (for example) a coal miner, you had to work hard, risk your health, take care of your family, pay for your housing, pay for your food, and worry that the work might disappear. A hard life.
If you were a slave, you had to work hard, but Master took care of you (valuable property) and provided housing, food, medical care and always had work for you. A demeaning life.
In a modern Welfare state, you don’t need to work, the government Master takes care of you (valuable votes) and provides housing, food, medical care and has very low expectations that you will make any contribution to society. A demeaning life.
Don’t think John Brown and his followers were motivated by economics in the slightest. But when history is revised to fit political narratives, this is a natural progression.
And yet upwards of 95% of all tariff revenue was collected in Northern ports - specifically New York, Boston, and Philadelphia - as government documents for the year just prior to the rebellion show. How do you explain that? And if you do assume the South paid 75% of the tariff then what were they importing in such massive amounts?
If you were a slave, you had to work hard, but Master took care of you (valuable property) and provided housing, food, medical care and always had work for you.
You forgot to mention, like a horse or a cow, the master had the right to sell you, your mate or your offspring. Rights the mine owner did not have. AS a slave, you would know that your circumstances would never change, that your children and your grandchildren would remain some one elses property. As a miner, you had the right to quit and move West if you could see your way to do that. You could see and work for a future where your children and grandchildren would have a better life than you, maybe even own the mine. This was a luxury the well treated slave never had. His children’s fate was already determined, they would live and die as someone elses property.
Even today there are still people desperate to justify the South and its system of slavery and oppression. All the crimes in the world committed by the North do not justify the South’s.
I'll admit that I'm no expert on the matter, but I've always heard that tariffs were an issue for the South. Here's the first article I clicked on when I did a search: https://dailyprogress.com/opinion/columns/protective-tariffs-primary-cause-of-the-civil-war/article_63b77f5c-dc0c-11e2-8e99-001a4bcf6878.html
I have no idea what kind of slant the site has, so I don't know what kind of biases are thrown into the article.
I certainly don’t disagree with your points.
My central point is that Plantation Slavery and the Welfare State have a lot in common. There are differences, of course. But there is a sense of being “owned” in both cases. There is also a sense being “taken cared of” in both cases. But of course being literally considered property is a uniquely bad status.
Free men like miners or mill workers had a better deal because they were free. But it was no walk in the park, they were not taken care of, and they had to shoulder a lot of responsibility. I would say that there are some segments of society that have just never grasped what a burden “responsibility” really is. Or they know and just can’t handle it.
You are a Canadian and trying to stir things up with this?
Wars over man, Lincoln dropped the big one.
“...Or they know and just can’t handle it. ....”
Know what it is and are too lazy to try !
Particularly if there is a comfortable “feather bed” of welfare benefits to cushion them.
Because it sounds better for Confederacy supporters to claim the rebellion was over the tariff than over slavery.
You still have not answered my question concerning which military installations located in the north did the CSA claim ownership of. Name one. That the north insisted upon claiming Fort Sumter and refusing to leave it was an act of aggression against the south. The south had every right to defend itself against such an act. At that time a fort located in South Carolina was of no benefit to the northern states. Yet, they insisted on pushing the envelope to the point of starting a war.
Thomas Jefferson had the legal right to sell you, your wife, your children to the cotton plantations in Alabama or rice plantations in South Carolina. There was no guarantee that he would keep you at Monticello.
The coal miner in West Virginia had the legal right to quit the mine and move out of West Virginia. Something no slave could do.
So you suggesting that maybe the government should be able to sell you? Get some of their money back?
Your comment does not merit a response.
Of course slavery was the real issue. But that doesn't say though that tariffs rising from 5% at the start of the country to 40% in the 1800's wasn't more beneficial to some regions and financially harmful to others. The cotton and tobacco economy of the south gained nothing from the protective tariffs. The South had lost the political clout to put in place a funding solution more to their benefit, or to put a stop to the spending on transportation projects that primarily supported the west and northeast.
The coal miner in West Virginia had the legal right to quit the mine and move out of West Virginia.
Neither happened in reality.
ML/NJ
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