Posted on 12/27/2023 11:47:50 PM PST by Jonty30
Here is my question.
Was the North intending to end slavery to make growing cotton in the South untenable for the plantation owners in order to bankrupt them so that the Northern Textile barons could take over the land?
I know the South seceded because the North was trying to end slavery, which would have raised the cost of growing cotton because the plantation would now have to pay wages, instead of trading labour for bodily needs. This likely was not an affordable option for the landowners, because the North was not going to pay a penny more for cotton than they had to and they had the stronger hand, especially since the North was not going to allow the South to sell their cotton to the world and not to the North.
So, the question occurs to me. Why was the North so intent on ending slavery, knowing that it would bankrupt much of the South. The North knew this, but was willing to do it anyway.
The only conclusion that I can draw is that the North wanted to buy up the South for pennies, so they would own the land and be able to grow cotton at the lowest cost to them.
You say “Hey, look at all this land for sale cheap!” So, who's land? Who bought it?
Name names, dates, places, that you "can see" or else you're just hypothesizing a cause with no evidence of it actually being true.
I've given you lists of industries, business moguls, people who meet the definition of "power interests" in your last post that did the things you are supposing, but you still just reply with your emotional appeal that you are correct without substantiation.
-PJ
I guess I missed those points.
If we're talking about the southern slave states, wasn't it the governments of those states that fought for slavery? When you we're talking about "the north," is that also to mean the government of the northern states, too, or just specific business interests within those states?
I want to be sure that we're comparing apples-to-apples when speaking of "the north" versus "the south."
-PJ
Hmmmm...just like the present border crisis....
https://about.bgov.com/news/what-to-know-in-washington-ngos-draw-gop-ire-over-migrant-aid/
Another version of the Federal Laundromat......just like the Ukraine war....the money gets recycled back to the Big Guy and Congress....and for some reason the problem just never gets solved.....until it’s big enough to cause a war
Your entire premise is false and reflects the product of public education and over a century of indoctrination. Slavery was an issue but was not the cause of the War of Succession.
First, it was never a civil war. A civil war is conflict between factions struggling for control of the central government. Nothing like this took place. The South wanted no part of the central government. The South wanted to secede from the government, the union. The South wanted to establish its own government. It was a war of secession, not a civil war.
Second, the South sought secession because of taxation without representation. You heard that right. The war was not fought over slavery, although that was an issue, one Lincoln said he would concede to preserve the union. Northern states voted themselves tax revenues from the South and the South was not receiving its fair share of taxes. That was the main cause of the war.
Third, the North invaded the South. You were likely never taught this in public school. Fort Sumpter is in the South. The North was resupplying the fort in preparation for war. The first shots were fired to prevent this and the war was on.
Your entire premise and thinking is based on propaganda and false education.
but it’s unlikely the North would have paid more if they could avoid it.
The North would have had no choice but to pay if that was in the cost of goods. They needed Southern cotton to keep their mills running.
The South could have used a “migrant” worker system such as developed in CA for example. They could have done alot of different things to work around slavery.
But they didn’t. Even Jefferson who wanted to declare an end to slavery in the Declaration kept his slaves...they all did.
[Excellent question, btw]
“The North was waging economic warfare against the South, in many forms, for many years before the Civil War, and they didn’t care one smidgeon about the slavery issue. Many northern states had slavery up to and into the Civil War years.”
Finally! Someone got it right. The Civil War was fought over taxes, not slavery.
Exactly. Republicans opposed the practice of slavery. They sought to stop the spread of slavery into new territory.
Democrats wanted to continue the practice and spread of slavery. Southern Democrats declared in writing that slavery was their reason for secession. Northern Democrats sided with Southern Democrats by supporting the Fugitive Slave Law.
>The only conclusion that I can draw is that the North wanted to buy up the South for pennies, so they would own the land and be able to grow cotton at the lowest cost to them.<
To answer your own question you have to determine if the North did eventually buy up the South for pennies on the dollar.
EC
The North destroyed the South, so probably not after the Civil War. Also, the Egyptian cotton industry destroyed any reason to buying the land, if that was one of the intents of the Northern textile industry.
However, absent the Civil War, maybe they would have if they could have financially outmaneuvered the South.
