Spoken like a Yankee...
For several decades prior to the Civil War the Nation’s economy was largely dependent upon agricultural exports. The South funded our government. As we began to transition towards a more industrial economy, which rendered slavery obsolete, the North’s move to abruptly ban slavery would devastate the South’s economy. Considering the South’s contribution to the economic development of the country, the correct course of action would have allowed the South to transition away from slavery, in a manner that would allow the South to maintain a level of prosperity.
It’s taken the South over a hundred years to recover. The same “State’s rights” mentality is allowing Southern economies to thrive while the same Yankee mentality to force their ideologies on others is the root cause of the decline in Northern (and Democrat) run cities. The more things change the more they remain the same...
I agree 100% with that statement. But at the same time, since the post I replied to was about the civil war, don't overlook the Dims a century and a half ago forcing a one-size-fits-all of slavery onto non-slavery states. In the 1850's the new Republican party created by the Christian abolitionists was having some success at the state level, particularly as new states were being formed from western territories.
The Republicans were fine with honoring the Constitution's 10th Amendment and winning their argument at the state level (since the Constitution didn't allow the federal government to have much say on slavery/abolition). But that changed in 1857 when the Dim majority SCOTUS ruled in the Dred Scott case and stated, among other things, that blacks were to never be American citizens ... period. It didn't matter from then on what Republicans won at the state level -- blacks would always be stuck as slaves or some lower-tier immigrant class, even in abolitionist states, because the Dims were taking the argument to the federal level.
That's what triggered the Republicans to make their abolition argument at the federal level. It's the Dims, not the Republicans, who made slavery a federal argument.
Spoken like a Yankee...
Well, sorta. I'm from Alabama as with many generations of my father's family. But they hailed from The Free State of Winston County LOL. (Look up First Alabama Calvary, the Free State of Winston County, Looney's Tavern, and Double Springs, AL.)
That might have happened had the South not seceded. The argument prior to the war was about stopping the expansion of slavery into newly acquired territories. Abolition would probably have happened at some point, and it would never have been painless, but it probably wouldn't have happened as quickly and the concerns for the wealth of the South wouldn't have been ignored so callously if not for the war.
Excellent post.
‘the correct course of action would have allowed the South to transition away from slavery, in a manner that would allow the South to maintain a level of prosperity.’
sorry that’s baloney; the south was intensely involved in expanding slavery to the western territories because the institution had played out in the south...or are you seriously suggesting that the south had convinced themselves that slavery was no longer profitable and was prepared to let the institution die on the vine...?