Posted on 03/31/2010 3:04:35 PM PDT by TitansAFC
Ron Paul: Why didn’t the north just buy the south’s slaves and free them that way?
Getting down to the last two questions here…. Most people consider Abe Lincoln to be one of our greatest presidents, if not the greatest president we’ve ever had. Would you agree with that sentiment and why or why not?
No, I don’t think he was one of our greatest presidents. I mean, he was determined to fight a bloody civil war, which many have argued could have been avoided. For 1/100 the cost of the war, plus 600 thousand lives, enough money would have been available to buy up all the slaves and free them. So, I don’t see that is a good part of our history.....
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
Thank you. I misread your meaning. Sorry.
I don't think that you understand Compensated Emancipation. The Federal Government is not "buying" the slaves. It's paying slave-owners to free them. The instant their freedom is paid for, they're free men.
Granted, some of the Taxes to pay for Compensated Emancipation would necessarily have come from the North -- but it was mostly Yankee slave-traders who had taken Southern money in exchange for Slaves, in the first place. So it would be only "fair" to spread the taxes to pay for Compensated Emancipation across both North and South.
And at $1,000 per slave (a very generous average price by 1860 standards) or a total of $3 Billion dollars, it would have cost half as much as the $6 Billion that the War itself cost, and none of the 600,000 dead.
What would have happened if government had bought the slave's freedom and then turned their back, leaving the former slaves in the south? I guess we can never really know, but my guess would be that history would have unfolded much as it did after Reconstruction, except that it would have been even worse for black people.
On the contrary. A southern economy flush with money from Compensated Emancipation, and without their infrastructure totally wrecked by the war, and needing to replace the Slave Labor which had been emancipated without the importation of new slaves (which was illegal under the Constitution after 1808, and would get the plantation owner thrown in prison) -- would have been in a position to offer southern blacks MUCH higher wages for their labor than the economically-wrecked Post-War South was able to offer.
If blacks had been suddenly freed without the Civil War taking place, they would have found themselves at the mercy of a strong, powerful, well financed Southern establishment which would have had no reason at all to treat them any differently than before.
On the contrary. A southern economy flush with money from Compensated Emancipation, and without their infrastructure totally wrecked by the war, and needing to replace the Slave Labor which had been emancipated without the importation of new slaves (which was illegal under the Constitution after 1808, and would get the plantation owner thrown in prison) -- would have been in a position to offer southern blacks MUCH higher wages for their labor than the economically-wrecked Post-War South was able to offer.
Without the Civil War, the South wouldn't have been devastated. They would have maintained their economic power and capital, while the blacks would have had nothing. They would have still had all of the money, all of the property, and all of the political power and structure. My guess would be that former slave owners would have quickly developed some sort of debt-bondage or truck system which would have economically enslaved the workers.
On the contrary. A southern economy flush with money from Compensated emancipation, and without their infrastructure totally wrecked by the war, and needing to replace the Slave Labor which had been emancipated without the importation of new slaves (which was illegal under the Constitution after 1808, and would get the plantation owner thrown in prison) -- would have been in a position to offer southern blacks MUCH higher wages for their labor than the economically-wrecked Post-War South was able to offer.
All of which directly contradicts your hypothesis. A richer South could have paid more for freedman labor (and would have, rather than lose that labor to Northern factories). And with more Capital and Jobs to go around, resentment against blacks would have been lower than it was amongst the devastated and starving Post-War South.
The War of Federal Aggression was the stupidest, most unnecessary, and most destructive war in American history.
I don't think that you understand Compensated Emancipation. The Federal Government is not "buying" the slaves. It's paying slave-owners to free them. The instant their freedom is paid for, they're free men.
Granted, some of the Taxes to pay for Compensated Emancipation would necessarily have come from the North -- but it was mostly Yankee slave-traders who had taken Southern money in exchange for Slaves, in the first place. So it would be only "fair" to spread the taxes to pay for Compensated Emancipation across both North and South.
