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.
Information on how Northern states rid themselves of slavery, over time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States#Abolitionism_in_the_North
This was what ultimately crippled the South. When Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery and fled to the North, he ended up working as a laborer in a shipyard in New Bedford, Massachusetts. One of the things that stood out to him was that even as a lowly laborer in a shipyard he had a better standard of living than his slave master in Maryland.
“For example, the German morons accepted Hitler’s word that eliminating Jews were good for the country.”
What twaddle. The average German believed that the Jews were being removed ‘to the east’ which was true in that many camps were in Poland. This was the official narrative from the Nazi regime.
The details of the infamous Wansee Conference were not revealed to the world until after the war during the Nuremberg tribunals.
and then the industrialists invented "the company store"
You load 16 tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
“After the Revolution, merchants in Rhode Island may have controlled 60 to 90 percent of the African slave trade in the United States, which outlawed importation of slaves in 1807.”
The North was dead-set on ceding power from the states to a powerful federal government because there was no way in hell they’d tolerate a scenario where Southern states could control the access to the Mississippi River basin and all its tributaries.
Bkmk
"Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti..."
Sorry...I just HAD to.
The southern Fireaters could never have succeeded without the approval of wealthy southern unionists. That would change when increasing northern Republican antislavery rhetoric and violence turned southern unionists into secessionists. The fear of violent slave insurrection had become too great to bear. Read about Nat Turner’s raids and murders of white Virginians and Denmark Vessey in Charleston. With 1/4th the population of the north and contributing 72% of federal revenues, the south was pushed against the wall. The train of abuses (financially, culturally and safety) reached a crescendo.
UN = 1948
I blame all my typos on autocorrect
The “North” never wanted to abolish slavery. The Pre-War issue was expanding slavery to any new states. The textile barons supported expansion. Cotton depletes soil so growing cotton year after year wasn’t possible so the cotton industry needed fresh ground. Again, the textile industry was all for it. Political parties weren’t as clear cut as today. IN the 1850s there was a “Free Soil Party”. They wanted “free soil” for new European immigrants not “free” from slavery. IF abolition was popular in the North Congress could have abolished it after the South left. That never happened; funny isn’t it?
Lincoln made it clear he would not end slavery where it already existed. But he would not allow it to be extended into the western territories.
Read the various “articles of secession”. They make it quite clear that the issue was precisely the western territories. The southerners foresaw that over time, as new states were added, they would eventually be outvoted by non-slave states.
The west was the prize.
As for cotton, notice that cotton continued to be grown in the south and is still grown to this day.
Jonty, yours is a good rule. But, if people would be more rational about cost and benefit, splitting the difference is hugely superior to war. Greed, for want of a better word, is better than hate.
High political junkie
Did you see the movie Zoolander? Ben Stiller weaves an interesting story of the textile industry into this outlandish comedy.
FACTS:
Maryland AND Delaware remained slave states throughout the war.
The much-vaunted “Emancipation Proclamation” freed the enemy’s slaves, NOT those of the northern states which still allowed the practice. Delaware was the last to change its laws, black slaves were still held by several indian tribes for year(s) after congress declared the practice illegal in Dec. 1865.
Lincoln couldn’t prosecute a war against slave-holders without slave-holding states to tote bails, haul barges, grow crops while federal soldiers were away from their day jobs for four years.
Now re-ask your question.
Can you provide the citation on that one? Do you consider that slaves held by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were not really slaves? Was Philemon condemned by Paul when Onesimus was his slave? I have no desire to defend slavery as an institution, but when you invoke God’s authority, you should cite His Word.
The Southerner slaveholders did a political calculus on what the 1860 Election meant & the direction that the country was headed. Slavery was going to be contained and many new States created that were Free States. This in turm would ensure that the Slave States & that institution would come under relentless attack from many angles and eventually be doomed. So they seceded and we got the Civil War.
Well they were always wrong. Slavery was always an abominable stain on the world like so many other anti freedom barbaric practices.
“No taxation without representation.”
Glad you brought this up. A good friend is a history professor at Mt. St. Mary’s college here in MD and we’ve had some good convos about what I often refer to as “The Second American Revolutionary War,” the one the good guys lost.
The south was SECEDING, NOT causing an insurrection until the second round of “shots heard ‘round the world” at Ft. Sumter.
Lincoln didn’t have to provision the island fortress as a direct threat to free trade. He didn’t have to. The intent was clear though. It wasn’t like the feds were expecting a repeat of the war of 1812-15, more like a black powder Berlin Wall to keep Americans INSIDE.
There WERE slave states in the Union - although by 1860, NO republicans owned slaves (US Grant’s wife’s slaves were HERs, dowery, but NOT “his property” proper); not being given a proportional share of federal taxes sounds like an ongoing issue.
Thanks for bringing this out; it’s been beaten nearly to death in years past here (and elsewhere on the innerwebs) and is still worth revisiting - times being what they are.
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