RE: SC pretty clearly did. There was a significant majority of blacks in the state, and their voice was utterly ignored.
Let’s see this argument as it applies today and use this analogy — there are a significant number of babies being slaughtered, some even at the point of birth (over 40 million for the last 30 years). Therefore, what follows -— we kill abortionists because we believe they are murderers and the constitution protects the right to life ?
In every situation, we have to weigh the consequences. Not every problem we face (slavery included) requires a violent solution IMMEDIATELY.
Did saving the Union and the desire to free slaves justify the slaughter of such a large number of young men? The Confederates posed no military threat to the North.
THAT is the question that we all have to ponder.
Even today, the United States lives in a semi-hypocritical state with a Federal government encroaching on our rights in total violation of the constitution.
What would have been the better choice, to let the South go, and see slavery slowly die, or to force them to submit and lose hundreds of thousands of lives?
Now in regards to economics, I beg to disagree with you.
Slavery was on it’s last leg long before the South’s struggle for independence.
It had already disappeared on the European front (for the most part). However, even after the war, the slave trading ships of the North still dealt in the supply of slaves to the Carribean areas.
Even in European waters where slave trading had been outlawed, non-American slave trading vessels would often hoist the American flag if threatened, because authorities would ignore the American slave trading ships.
The northern states had dropped slavery only when enough cheap labor became available from immigrants. They didn’t, however, drop racism.
Northern states passed laws forbidding Negroes from entering their states, working, owning property, etc. Most people loyal to the northern cause, were thus not because they wanted to stamp out slavery, but because losing the revenues from the southern states would cripple their economy. Many of those in the north who did not agree with forcing the southern states to remain in the union were jailed when Lincoln ignored the constitution’s habeas corpus. Many of these ugly facts of the war are not taught to the school children in their history lessons.
Virginia, a southern state, was the 1st to outlaw slave trading. Northern states still traded in slaves long after the war ended. Brazil was the last country to outlaw slavery.
If the Southern states had achieved their goal of independence, their economy, which had been ravaged by the northern states in unbalanced tariffs, would have blossomed. After cotton died out, the last remnants of slavery would have vanished.
The south would have become more industrialized out of necessity. Their constitution, had it survived, would closer resemble the constitution of the American forefathers than does present day America.
I will grant that slavery would have lasted much longer, perhaps close to the 20th century, but again the question is this -— is it better for it to have lasted till the 20th century, and let it slowly die as it DID (YES IT DID ) in all other countries, or is it better to kill 620,000 men to abolish it 40 years earlier?
THAT IS THE QUESTION WE ALL HAVE TO ANSWER. You say the latter, I say the former.
Take a look at Brazil, a country as big as the USA. Brazil made a “soft” transition from slavery to capitalism, no big revolution or inflection, but a long process of several decades and centuries. Why not the Brazilian way? Because we would have been a more hypocritical country that had a constitution recognizing the rights of all men while at the same time denying a large number such rights?
If so, we should condemn men such as Washington and Jefferson.
Race relations would undoubtedly be much better today, as southerners would not have suffered the atrocities of “reconstruction” where they were humiliated and ravaged by the victors. This, I believe, is the catalyst of the ensuing resentment.
The northern states, however, would had suffered great economical losses had the south won. They would have survived, but would probably pretty much resemble some of the present day northern industrial cities, filled with squalid living conditions, crowded tenements, and much poverty.
Chances are, the north and south would have eventually reunited, but would be more of a true “United” states with more state sovereignty as the writers of the constitution had envisioned, rather than a “Conglomerated” states with the federal govt. being the main governing body. The federal govt.’s main purpose would be defense, as was intended from the beginning.
It’s really interesting to study actual history, instead of the spoon fed kind of which textbooks are made. It’s important to remember that the victors get to write the history books.
And the losers write the mythology...
Yes, slavery was on its way out, but as I pointed out and you ignored, southerners did not believe it and were planning to forcibly extend the institution both in time and space. Who knows how successful they might have been?
I agree other countries abolished slavery with minimal violence. You seem to think any violence that was involved in our case is obviously by definition the fault of the winners. Why does the South, the only large body of people on the planet willing to fight and die to preserve and extend slavery bear no responsibility for deciding to do so? Takes two to tangle and all that.
Had southern slaveowners been willing to follow the laws as Brazilian slaveowners were, there would have been no war.
In actual fact, when you get into the numbers, the USA faced a situation with number of slaves, their financial value, number of slaveowners and their concentration and ability to form a political force that does not begin to compare with any other country. In all likelihood other countries' slaveowners would have been willing to fight to protect their property and position, but it just wasn't a practical possibility for them to do so.
Southerners were planning warlike expansion to the south and west had they secured their independence. They would have failed, of course. A united United States would have found conquest of Latin America to re-impose slavery difficult. A CSA faced with virulent British opposition and a hostile USA at its rear had no chance of doing so successfully. Any such expansion would have had to be primarily naval in nature, and the RN ruled the waves and had complete veto power on the water.
That popular southern leaders didn't recognize this fact is just another example of their delusions.