And at $1,000 per slave (a very generous average price by 1860 standards) or a total of $3 Billion dollars, it would have cost half as much as the $6 Billion that the War itself cost, and none of the 600,000 dead.
What would have happened if government had bought the slave's freedom and then turned their back, leaving the former slaves in the south? I guess we can never really know, but my guess would be that history would have unfolded much as it did after Reconstruction, except that it would have been even worse for black people.
On the contrary. A southern economy flush with money from Compensated Emancipation, and without their infrastructure totally wrecked by the war, and needing to replace the Slave Labor which had been emancipated without the importation of new slaves (which was illegal under the Constitution after 1808, and would get the plantation owner thrown in prison) -- would have been in a position to offer southern blacks MUCH higher wages for their labor than the economically-wrecked Post-War South was able to offer.
If blacks had been suddenly freed without the Civil War taking place, they would have found themselves at the mercy of a strong, powerful, well financed Southern establishment which would have had no reason at all to treat them any differently than before.
On the contrary. A southern economy flush with money from Compensated Emancipation, and without their infrastructure totally wrecked by the war, and needing to replace the Slave Labor which had been emancipated without the importation of new slaves (which was illegal under the Constitution after 1808, and would get the plantation owner thrown in prison) -- would have been in a position to offer southern blacks MUCH higher wages for their labor than the economically-wrecked Post-War South was able to offer.
Without the Civil War, the South wouldn't have been devastated. They would have maintained their economic power and capital, while the blacks would have had nothing. They would have still had all of the money, all of the property, and all of the political power and structure. My guess would be that former slave owners would have quickly developed some sort of debt-bondage or truck system which would have economically enslaved the workers.
On the contrary. A southern economy flush with money from Compensated emancipation, and without their infrastructure totally wrecked by the war, and needing to replace the Slave Labor which had been emancipated without the importation of new slaves (which was illegal under the Constitution after 1808, and would get the plantation owner thrown in prison) -- would have been in a position to offer southern blacks MUCH higher wages for their labor than the economically-wrecked Post-War South was able to offer.
All of which directly contradicts your hypothesis. A richer South could have paid more for freedman labor (and would have, rather than lose that labor to Northern factories). And with more Capital and Jobs to go around, resentment against blacks would have been lower than it was amongst the devastated and starving Post-War South.
The War of Federal Aggression was the stupidest, most unnecessary, and most destructive war in American history.
It’s because the Democrats owning the slaves thought blacks were sub-human...Democrats still do.
Thanks Liberty Rocks. My son is 15. He is very conservative, as are my younger daughters. I think the hard thing for him (and me as well to a point), is that the Civil War was the results of a LOT of things coming together at the same time. (Heck - aren’t most wars?)
I’m thankful for this thread to see discussion and arguments on both sides to learn more about it. I probably leaned too much to the “it was all economic” side. So will try to pick out a few possible causes and point them out to my son and daughters.
I had made a comment on another thread about the power of Civil Disobedience and used the example of the four or five black high-school kids that kept sitting at the whites-only counter at Woolworths. (It was recently in one of the younger kid’s “Weekly Reader” from school.)
Another Freeper thought that was a poor example, because here these kids were disrupting a private business, and utlimately the law forced that private business (and all others) to not segregate folks. That was an interesting take on it. He mentioned he thought it was a dumb business move, but if the business want’s to lose money by not allowing blacks - that’s their business.
We had a good discussion about it at the dinner table. Although it is hard for my kids to understand the whole race problem thing - but they did get the point about businesses getting to do what they want to a point.
Based on some other comments on the thread, I wonder if any books have been written on what the world (or at least North America) would look like if the South had been allowed to secede?
Hey Big Guy! Whatcha doin’ up this late posting? Don’t you have some property you could be checkin’ on? LOL!
