The further mathematical calculations have no bearing on reality, and make no allowance for one person being the holder of a large number of slaves.
Hypothetically, -one- person could have held -all- the slaves. The mathematical computation upon which you rely would not be affected. The computational method irrationally relies upon the slaves being equally distributed among all White families.
Using such computational methods, one may state that in the 1992 election, approximately 100 million people voted. There were about 4 people per family. Thus, in 1992, there were about 400 million voting families in the USA.
In the immortal words of Henry Lee, "Something wrong."
Correction. That should have been one family.
But the entire point of this argument is Watie's attempt to prove that slavery played a minor role in the south of the time. To do that, he's only willing to count the number of actual slaveholders, without attributing those slaveholders to some larger demographic unit like a family. And there's a big difference between saying that only 5% of southerners owned slaves and saying that 30% of southern families owned slaves. Even though both may be true, the former minimizes the economic reality of how deeply entrenched slavery was in southern society and how widespread personal economic interest in the institution extended.
The further mathematical calculations have no bearing on reality, and make no allowance for one person being the holder of a large number of slaves.
Hypothetically, -one- person could have held -all- the slaves. The mathematical computation upon which you rely would not be affected. The computational method irrationally relies upon the slaves being equally distributed among all White families.
No it doesn't. Where are you getting that? The number of slaves hasn't even entered the discussion, although there were 3.5 million slaves in the south. The one assumption is that slaveholder families are the same size, on average, as non-slaveholding families in the south. The number is question is 347,255 slaveholders. Are you saying that one person could have held all the slaves and the other 347,254 didn't actually? Your argument makes no sense. The way it actually breaks down is that only 6% of slaveholders owned more than 50 slaves. 88% of owners had fewer than 20 and 50% less than ten
his mind, such as it is, is made up. everything that conflicts, however slightly, from his "set in concrete" drivel, anti-Southron bigotry & arrogant ignorance is, of course, WRONG & everyone who doesn't agree with him is fatally flawed as well.
more fool he.
NOTE: i DID get him to admit that his attack, on my thesis concerning steam traction machines/animal powered agricultural equipment, as replacements for persons (slave or free), was FALSE! (when dealing with a HATER/BIGOT, any progress, no matter now slight, is an improvement.)
free dixie,sw