Slave-Owner Descendants Demand Reparations

Source: BSNN ^ | 05/27/02 | By Lazamataz

[goldstategop]

Randall Robinson, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton stirred up a hornets' nest. There are always two sides to every story and looks like reparations have come back to bite them in the ass. I'd like to see what happens when the bill is stuck to them instead of to others they're trying to loot from.

[Restorer]

Cotton was an up and down crop, and in 1860 it bottomed out. The market price did not justify selling it. That's why the Davis government put a total embargo on cotton in 1861 nd even ordered no crops be planted.

Several misconceptions here.

1. Cotton indeed was an up and down crop. It hit bottom about 1845 @ .06, but by 1860 was at .11, which was significantly higher than the average of the previous two decades. Thus fieldhand slaves, the primary unit of production, topped out in early 1860 at $1800, which wouldn't make sense if the crops this human "machine" produced weren't profitable. See the chart at http://www.newton.mec.edu/angier/ferguson/ferguson96-97/railroad/Slavechart.html

2. The Confederate government implemented an embargo of cotton sales under the mistaken impression that cutting off raw materials to the European factories would force the French and British governments to break the Union blockade or even ally themselves with the Confederacy, not because cotton wasn't profitable. Possibly their single biggest mistake, after secession itself, since throughout 1861 the Union blockade wasn't yet very effective and enormous quantities of cotton could have been sold and used to import arms and other necessities.

What the southern leaders didn't realize was that most English factory workers were willing to undergo the greatest privation rather than do anything to support a slaveholding system, and the enormous market price of cotton after the blockade took hold quickly stimulated alternate centers of production, notably in Egypt and India.

In addition, the restriction on supply caused by the very existence of the blockade (however ineffective) would have inherently driven the market price upward, especially taking into account nervous manufacturers who wanted to hoard supplies for a highly uncertain future. I haven't been able to find a source, but I bet the market price of cotton climbed dramatically throughout 1861.

In common with other mistakes the South made, this indicates a grave inability to see facts clearly. They fell prey to the very common mistake of believing their own propaganda about the world-shaking power of "King Cotton." (Not to mention the ability of one southerner to whip any necessary number of Yankees in battle.)

[usconservative]

Thanks for the laugh Laz!

hey, when ya stopping by for a brewski or two, neighbor?

[mafree]

Thanks for the ping.

Hehe- Byrd might support reparations if it'll help him repent for his KKK past.

[RightOnline]

Good one...............very good. :)

Now..............I want reparations for those whose ancestors never owned slaves but are currently being held up for such by the so-called descendants of slaves. Why should I pay.........and why should my family pay? I find this a violation of my civil rights and demand retribution. Jesse Jacka.........er, I mean Jesse Jackson will be first on my list. I hear he's rich. Not sure what he does for a living, but he's rich. I think he talks a lot. He must get paid by the syllable.

[bushfamfan]

I'd like to see the descendents of Union Soldiers sue the black liberal, racist, freeloaders for dying for nothing!! How about that?? Counter sue. It can go on and on and on. It can involve England, Africa itself! The possibilities! $$$$$$$$$$

[Jorge]

"Our family has suffered 130 years of destitution by having our property stripped from us," lamented George Denywater, "I thought America was based on respect for property rights. When are we getting our check?"

I don't know, but I think after 130 years it might be time to stop whining and go out and get a job.

[MissAmericanPie]

You got me, at first I thought it was real, I was going to take two asprin and go to bed. I thought I had finally heard the limit.

[STONEWALLS]

..." The Confederate government implemented an embargo of cotton sales under the mistaken impression that cutting off raw materials to the European factories would force the French and British governments to break the Union blockade or even ally themselves with the Confederacy, not because cotton wasn't profitable. Possibly their single biggest mistake, after secession itself, since throughout 1861 the Union"

....that's an interesting point...I once heard a story that Judah Benjamin wanted Richmond to buy the entire cotton crop of 1861 and ship it out immediately to England....there it would be placed in bonded warehouses and used as a line of credit for supplies....Benjamin knew that to delay would be fatal, but he never could sell his idea, and by the fall of 1862 it was too late...

.....our family were planters in Clarendon County, SC and after the war we didn't do too well as there was no money to be had for guano and draft animals were quite scarce....some slaves came back because they had no place to go and worked on shares.....after the army worms hit, we got out of the cotton business....S.C. could have come back a lot quicker if they could have sold all the cotton that was blockaded up in Charleston but the North seized it as war reparations.. Stonewalls

[maro]

Raoul Berger, once of Harvard Law School, has written a book detailing the strong arguments for why the Civil War amendments were invalidly passed. But I don't recommend you use it in court--some things are beyond argument by now.

[rwfromkansas]

you get around on FR!

[rwfromkansas]

Some Indians did as well.

[xm177e2]

It's a good thing they saw this coming!

[rwfromkansas]

Interesting article....lots of facts and figures, too.

[PistolPaknMama]

"we-wuz-robbed" neoconfederates

Who are these people? All I've heard of "we-wuz-robbed" is coming from the black instigators. Never heard this from the "neo" Confederates. BTW, I'm just a regular Confederate. "Neo" refers to something new. Like my ancestors, I believe in self government and self determination....nothing "neo" about that. If your family dates back to the Revolution in America, does that make you a neo-American because you still hold and defend the same beliefs and values they did? Valid question, no sarcasm intended.

God bless Dixie.

[PistolPaknMama]

Samuel Whipback, "Our family was ruined by the Emancipation Proclamation.

Dang it, Laz. Why did you have to go and quote Whipback? If he did his homework, he'd know the Emancipation Proclamation didn't free anybody! Whipback relies too much on his government school learnin'!

[wingnuts'nbolts]

No, I can't. If your research leads you to believe that Southern Slave Owners made more money renting them out , OK by me.

[wattsmag2]

Fight absurdity with absurdity.

[Restorer]

I do not disagree that most southerners were not financially helped by the existence of slavery. However, our opinion is remarkably irrelevant, since the vast majority of southerners whole-heartedly supported the institution, often because they saw it as their path to upward mobility. And for many people it did indeed serve as such. Read about the early life of many of the Confederate leaders.

I don't know why you keep coming across with the inferential insults. Just because I disagree with you about whether slavery was an unmixed economic disaster for the South does not mean my opinions are based on 80-year-old novels.

My personal opinion, FWIW, is that slavery, especially once it became profitable starting about 1830, was an unmitigated moral disaster for the South. Its economic effects were much more mixed. Certainly for the slaveowners themselves, it was highly profitable for the most part. And the slaveowners had essentially all the power in the South.