The Civil War along with the blockades to Southern ports forced to English whose textile factories were languishing without the cotton Imports, to look towards Egypt and inituated the cotton agriculture abd export in Egypt which brought about the Muslim Brotherhood and all the other crap that we see today.
What you say you “know” is simply wrong. Slavery was not threatened in the US. There was no real public support for abolition. Abolitionists routinely got absolutely trounced in election after election everywhere. They couldn’t get more than single digit percentages of the vote anywhere.
Both Lincoln and the Northern dominated US Congress said over and over again that they were not fighting against slavery. The Congress passed a resolution to that effect and a constitutional amendment that would have expressly protected slavery effectively forever passed both houses of Congress with the necessary 2/3rds supermajority, was signed by the president, was ratified by 5 states and was endorsed by Lincoln in his all important first inaugural address.
Once again, Slavery was not threatened in the US.
I can see your question from a modern lens, and wonder if that was the play. Just a land grab.
When I look at it from a historical position, monetarily the South didn’t absolutely need the slaves. They could produce cotton and sell it elsewhere, especially with improved cotton gins. However, Slavery had become a way of life for the rich, something that generations had grown up with. For the rich and powerful, they had no intentions of giving up culture for the fancies of the North. The many people in the South, most didn’t have ,or ever have slaves. They had no care about slavery, and that was some 80% of those Confederates who fought for the Confederacy. The choices were made by the aristocracy, and most of the citizens never went more than 50 miles from where they were born.
Abraham Lincoln pushed the war, he pushed it by occupying military bases in Confederate States, and by essentially blockaded Southern ports. Ft Sumter was fired upon for this policy. Historically, Lincoln wanted a union even if slavery continued. The Union could have outlawed slavery and purchased the slaves as compensation, but refused this option. The war ended costing far more than reimbursement for the property lost by policy change. It’s very complex, but after reading much on it over my lifetime, the people lived different lives and clearly had a different moral compass and beliefs.
I doubt it was ‘just’ a land grab. It ended that way in many respects, but probably had no plan.
Good point.
...the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 only freed slaves in areas occupied by Union forces. Slave-holding states fighting for the Union were exempted. Secretary of State William H. Steward commented: ‘We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free.’
“The American Civil War was a complex conflict with many factors contributing to its outbreak. One of the issues that led to the war was the tariff policy of the United States1. In the 1850s, Congress increased the import tax from 15% to 37%, which was opposed by the South. The South believed that the tariff policy favored the North and that they were being unfairly taxed2. In 1860, 80% of all federal taxes were paid for by the South, but 95% of that money was spent on improving the North1. However, it is important to note that the Civil War was not fought solely over tariffs, but rather a combination of factors including slavery, states’ rights, and economic differences23.
historytoday.com
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Lincoln said many times the war was not about ending slavery.
It is an interesting thesis although as I understand it Northern Republican businessmen after the war were firmly opposed to confiscation of lands from southern plantation owners.
“The North” was not intent on ending slavery. The last Northern President before Lincoln (Pierce) was pro-slavery, or at least accommodationist.
What happened was the AntiFa/BLM of its day formed a political party (the Republicans) and managed to elect a President who was willing (illegaly) to go to war to end secession, and since conquest of the Confederacy released lots of slaves, who got turned over to the Army (which absolutely didn’t want them) - Emancipation, which was never policy, happened more or less by accident.
Y’all are dancing in the dark. Getting close, but no gold stars.
The definitive interpretation is in the several books by Charles and Mary Beard, who forced the North to rethink its’ “slavery was the only cause” catechism in 1921. Yes, Secession was driven largely by tariff and economic issues related to the market for cotton, but the whole of it is much too complex for a blog post. The Beards’ books are still in print, on Amazon (or Alibris if you prefer).
You have bought into the New England version of the Civil War invented in the 1960s. The North did not go to war to end slavery. The
south seceded because it became clear that the disproportionate political power it held for 70 years was over, as population growth fueled by immigration in the North meant that the South based Democratic Party was destined to be toothless. Yes, slavery was a major issue in that the southern economy depended upon it. The historical mistake is the belief that Abolitionists dictated northern policy when n fact most people in the North hated them. If Lincoln had addressed his Union Army and said : “Men, we are going down South to free the slaves,” his army would have deserted.
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