I’m kicked back sippin’ a Black Jack and listenin’ to Tom T. Hall and Earl Scruggs sing:
“Dim Lights, Thick Smoke and Loud loud Music”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzHTXqotnxg&feature=related
That's the just and righteous reason. The practical reason is that all it would achive would create an illicit but goverment legitimized market for slaves that would eventually be paid for by every free man, which would eventually bankrupt the country.
As each slave is bought, 10 more would step into line to be sold - hard to say how many would be forced, and how many would paddle on over for 3 squares and a roof, and if they received benefits and comforts and what seemed kinda like freedumb from the slave traders as long as they did their bidding, it could quickly turn into a self perpetuating blight that would soon scar the face of the nation....wait, what era were we talking about?
He’s a libertarian. This is not evidence that he supports slavery. It’s evidence that he believes in states’ rights.
Phony or not, the article brings up a good and relevant question based on current events - do states have the right to opt out of the union and go their own way? Seems to me that if states of their own free will chose to join the union, its seems to me they should be able to leave if they want even if it leaves them vulnerable militarily among other things.
Regarding Lincoln, I think he did what he thought was right at the time.
Is this his summation of what America stands for? That's this guy's definition of Lincoln's sincere efforts to save a form of government of, by, and for the people? Idiotic.
I read the Declarations of Secession and that was enough for me. The number of times the slave states mentioned slavery over and over made it crystal clear.
And they had the nerve to mention the Northern states were infringing on their Freedom to have slaves.
For those wondering about if they could just import more slaves after selling their current ones, that was illegal in 1860. The constitution forbade any law from being passed calling for the banning of importating slaves before the year 1808. This was put in so that the constitution would be ratified.
In 1807, that terrible slave owner President Jefferson </sarcasm> signed a law outlawing slave importation. The law went into affect on January 1st 1808.
As an aside, I wonder if all of you Paulbots out there would be willing to defend this current idiocy? As I’ve said many times before, as for fiscal and domestic policy, there’s not a lot of difference between me and Ron Paul. However, he wants to conduct foreign policy like its 1810, not 2010.
Actually, yes. After 1808, the expansion of the slave population was due to the fecundity of the slaves themselves. That's not to say that there wasn't probably some smuggling going on, but between the British vigilance on the high seas, and the trouble getting a shipful of hundreds of human beings past customs and unloaded without the "wrong" people noticing, I doubt it made a significant contribution.
My point was that that little law in the US Constitution would not have deterred a people who were set on slavery to the point of seceding from the US and forsaking that very same Constitution.
A group of people who so objected to the Constitution that they wanted to return to the Articles of Confederation, would have, had the North bought all slaves, simply bought more slaves. If the North tried to impose the law on them, they would have seceded and said they no longer abided by the USC.
And that wasn't always based on race, either...people of lower standing typically seemed to know it and there was a certain amount of order to it.
I'd prefer to have an unwritten understanding of who is who than one that pretends to be one but is the opposite.
Of course with the supposed ideal there would be no distinctions, but pretend as we might, there always will be; it is natural.
Obviously the price and conditions were never right, were they?
LIke any emminent domain action, the owners are not likely to willingly sell at bargain basement prices offered at the end of a rifle barrel.
I think the point is that the war wasn't about freeing slaves, that there were other alternatives if that was the desired result.
Today we'd have a cash for clunkers program to trade in your old labor for some government approved system.
And have you noticed you’re not the only one who makes these comparisons with Lincoln?
Compensated Emancipation, in every nation where it was tried, naturally included a moratorium on buying any new slaves which the slave-holders (having received their compensation) did actually respect.
The South was not so much "set on Slavery" as "set on the enormous monetary investment they'd made in Slavery" (money which had largely been paid to Yankee slave-traders in exchange for Slaves). Had a market-rate compensation been paid -- it's entirely probable that plantation owners, newly flush with Compensated Emancipation money and needing Labor, would have just hired black freedmen for cash wages rather than risk almost-certain imprisonment for importing new slaves.
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